Catalog Description
Prerequisites: English major with senior standing; field experience and concurrent enrollment in 1 unit of ENGL 398 required for students seeking certification of subject area competency. Instructional strategies for teaching forms of literature to middle and high school students; assessment of interpretive and critical skills. Writing intensive. (wi)
Course Description
Students use literary analysis and a range of effective pedagogical strategies to plan and teach individual in-class lessons and a multi-week teaching unit.
ENGL 4910 is a writing-intensive (wi) course.
Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course students will be able to
- use practical experience to test, reinforce, and complicate disciplinary knowledge
- use disciplinary skills and knowledge to promote students’ meaningful engagement with literary texts
- reflect on the nature of “English” as a discipline in its past, present, and future forms
- locate critical and pedagogical resources necessary for lifelong professional development
- articulate individual teaching philosophies
Course Outline
Topics addressed may include the goals of literary study, English studies as a developing discipline, canon formation, censorship, theories and methodologies, literacies, oral interpretation of literature, and literary history. The course can be arranged in multiple ways, one being the following generically organized model:
Weeks 1-4 Drama (Shakespeare, Wilson)
Weeks 5-8 Fiction (Silko, Walker, Viramontes, O’Connor, Anaya)
Weeks 9-11 Literary Nonfiction and Young Adult Literature (Thoreau, Rodriguez, Canales)
Weeks 12-15 Poetry (texts and authors from a range of periods and cultural backgrounds)