Introduction to English Studies (Summer 2019) (ENG 2012) (original) (raw)

This course helps students to think about what it means to be an English major. It reviews the history of the discipline in ways that are accessible and meaningful to students and talks about current practices and areas of inquiry, including the broadening of categories of interest to other forms of writing and media. It also helps students to acquire skills that will be useful to them in their other courses. It will guide students through annotation and analysis, drafting, workshopping and revision, introduce the concepts of thesis and argumentation, and give students vocabulary for specialization. This class is intended to prepare students to be English majors, to show how English studies can be used both in college and in their career choices and to expose them as well to the sheer pleasure of reading and writing. COURSE OBJECTIVES By the end of the course, students will demonstrate the ability to: • Identify the basic terms, conventions, and scholarly methods for literary, cultural and media studies that form the traditional core of English Studies • Develop an argument with a thesis statement, using appropriate terminology of the field, practicing close reading skills, analyses, and interpretation of texts • Create a minimum of approximately 15 pages of graded writing, including close reading, interpretive and researched essays, revisions, essay exams, and/or response papers, etc. • Refine abilities to understand literature and other texts, in reading, in critical thinking, and in writing through: • Introducing the basics of humanities-based scholarly research, including a range of archival resources and databases; incorporating secondary sources into arguments; focus on research on literature • Reading challenging, powerful, and engaging literature and other texts with complex and nuanced meanings; introducing scholarly and disciplinary critical approaches and vocabulary for understanding literature, media and culture studies • Exhibiting flexibility and complexity of critical thought in analyzing literature, media, and culture Inclusive Learning Statement Your success in this class is important to me. We will all need accommodations because we all learn differently. If there are aspects of this course that prevent you from learning or exclude you, please let me know as soon as possible. Together we'll develop strategies to meet both your needs and the requirements of the course.