ENGL 248 - African-American Literature

Credits: 5
A survey of African-American literature from its colonial origins through the 21st century. Course requires close reading and written interpretation from among the following genres: African-American fiction, poetry, drama, essays, songs, and film. Focuses on such historical periods/movements as abolitionism and the slave narrative, Reconstruction, the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Arts Movement, and postmodernism.

Enrollment Requirement: Eligible for ENGL 99  or instructor consent.

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

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

1. Identify and evaluate key African American writers of literature, applying an African-American approach to this study.
2. Examine the intersection of economics, history, culture, region, politics, religion, gender, and sexuality to African-American literature.
3. Compare the historical relationships of African-American lived experience and current African-American lived experiences.
4. Assess how African-American literature relates to society as a whole and/or how it relates to other literature of the dominant culture.
5. Investigate African-American motifs, forms, and genres.
6. Improve writing and critical thinking as one works to communicate understanding of African-American literature.

 
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.