COAS INTENSIVE WRITING SECTION. OPEN TO HONORS STUDENTS ONLY. OBTAIN
AUTHORIZATION FROM THE HONORS COLLEGE, 324 N. JORDAN AVENUE.


This course aims at establishing, maintaining, and improving students'
competence (and enjoyment!) in writing interpretations of all types of
literary works: poetry, fiction, or drama. After completing the
course, you should be able to approach confidently almost any literary
work written in English with a basic set of useful skills and tools,
including pertinent questions to address to the text, and a variety of
forms for framing your interpretation: analytical essays,
impressionistic appreciations, contextual studies, and the like. The
appreciation of art (literature, music, films) doesn't necessarily
require written interpretation; but if you're going to major in
English, it does. The course teaches you some ways to do it
successfully. Since this is an Honors section, I will assess students'
initial competence and we will start at whatever level of
sophistication seems appropriate. We'll be using a standard
Introduction to Literature, such as the Norton, plus a writer's manual
of style and usage that you can use throughout your college career.
We'll be alert to extra-curricular opportunities for interpretive
discussion provided by local and university film and drama
productions, and poetry and fiction readings. Most assignments will be
short papers, from one-page responses to 3-5 pp. developed
interpretations. A good deal of our concentration will be on poetry,
since attention to its "language under pressure" is easily
transferrable to longer prose works.