ENG5152 - Writing America

Objectives:

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to:

Demonstrate a critical understanding of a range of American texts.
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the linkage between significant cultural and ethical issues and American writing.
Apply an appropriate range of critical and theoretical approaches to analyse these cultural and ethical debates.
Demonstrate a critical understanding of the use of style and technique in the exploration of cultural and ethical issues in American writing.
Communicate ideas and research findings clearly using appropriate presentational techniques and technologies.

Content:

From its beginnings American literature has explored the cultural divisions and ethical complexities within its own society. This module offers the opportunity to explore diversity in American writing in 3 key aspects: the treatment of big social themes (race, gender, sexuality, politics, and class), literature as a means of social protest, and the use diverse literary forms to address social themes (plays, poems, novels, manifestos, autobiographies, graphic novels). Texts will be offered for study from across the range of American literary history with the expectation that individual texts be set within the broader national context of topics and debates.

Learning and Teaching Information:

This module is taught via a series of interactive seminars designed to foster student understanding of the issues involved in the texts studied, the relevant social, literary, and critical debates, and the appropriate theories for relating texts and cultural contexts. Seminar tasks and assessments are designed to ensure students are developing critical thinking, academic study skills and both individual and group presentation skills.

Seminars
Hours: 30
Intended Group Size: Full Cohort

Guided independent study
Hours: 170

Further details relating to assessment
Assessment 1 - Report: students will explore the representation of a cultural or ethical topic in a selected text and relate this representation to the wider treatment of the topic within American cultural history.
Assessment 2 - Essay (or negotiated format): this assessment should develop a deeper understanding of a selected aspect of American cultural history and explore its representation within several texts.

Assessment:

001 Report; 1,500 words; Mid-Semester Two 35%
002 Essay or Negotiated Format; 2,500 word equivalent; End of Semester Two 65%

Fact File

Module Coordinator - Katie Lister
Level - 5
Credit Value - 20
Pre-Requisites - NONE
Semester(s) Offered - 5S2

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