L202 LITERARY INTERPRETATION
Nick Williams

PREREQUISITE:  Completion of the English Composition requirement.

Open to majors and declared minors only.

2923 - 1:25p-2:15p MWF (25 students) 3 cr., A&H, IW.

As the gateway course for the English major, L202 is designed to
provide a vocabulary and practical experience for interpretation in
a variety of genres.  This section will look at the genres of
fiction (through short story as well as 2 novels:  Dashiell
Hammett’s Red Harvest and Andrew Crumey’s Music, In a Foreign
Langauge), drama and poetry.  I’m planning on using the Norton
Introduction to Literature as our source for texts other than the
novels.   My focus will be on practical criticism, so I’ll ask
students to develop the practices of asking good questions about
literary texts and experimenting with their own answers (rather than
providing my own speculations about texts).  Since L202 is an
Intensive Writing course, I’ll be asking students to do a number of
short writing assignments as well as a few (probably 3) longer
interpretive essays.  A mid-term and a final will test students’
command of in-class material (both my introduction of literary
terminology and the product of class discussion).