Engl 300 Course Description AQ 12

This course is framed upon two nesting sets of questions. The innermost set is focused on examining the relative value assigned to fictional narratives. Why are some texts deemed “major” and others not? What counts as a major text? Who decides (besides Oprah)? How does knowing that a text is “major” change what we notice in a text?

These questions about the categorization of “major” texts will be nestled within metaquestions about the act of reading itself. Is there anything special about the creation of meaning in an imaginative work penned by an author for paper publication that cannot be found in any other reading material? And in an age of declining readerships and the ascendancy of electronic media, why focus on reading fiction anyway?

We will be reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood at a relatively leisurely pace, supplemented by selected theory on narrative and essays on reading. In order to best develop answers to the slew of questions in the previous two paragraphs, I will be asking you to practice some different forms of analytical writing this quarter. Some writing will be of the kind expected in traditional English class analyses, but others will use more imaginative formats to better access the deep and myriad ways that reading affects our imagining of ourselves and our culture.

Please note that I do not get addcodes until the first week of class.