Spring 2007

E 360R • Literary Studies for High School Teachers of English

Course Description

Designed for students planning a career teaching English, this course will introduce students to scholarship in literary studies that informs the teaching of literature today. Although it is not a methods course, E 360R will have a practical orientation: we will discuss the reasons for teaching literature, both historically and currently; we will examine some of the contemporary constraints on the teaching of English; and we will pursue how to best develop what Robert Scholes calls "Textual Power." Recognizing that texts are places where power and weakness become visible and discussable, where learning and ignorance manifest themselves, where structures that enable and constrain our thoughts and actions become palpable, this course will explore how the use of the study of literature can help students become better readers, writers, and thinkers.

Grading Policy

Students will keep a dialectical reading journal and write three short (2 page) papers, the first of which must be revised and resubmitted. Any subsequent essay may be revised and resubmitted before the next paper is due (note: all drafts must be submitted with re-writes). Grades will be based on class discussion and attendance (20%) and on journal and papers (80%).

Texts

Finkel, Donald M., Teaching With Your Mouth Shut, (Boynton/Cook; 0-867-09469-9)
Hemingway, Ernest, In Our Time, (Scribner Classics; 0-68482-276-8)
Richter, David H., Falling Into Theory: Conflicting Views On Reading Literature, (Bedford Books; 0-312-20156-7)
Scholes, Robert, Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English, (Yale UP; 0-300-03726-0)
Shakespeare, William, The Tempest, (Bedford/St. Martin's; 0-312-19766-7)
Vendler, Helen, Poems. Poets. Poetry: An Introduction and Anthology, (Bedford/St. Martins; 0-312-08537-0)

Packet of Xeroxes available at Speedway Copies & Printing (in the Dobie Mall)

back