ENGL 181 - Literary Approaches to Pop Culture

Credits: 5
Presents a critical view of literary theories applied to popular culture in a variety of forms (literature, television, advertising, music). Students study examples of works of popular culture and produce their own literary and social commentary in a variety of forms.

Enrollment Requirement: Eligible for ENGL 99 or instructor consent.

Satisfies Requirement: Humanities/Fine Arts/English
Course Fee: $2.00

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

Identify principles of a variety of theories of literary criticism. (This may include but not be limited to formalist, deconstructionist, historical, biographical, reader-response, socio-economic, gender-based, cultural studies, postmodernism.)
Distinguish similarities and differences among the schools of literary critical theory.
Apply critical thinking skills to a variety of forms of expression in popular culture.
Identify and/or evaluate the roles of elements of style and content in presenting central themes or ideas in specific works or movements in popular culture.
Summarize a work of critical analysis.
Produce at least two examples of critical commentary on current popular culture, one of which may be a collaborative work.

Program Outcomes
Students will 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.