Course Information:                 TR  9:30-10:455am,   BOL 281

This course offers an inkoduction to writing essays about poetry, prose fiction, and drama. We will discuss the reasons for studying literature and begin to build a critical vocabulary for the analysis of literary texts; we will explore some fundamentals of literary study—plot, character, point of view, setting, and theme—and relate these concepts to the course readings; and we will discuss how to compose short response essays and longer expository or argumentative essays about literature. By the end of the semester, students will have demonstrated their ability to read, discuss, and write about literature in a critical manner.

Readings

Writing About Literature Edgar V. Roberts
Cyrano de Bergerac Edmond Rostand
Oleanna David Mamet
The Stories of Eva Luna Isabel Allende
Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe

Course packet Various poems:
W.B Yeats, Paul Laurence Dunbar,
Amy Lowell, Shelly Wagner, and others

(readings subject to change)

Requirements
· Completion of reading assignments before class discussion
· Active class participation and attendance,
· 3 short (one-two page) response papers,
· 2 longer (four-five page) literary analysis papers, maintenance of a reading response journal