Homework assignments require students to learn, practice, and apply the strategies on an individual basis while class activities are designed around cooperative learning groups. Two group projects are required. Instruction and practice in writing and critical reading with a focus on exposition. Students who take the course for 5 credits also receive instruction on gaining greater control over grammar, mechanics, and usage. Instruction and practice in writing effective expository and persuasive essays and the techniques for doing research and writing research papers.
Attention is given to the development of library skills.
An introduction to the basic elements of fiction, poetry and drama. Emphasis is on reading literature to perceive the techniques used in each genre, understand the basic theoretical approaches to literature, acquire the vocabulary associated with literary criticism, and write essays analyzing and evaluating literature. A survey of American literature from the Colonial Period to 1865, including Native American writers, slave narratives, and authors such as Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, Whitman, and Dickinson. A survey of American literature from 1865 to 1950, including such authors as Twain, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner, Cather, and Wharton. A survey of British literature from the Old English Period through the Age of Reason, including such works and authors as Beowulf, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Swift and Pope.