“Teaching English Literature” is a course with two major aims. It intends to first introduce students to classic English readings and then by extension, through these selected readings, teach them the methodology of teaching literature. The course will acquaint the students with all major literary and critical ages by focalizing on different genres. Furthermore, each reading will be informed through critical and literary theories. The end goal is to have students who are acquainted with all major literary ages, figures, texts, and theories, such that they are able to further impart this knowledge. Course activities will be designed in such a way that students partake in designing activities, as this will aid their training and learning.
Course Contents:
- Early English Literature – Beowulf; Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
- Love/Religious Poetry – Thomas Wyatt; John Donne; Sir Walter Raleigh
- Early Modern – Shakespeare (Sonnets + Play)
- Romanticism – William Wordsworth; Samuel Taylor Coleridge; John Keats
- Victorian Era – Jane Austen
- American Literature – Overview of ages + focus on Nathaniel Hawthorne and RobertFrost
- Women Literature – Amelia Lanyer (Early Modern); Virginia Woolf (Modern) + Critical
- Theories (Simone de Beauvoir; Judith Butler) + Novel (Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale)
- Postcolonial Literature – Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird + Critical Theories (Michel Foucault; Ngugi wa Thiong’o)
- Literary Theory Overview