Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Instructors may choose an anthology, complete works, or a combination of both. The course will meet the requirements of a survey, emphasizing breadth over depth.

The students will:

1. Explore basic critical approaches to texts of English literature for the time period of 1785 to the present.
2. Identify relationships between form and meaning in English literature in the time period of 1785 to the present.
3.  Make connections among texts and historical, political, and cultural contexts.
4. Recognize literary conventions and build a critical vocabulary with which to discuss and write about literature.
5. Write clear, focused, coherent essays about literature for an academic audience using standard English conventions of grammar and style.

• Identify relationships between form and meaning
• Make connections among texts and historical and cultural contexts
• Recognize literary conventions and build a critical vocabulary with which to discuss and write about literature
• Write clear, focused, coherent essays about literature for an academic audience using standard English conventions of grammar and style.

The course activities can include lecture, discussion, and collaboration, along with other activities such as participating in group projects, film viewing, designing a web page, attending performance, and so forth.

Assessment tools may include informal responses to study questions or journal responses; evaluation of small-and full- group discussion; in-class and out-of-class writing; formal academic essays; presentations by individuals and groups; short and long essay examinations; close reading exercises using support/evidence; writing exercises which include evaluation of various interpretations of a text and their relative validity. Both instructor and peer evaluation may be incorporated into the assessment process.

The course will introduce and foster understanding of

• literary themes
• literary conventions and allusions
• literary genres
• literary vocabulary
• analysis and synthesis
• contextualization
• critical reading and thinking
• essay and response writing
• close reading and explication
• language change
• the idea of a canon

SOME SUGGESTED TEXTS:

• Longman Anthology of British Literature (featuring increased selections representing Celtic literature)
• Norton Anthology of English Literature (featuring the Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf)
• Individually bound shorter editions of both anthologies.
• Individual works (novels, drama)