ENGLISH 250 - Great American Books

Section 02-01

Fall 2006 Syllabus

   OBJECTIVES OF THE COURSE

In addition to introducing you to several works of American literature, this course will focus on critical analysis and argumentative writing. Although many people standardly read novels (anything Oprah recommends) for superficial enjoyment, your literary outlook will soon change. This course will provide you with a basic understanding of critical analysis of literature; in essence, you will become engaged in an entirely different thinking process, one involving reading between the lines, in a sense. Generally, authors of literature invest hidden meanings into their works; songwriters do as well. Think of Hotel California or American Pie, songs with hidden, deep societal messages masked by superficial, story-telling lyrics. Literature is similar. In this course, you will write analytical essays about literature, and in doing so, you will strive for good logic, effective use of details, correct grammar and mechanics, and appropriate vocabulary and diction.

This course is a fundamental introduction to analytical reading of long fiction. Your success in this course may dictate your success in other courses involving a subjective analysis and clear presentation of ideas; we will focus on thinking critically and formulating ideas, then expressing them clearly and rationally, independently and in group situations. To prepare you for this, we will thoroughly devour the reading and writing processes. By analysis, I mean that we will study the author's argument and the means by which she or he supports her or his literary statement, as well as her or his linguistic structure, development of ideas, and critical stance. Studying works by other authors will guide you through your own writing. For centuries, authors, artists, philosophers, advertisers, teachers, marketers, movie directors, etc. have turned to previous works of literature, art, and ideology as an influence for their own works and presentations. For instance, consider L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and its subsequently successful 1939 dramatization The Wizard of Oz; the movie production is known to be a solid influence for George Lucas's Star Wars series. Both contain lofty, otherworldly realms of anti-reality and young protagonists seeking an identity through a heroic journey; Lucas took Oz, among other influences, and built his own world.

Reading is all fine and good and essential and necessary and your life depends on it, but the true beauty of an English course comes from your own creation. If you want to get really corny, a solid piece of writing can constitute a lasting legacy of yourself. You will write first drafts; you will write second drafts; you will write third drafts; you will write until your fingers fall off (in this class, at least). Multiple revisions are the key to writing, and we will accomplish this through peer editing, writing workshops, one-on-one consultations, and class discussion.

   CLASS COMPONENTS

English 250 is a 3-credit hour literature course for students at Purdue. To meet all your goals in this one-semester course, you should expect to produce between 7,500-11,500 words of polished writing (or 15,000-22,000 total words, including drafts and blogs) or the equivalent. Some of this text production will be done using multimedia, and some of it may be given through short assignments. Your writing topics will be closely tied to the course's themes or approaches, and may include personal experiences as well as research-based arguments.

One of the main purposes of this course is to introduce you to the world of academic writing. Sounds fishy, I know, but there are few things more gratifying than winning an argument (just ask your mother). Academic writing involves stating your argument clearly in written form and backing it up accurately. To win an argument, whether spoken or written, you need a solid statement of your argument (e.g., Michael Jackson is indeed sane). Next, you need substantial support to back up that statement (e.g., 1. his epidermal blanching and nose reductions are factors of a medical condition; 2. it is truly healthy to wear face masks in public places; 3. dangling babies from windows helps relieve gas, etc.). The wonderful thing about arguments is that they always involve two sides, if not more, and if you can play the game, you can almost always win; however, to get to this point, you need to become a critical thinker, and therefore, a critical reader and writer.