ENG 201 - Introduction to Literature

How do we go from simply liking a poem, play, novel or film to understanding how it has elicited this reaction from us? How do we begin to consider and write about a work that has engaged us? This course will train students in reading and writing critically about English. It will teach students to ask questions about genre (what makes a science fiction short story different from a thriller?), narrative (why don’t the film and novel tell the story the same way in Hunger Games?), and literary tradition (what makes a contemporary sonnet different from a Shakespeare sonnet?). Students will develop practices of close reading and contextualization, and draw connections between the formal analysis of texts and larger cultural issues.

Credits 4

Compass Attributes
Humanities, Writing