Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Introduces students to the relationships between writing and purpose, between the features of texts and their meaning and effects. May focus on one or more literary or non-literary genres, including (but not limited to) essays, oratory, autobiography, poetry, and journalism. Includes attention to writing skills. Students with credit for ENGL 104W may not take this course for further credit. Writing/Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Transparency and Obscurity in Literature
This course is balanced on a high wire between two poles: one is the idea that language should be transparent, clear, direct. In other words, the idea that language unveils the truth. The second pole is the idea that language works against meaning. In other words, the idea that language veils the truth…or the possibility that there is no truth. Probably the most flexible and fulfilling version of language – but also the most risky – is that which does not cling to one pole but can move between the two poles.

For participants in this course, the first pole will be located in acquiring the tools of academic writing, and in reading work of literature for their apparent purpose. The second pole will be located in learning about the subtext, context, and intertextuality of works of literature, and in reading those works for the ways in which they deliberately obscure, misdirect, or defer recognition. Students will also have opportunities to write with more creative nuance.

A selection of important works of drama, nonfiction, fiction, and poetry from the past 200 years of English and American literature, will all perform on this high wire, moving between purposeful and purposeless language. To fully appreciate the performance, we will need to review technical aspects of language, aspects of style and rhetorical devices.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

Students will learn to apply principles of rhetoric and critical analysis in response to selected readings. They will develop their writing skills through exploratory writing, academic argument, and critical analyses of literary texts. 

A student who successfully completes the course will have reliably demonstrated the ability to: 
Utilize a university-level writing process that employs pre-writing, drafting, and revising strategies  
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 
Write essays responsive to audience, purpose, and occasion 
Observe the grammatical and stylistic conventions of Standard Written English 
Produce academic writing that asserts and defends a clear thesis 
Make an academic argument 
Integrate source material purposefully and effectively, using appropriately documented textual evidence to support generalizations 
Analyze, and interpret, and respond critically to literature through close reading
Evaluate relevance, purpose, and effectiveness of different approaches to literature

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING: