Course Syllabus

ENGL 2620 British Literature II

Course Description

The course focuses on the development of ideas, movements, and genres in British Literature from the Romantic era to the present.

Justification

A lower division survey of British literature is standard at most colleges and universities. This course will transfer as General Education, elective, or major credit. It fulfills General Education credit within the Humanities category (HU) and major requirements for English majors.

General Education Outcomes

1. A student who completes the GE curriculum has a fundamental knowledge of human cultures and the natural world. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to understand the value of literature in making meaning within evolving cultural and sub-cultural contexts. Students will be able to read and discuss a selection of significant and representative British literary texts in order to understand its development and cultural impact in immediate and surrounding regions.
2. A student who completes the GE curriculum can read and research effectively within disciplines. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to apply the disciplinary research methodology of primary text close reading and analysis.
3. A student who completes the GE curriculum can draw from multiple disciplines to address complex problems. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to draw from history, geography, philosophy, sociology, ecology, fine arts, current events, and/or other relevant fields and areas in order to better contextualize, understand, and respond to works of later British literature.
4. A student who completes the GE curriculum can reason analytically, critically, and creatively. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to critically evaluate rhetorical choices the author makes in order to understand and interpret literature. Students will also be able to explain the development of ideas, movements, and genres in British literature as reflected through representative texts.

General Education Knowledge Area Outcomes

1. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to examine British literature from Romanticism to the present and explore how humans responded to the conditions of their time. Students will be able to identify philosophical questions about human thought and experience in British literary texts, and from their own related experiences. Students will be able to articulate the ways in which these authors have asked and answered these questions and join their voices to the larger academic conversation.  Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to examine British literature from Romanticism to the present and explore how humans responded to the conditions of their time. Students will be able to identify philosophical questions about human thought and experience in British literary texts, and from their own related experiences. Students will be able to articulate the ways in which these authors have asked and answered these questions and join their voices to the larger academic conversation.
2. EXPLAIN: Explain how humanities artifacts take on meaning within networks or systems (such as languages, cultures, values, and worldviews) that account for the complexities and uncertainties of the human condition. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to understand how knowledge is created within the field of literature, particularly texts of the Romantic, Modern, and Contemporary period of British literature. Students will be able to understand how history, audience, authorial choices in relation to the text, and personal biases impact the reading of a text. Students will carefully examine and clearly articulate how these texts and other artifacts generate meaning with various audiences, both on their own, and dialectically in relation to others such artifacts.
3. ANALYZE: Analyze humanities artifacts according to humanities methodologies, such as a close analysis, questioning, reasoning, interpretation, and critical thinking. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to read, interpret, analyze, and respond to a selection of texts pulled from British literary history, using critical thinking to question, reason, and interpret the text and its larger interdisciplinary connections.
4. COMPARE AND CONTRAST: Compare and contrast diverse humanistic perspectives across cultures, communities, and/or time periods to explain how people make meaning of their lives. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to identify cultural developments in Britain from the Romantic period to the present and explain how people responded to these developments in literature. Students will be able to discuss and write about representative works of British literature in historical context and be able to articulate connections with contemporary culture.
5. APPLY: Using humanities perspectives, reflect on big questions related to aesthetics, values, meaning, and ethics and how those apply to their own lives.  Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to examine a variety of questions about human thought and experience (i.e. individualism, national identity, and social inequities like class, race, gender, and sexuality). Students will be able to articulate ways that British writers and thinkers addressed these questions and explore how they might answer these questions for themselves.

Student Learning Outcomes

Course Content

This course will cover a selection of literary works of British Literature from the Romantic, Victorian, Modern, Post-Modern, and Contemporary eras, including poetry, fiction, drama, essays and criticism. Emphasis will be given to understanding major concepts of the periods as they are demonstrated by and discussed in the literature (i.e. individualism, empire, science and religion, national and linguistic identities, and social inequalities). The course will focus on close reading, literary conventions, historical influences, contextual and textual analysis, interpretation, synthesis, critical thinking, and writing. Representative texts will demonstrate the variety of voices and ideas present from Romanticism through Contemporary Anglophone literature. The course may be organized thematically or chronologically. As a survey course, it should reflect the variety and complexity of literary output during the periods.