Fall 2008

E 314L • Reading Women Writers

Course Description

This course will introduce students to the methods, issues, and debates they are likely to encounter as English majors. It will do this through the lens of women's writing, especially writing from nineteenth and twentieth century Britain and America. Along the way, we'll discuss what it means to be a "woman writer" and how the writers we examine both define themselves and contribute to the field. A major component of our reading will be an investigation of the ways in which this writing upholds or challenges the prevailing values of its historical moment.

This is a substantial writing component course, which will sharpen reading and writing skills through short and long papers. Students will keep a brief reading response log, write five one-page papers, and produce two five-page papers. These writings will not only give students the skills they need to succeed in future English courses, but also the skills of good critical thinking.

Grading Policy

Long essays: 60%, Short papers: 25%, Reading responses: 15%

Texts

(Possible texts might include)
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
George Eliot, Mill on the Floss
Edith Wharton, Summer
Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm
Eudora Welty, The Optimist's Daughter
Katharine Weber, The Little Women

With shorter pieces by Anne Bradstreet, Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, Flannery O'Connor, Sylvia Plath, Tillie Olsen, and Maxine Hong Kingston, along with critical essays.

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