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OSCAR Campus Course Outline Report
Page # 1
College Name:
Mt. San Jacinto College
Course Name:
ENGL 250
Title:
Women and Literature
Units:
3
Course Begin Date:
F98
Same As:
OSCAR Cycle:
2010
Current UC
Transferable:
Y
Requested UC
TCA Action:
No Review
Current IGETC:
3B (F98)
Requested IGETC
Action:
3B (Retain)
Current CSU GE-B:
C2 (S98)
Requested CSU
GE-B Action:
C2 (Retain)
Current CSU AI:
Requested CSU
AI Action:
Current TCSU:
Requested TCSU
Action:
Is the data entry of
this course outline
complete?
Y
Is this course
repeatable?
N
Is this an honors
course?
N
Lecture hours per
term:
48.00
Lab hours per term:
0.00
Date of campus
approval of course
outline:
Jan 21 2010
Course Description:
This course examines and explores literary traditions by and about women of
various nationalities, ethnicities, and historical periods. The course may
include fiction, poetry, drama, film, and non-fiction prose, including
autobiography, written by and about women.
Prerequisites:
ENGL 101 or 101H (with a grade of C or better).
Corequisites:
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College Name:
Course Name:
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Mt. San Jacinto College
ENGL 250
Advisories:
Enrollment Limitations:
Course Objectives:
1. Identify women writers over time and place and across themes.
2. Inspect both major and minor women writers in an historical context.
3. Analyze and compare different women writers# perspectives and
interpretations of situations and events in light of the ethnic, literary,
geographical, religious, ideological, and political environments within which
they were writing
4. Assess women writers# complexity of language choice in addressing different
audiences.
5. Relate themes in literature to past and present issues and social contexts.
6. Analyze the variety of literary genres for their form, content, and range
of attitudes, including accommodation, protest, and affirmation.
7. Examine literary texts closely and critically and recognize how literary
interpretation is linked to critical thinking and to an understanding of human
interactions and behaviors#both on a personal and on a public level.
8. Demonstrate through both in-class discussions and written assignments an
ability to read literature closely and to interpret primary literary texts
analytically and critically.
9. Use MLA documentation guidelines in structuring a critical analysis that
depends on a strong thesis as a focal point, a convincing argument, and
evidence from primary texts and perhaps secondary sources for support through
examples, quotations, summaries, paraphrases of passages, and an explication of
the language of the primary texts.
10. Use a clear and effective writing style that is appropriate to a
college-level reading audience and is neither overly simplistic nor overly
inflated.
Course Content:
Given the wide and diverse nature of the subject matter of the course, the
writers and works listed below for each topic represent only one of many
possible approaches. Instructors may use separate texts or may choose
selections included in any of the available women#s literature anthologies to
vary the emphasis in the course based on their own preferred theme and
interests. Instructors choosing to follow the course description shown as a
model below may substitute alternate assignments, select shorter readings from
the works listed, or exclude any of suggested readings.
I.
Introduction to course: definition of feminism
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Mt. San Jacinto College
ENGL 250
A. Women writers on women writers
B. Discussion of texts such as the following:
1. May Sarton, "My Sisters, O My Sisters"
2. Amy Lowell, "The Sisters"
3. Elizabeth Barrett Browning "To George Sand"
4. Emily Dickinson #312 and #593 (on Elizabeth Barrett Browning).
5. Adrienne Rich, "I am in Danger - Sir" (on Emily Dickinson).
C. Middle Ages and Renaissance ideas of feminism
D. Discussion of texts and authors such as the following:
1. Julian of Norwich
2. Elizabeth I
3. Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke
4. Virginia Woolf, "Shakespeare#s Sister"
5. Anne Bradstreet
6. Katherine Philips
7. Mary Astell, "Serious Proposal"
8. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, letter to her daughter, Countess of Bute
9. Aphra Behn
10. Anne Killigrew
11. Anne Finch
II.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
"Not in God#s Image" : Responses to Misogyny and Myths of Femaleness
Discussion of texts and authors such as the following:
Amelia Lanier - "Eve#s Apology"
Margaret Cavendish, "Female Orations".
Christina Rossetti, "Eve"
Stevie Smith, "How Cruel Is the Story of Eve"
Judith Wright, "Eve to Her Daughters"
H.D., "Eurydice"
Adrienne Rich, "Diving into the Wreck"
Mary Wilkes Freeman, "Old Woman Magoun"
Christina Rossetti, "In an Artist#s Studio"
Willa Cather, "Coming, Aphrodite!"
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
III.
A Golden Age of Women#s Literature: Major Nineteenth Century Writers
Discussion of texts and authors such as the following:
A. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from Aurora Leigh
B. Emily Dickinson
C. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
IV.
A.
B.
C.
D.
Black Women Writers: A Separate Tradition?
Discussion of texts and authors such as the following:
Alice Walker, "In Search of Our Mother#s Gardens"
Phillis Wheatley
Frances E. W. Harper
Gwendolyn Brooks
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Mt. San Jacinto College
ENGL 250
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
N.
