Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Examines selected works of literature in order to develop a critical awareness of literary techniques and contexts in the representation of experience. May include the comparative study of works in related literary and artistic genres, and will pay some attention to literature of the Twentieth century. Includes attention to writing skills. Writing/Breadth-Humanities. Equivalent Courses: ENGL101 Writing/Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Cecily: I don’t like novels that end happily. They depress me too much.
Miss Prism: The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
Cecily: I suppose so. But it seems very unfair. 
                     (Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest)

What does Fiction mean? Is Fiction unfair? How do authors and readers establish expectations and how does Fiction meet and challenge those expectations? Answering these questions is crucial to readers’ overall interpretation and valuation of Fiction. While students assess in close detail how Fiction obeys and transgresses those boundaries, they will work toward a sophisticated understanding of what “Fiction means” – and why it requires a capital letter, as in the play quoted above! Students will develop their writing skills through exploratory writing, academic argument, and critical analyses of a variety of fictional material written in English in the past two centuries. Lectures will trace artists and artistic objects through each text, thereby analyzing a range of ideas about how art, especially fiction, can heal and harm. As suggested by the quotation above, we will be alert to a sense of humour, irony and self-reflexive performance; however, we will also be alert to both the potential for redemption and restitution, and to the threat of retribution and resolution. By the end of the course, through the dialogue of classes and writing intensive practices, students will be able to explain what “Fiction means” to them.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

A student who successfully completes the course will have reliably demonstrated the ability to:
Utilize a university-level writing process employing pre-writing, drafting, and revising strategies to produce an argument
Plan, analyze, revise, and edit writing in response to instructor feedback
Generate, organize, and synthesize ideas
Apply principles of unity, coherence, and emphasis in academic writing
Observe the grammatical and stylistic conventions of Standard Written English
Produce grammatically-correct academic writing that asserts and defends a clear thesis
Integrate source material purposefully and effectively
Use appropriately documented textual evidence to support generalizations
Respond critically to, analyze, and interpret selected literary fictions through close reading
Discuss and debate texts intelligently and intelligibly
Use MLA documentation as appropriate   

A student who has completed the course succesfully will have demonstrated the following skills:

Creative thinking and problem-solving skills
drawing inferences from language
evaluating relevance, purpose, and effectiveness of different approaches to fiction

Oral skills
asking questions in small and large groups
listening actively and giving feedback
participating in classroom discussions

Interpersonal and teamwork skills
working productively in large and small groups
listening to and responding appropriately to peer contributions

Personal management skills
scheduling and completing reading and writing tasks to deadline

Writing skills
producing written work that is clear, logically ordered, and focused
producing unified and coherent paragraphs
producing grammatically correct and effective sentences
writing essays that use evidence to defend a thesis
gathering information from sources and presenting that information effectively in an essay
practicing editing and revising strategies

Reading & Information skills
reading closely for information, literary techniques, and nuance
drawing inferences from various fictional texts
analyzing and responding critically to a variety of fictional texts

Technological skills
Navigating and using the resources of a LMS (learning management system)

If you enjoy reading literature – no matter what grade you receive – I hope you continue to do so. There are some amazing courses in English literature at SFU, but they change a great deal depending on the instructor and the texts, so always check course outlines in advance on the English department website before you sign up for a class.

If you get a high B or A in my 1st year course, you are prepared to tackle a second-year English course, particularly English 207. I encourage you to complete a minor in English or even to consider switching studies, and to participate in the co-op program.  

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: