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LITERARY INTERPRETATION AS A METHOD OF INQUIRY (CUL-223454)

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Course Description:


Through analytical reading and writing activities, students will deepen their skills in interpretation. Students will create original interpretations of U.S. and international literary works by identifying, analyzing, and evaluating the various lenses through which they, and selected literary and cultural theorists and critics, see the literary works; and by producing various kinds of writing to discover and communicate their own interpretations.

Students will read U.S. and world literature - novels, short stories, and a play - that reflect the complexities of the literal and figurative borderlands where disparate groups and cultures meet and interact, both within and across national boundaries. Through examining and interpreting the complexities and the richness of these borderlands, students will learn more about the places they occupy in this complex world, and about their interconnectedness with others’ realities. Students will also read theoretical and applied writings about interpretation from a variety of disciplines. These writings will include investigations of traditional and contemporary literary criticism theories.

Students will engage in the creation of new learning, and demonstrate their learning, through discussion responses to tutor-generated thinking prompts and to other students’ ideas, and through a combination of formal, informal, and creative writing products. Student writing will occur in discussions, a learning journal, essays, and informal and/or “visual” writing such as annotated lists and charts.

Ability to read, write, and think at the advanced level. Some previous study of literature is helpful, but is not required.

This course fully meets the General Education requirement in Humanities.


This online course is offered through Online Learning. You can take this as an individual course or as part of an online degree program, with term starts in March, May, September, November and January. View current term offerings and all online courses. Click here to register for online courses.

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Liberal Study
Upper Level
Credits: 4
Meets General Education Requirement In: Humanities-Full

Term(s) Offered (Subject to Change) : Spring 1. Fall 1.

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