Audre Lorde
Lucille Clifton
Rebecca Cox Jackson
Linda Brent -- pseudonym for Harriet Jacobs
Harriet E. Adams Wilson
Maya Angelou
Zora Neale Hurston
Alice Walker, "Everyday Use"
Toni Cade Bambara, "My Man Bovanne"
Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
V.
Political Writings, Social Issues
Discussion of texts and authors such as the following:
A. Mary Wollstonecraft
Sojourner Truth
Lorraine Hansberry, "In Defense of the Equality of Men"
Isak Dinesen, "The Blank Page"
Joanna Russ, "When it Changed"
Anne Sexton, "Housewife"
Adrienne Rich, "Aunt Jennifer#s Tigers"
Margaret Atwood, "This is a Photograph of Me" and "Spelling"
Maxine Hong Kingston, "No Name Woman"
Virginia Woolf, "Professions for Women"
Adrienne Rich, "When We Dead Awaken"
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge, "The Other Side of a Mirror"
Charlotte Gilman Perkins, "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Leslie Marmon Silko, "Yellow Woman"
Sandra Cisneros, House on Mango Street
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
N.
O.
P.
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VI.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
Modern Short Fiction and Poetry
Discussion of texts and authors such as the following:
A. Grace Paley, "Enormous Changes at the Last Minute"
Nadine Gordimer, "Town and Country Lovers"
Joyce Carol Oates,"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?"
Margaret Drabble, "A Voyage to Cythera"
Angela Carter, "The Company of Wolves"
Denise Levertow
Margaret Walker
Sylvia Plath
Julia Alvarez
Lab Content:
Methods of Instruction:
1. In-class lectures to highlight the historical context of the writing and
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ENGL 250
the perspective of the writer in the context of his or her ethnic, literary,
geographical, religious, ideological, and political environment.
2. Class discussion to build on material presented in lecture.
3. Student presentations in which students individually or in groups present
(i) a reading of a substantial passage from the assigned pages; (ii) a
critical analysis of the work under discussion; and (iii) a summary and
discussion of the reading in terms of the author#s historical, biographical and
literary significance.
4. In-class written responses to allow students to interpret the literature
they have read from their own perspective and to further discussion.
5. Quizzes to encourage students to complete outside-reading assignments and
in-turn participate in class discussions.
6. Videos/films/slides/audiotapes followed by instructor-guided
interpretation, analysis, and comparison and student discussion.
7. Small group discussion so that students may compare their interpretations.
Out-of-Class Assignments:
Methods of Evaluation:
1. In-class writings and reading quizzes that ascertain students#
comprehension of the texts assigned as well as their relation to the historical
context and other texts studied. The in-class writings provide an opportunity
to generate ideas for class discussions and essay assignments; factually-based
reading quizzes usually consist of multiple choice, fill-in, and/or true and
false questions designed to test each student#s knowledge of major details from
the reading assigned for the day.
2. Student presentations that demonstrate students# ability to understand the
literature as well as critically analyze the assigned literature in relation to
critical, historical and/or biographical information; students# ability to
research and document sources properly will affect their presentation and thus
will also be evaluated.
3. Midterm and final examinations that demonstrate students# synthesis of the
materials assigned and discussed in class
4. A critical analysis that depends on a strong thesis as a focal point, a
convincing argument, and evidence from primary texts and perhaps secondary
sources for support through examples, quotations, summaries, paraphrases of
passages.
Examples of Appropriate Texts or Other Required Reading:
Title: Nortan Anthology of Literature by Women
Author: Gilbert, Sandra and Susan Gubar
Date:
2007
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ENGL 250
Other Appropriate Reading:
Novels, stories, essays, poems, plays, films, database articles, and critical
analysis.
Other Outline Information:
1. Sample In-Class Writing Prompt:
Why is the narrator, in Tillie Olsen#s "I
Stand Here Ironing," trying to "total it all up," with regard to the way she
raised her daughter? How do her circumstances contribute to the way she raised
her daughter?
2. Sample Reading Quiz Questions: In Adrienne Rich#s poem "Aunt Jennifer#s
Tiger," what weighs heavily on her? What is significant about this? What is
significant about the way she depicts the tigers in her tapestry?
3. Sample Midterm or Final Examination Questions: Discuss the shift in
"voice" that occurs throughout Charlotte Perkins Gilman#s story, "The Yellow
Wallpaper." How do these shifts relate to the way the others in the house
treat her and to the way she views herself? In Maxine Hong Kingston#s "No Name
Woman" is prohibited from speaking her aunt#s name. Discuss, as the narrator
explains it, why the family has forgotten the aunt and what this suggests about
gender inequalities in the Chinese culture. How do the narrator#s responses to
this prohibition suggest her own female subject position?
4. Sample Paper Topic: Throughout Jane Eyre, the narrator (and through her,
Charlotte Bronte) addresses the reader in a number of places. Analyze several
of these "dear reader" passages, considering what we learn about Jane#s subject
position from the intent as well as message of the passages. Consider, too,
what it suggests about Bronte, writing as a woman at the time she did, that she
included this passage.