She enjoys backpacking and cross-country skiing. Student participation is encouraged in her classes whether College Writing, Introduction to Poetry, English Literature Survey I, The Seventeenth Century, Milton, Bibliography and Research, or Studies in Women's Literature. Courses 276 Poetry One of the goals of this course is to show students that poetry is neither as foreign nor as intimidating as they may have thought. Another goal is to enable students by the end of the semester to read a poem they have never seen before and make it intelligible to themselves without the aid of the instructor. One of the chief means I use to empower students is looking with them at the various techniques and conventions poets use, and the effects produced by these techniques on readers.
Students discuss poems in groups and with the class.
They write reactions to poems and explain techniques in short papers and in midterm and final essays. As students become more familiar with the techniques and conventions of poetry, poetry becomes not only easier but actually fun to read. In order to discover who paved the way for 19th and 20th Century women writers, this course examines the works of 17th and 18th Century writers such as Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Alice Thornton, and Jane Anger. Special attention will be paid to their images of themselves as writers as well as their connections with modern counterparts. The class begins with private forms such as diaries and letters, and moves to published essays, poems, plays, and novels.