HSC 082 - High School Literature

Credits: 5
LEC hours per week: 5
In this reading skill development class, students will explore literature across thousands of years and many cultures. This course will use a thematic approach to comparing and contrasting literature over a wide range of time periods and cultures. By exploring a single theme, over time, culture and genre, students will explore how grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
Course Outcomes:

Analyze, describe and discuss texts whose range extends across genres, cultures, and centuries.
Collect a reservoir of literary and cultural knowledge, references and images.
Recognize and describe literary devices.

Course Topics:

Texts may include all or parts of the following: Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse, David Ferry Beowulf, Seamus Heaney translation Leviticus (Old Testament, KJV) Idyll 11, Theocritus Frankenstein, Mary Shelley The Iron Giant, Ted Hughes For these texts, students will: *Write literary summaries. *Compare/contrast what is defined as monstrous across time and genre in discussions and writing. *Relate historic monsters to current issues and self in discussions and writing. *Evaluate how characters from different historical/backgrounds define what is “monstrous” in discussions and writing.