ENGL 249 - U.S. Latinx Literature

Credits: 5
Examines the literary and cultural traditions of the Chicanx, Cuban American, Dominican American, Puerto Rican, and Central American writers in the United States. Course includes critically reading and interpreting fiction, drama, poetry, and essays as a way to make distinctions and interconnections between these Latinx communities. Themes including exile and exodus, religion and spirituality, patriarchy and feminism, sub/urbanism and border theory among others will inform students’ understanding and appreciation of the texts.

Prerequisite: Eligible for ENGL 099 or instructor’s permission.

Satisfies Requirement: Humanities/Fine Arts/English and Diversity

Course Outcomes:
Students who successfully complete this class will be able to:

Comprehend significant political, historical, and geographical contexts that generate Latinx literary works.
Distinguish the relevance and importance between genres such as fiction, drama, poetry, essay and the role that crossing genres plays in this literature.
Contextualize the nexus that emerges between sexuality, class, gender, and ethnicity/complexion within a broader U.S. culture.
Articulate the transforming circumstances, definitions, and debates that surround the construction of Latinx identities as informed by the literature and scholarly discourse.
Incorporate close reading, critical analysis, and writing projects as tools for synthesizing Latinx literature.
Successfully complete written responses to literature.
Participate effectively, demonstrating critical reflection.

Program Outcomes
Demonstrate college-level reading skills by summarizing, analyzing, interpreting, synthesizing, and evaluating college texts; and develop an awareness of the approaches writers use for different audiences, genres, and rhetorical situations.

College-wide Outcomes

Critical Thinking - Critical thinking finds expression in all disciplines and everyday life. It is characterized by an ability to reflect upon thinking patterns, including the role of emotions on thoughts, and to rigorously assess the quality of thought through its work products. Critical thinkers routinely evaluate thinking processes and alter them, as necessary, to facilitate an improvement in their thinking and potentially foster certain dispositions or intellectual traits over time.