Course Overview Fall 2005 |
Your syllabus provides an overview of assignments and deadlines; this course overview provides a general outline of the course.
Introduction to the Course |
Students will spend the first two weeks reviewing the course policy and understanding the mechanics of taking an online class, familiarizing themselves with course website and with Blackboard, and demonstrating a series of technological competencies.
Project(s) due: demonstrate technological competencies
Women Writers & the American Literature Survey |
What are we trying to accomplish in the various survey courses we take? What's the position of women in the various level courses offered at American universities? What's the difference between a sophomore-level survey of American literature, for instance, that's required for majors and non-majors, and the upper-level courses only English majors take? In the largest sense, in this section of the course we'll be discussing how women writers are represented in the college curriculum today--which in theory turns out the well educated individual in society.
Project(s) due: 1 response paper due (Surveying Women Writers)
& discussion boards
Women Writers & Contemporary Criticism |
What is feminist criticism? How did it come about, and what are its implications to the study of our literature? What other critical methodologies are regularly applied to women's literature as a body, or to the work of individual women writers? Essentially in this section of the course we will work to come to an understanding of literary criticism and how our current critical approaches establish a canon.
Project(s) due: 3 response papers (Tompkins, Benstock, Le Guin)
& discussion boards
American Women Writers |
In this section of the course we will develop a careful reading approach to understanding a range of women writers. Since obviously a full survey of women writers could easily take years, we will focus on a narrow body of American women writers writing on the question of women's position in society, literature, and art. Our objective in this section of the course is to refine our reading abilities, identity important thematic relationships and literary styles in the work of the women writers we are studying, and to begin to develop a sense of the canon of "women's writing."
Project(s) due: 3-4 response papers (various readings TBA)
discussion boards & Short Critical Paper
Research & the Woman Writer |
In this section of the course you will apply the reading and critical methodologies we have developed up to this point to the work of a major woman writer of your choice (although your choice must be approved). We will discuss research tools and methods, as student work independently fully exploring the work of their chosen writer. The last two weeks of the course will involve individual presentations and group discussion of the issues raised in those discussions. From this research, the student will complete an annotated bibliography and literature review, a presentation to the class, and a final analytical paper.
Project(s) due: Literature Review & Annotated Bibliography
discussion boards & Long Critical Paper
This page copyright 2000-2007 by Lisa Hammond | last update 15 August 2005