Spring 2010

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 best to develop what Robert Scholes calls "Textual Power." Recognizing that "[t]exts 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.

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) Tillyard, E. M. W. The Elizabethan World Picture (Vintage; 0394701623) Vendler, Helen. Poems . Poets . Poetry : An Introduction and Anthology 2nd Edition (Bedford/St. Martin’s; 0-312-25706-6) Packet of Xeroxes available at Speedway Copies & Printing (in the Dobie Mall)

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