This course will introduce you to the history and practice of English as a scholarly discipline with the goal of preparing you for your future endeavors as an English major. It has been designed to familiarize you with the various tools that scholars have devised in order to facilitate the study of literary expression in English, from critical frameworks to close reading techniques.
After an introductory unit outlining basic approaches to literary analysis, we will embark upon a genre study, devoting each of the four remaining units to a different genre of writing: poetry, the novel, drama, the rhetorical essay, and the critical essay. In each of these units, we will review a general history of the genre, read a representative sample or set of samples, learn genre-specific critical terms and theories, and apply what you have learned to essays of your own. By the end of this course, you will have developed strategies that will enable you to understand, analyze, and critically respond to works in any genre at an advanced level.
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate mastery and/or awareness of the major skills, techniques, and approaches necessary for college-level literary studies.
- Explain and employ in close readings of texts (i.e., poems, novels, plays, etc.) a variety of approaches to textual and discourse analysis.
- Define and identify a number of theoretical approaches to literary analysis.
- Employ poetic scansion and analysis techniques in the analysis of poetry.
- Explain basic narrative techniques and be able to identify various forms of the novel.
- Define a number of dramatic techniques and forms of theater and drama.
- Recognize, compare, and contrast a variety of rhetorical forms and terms as well as concepts involving the essay form.
