Welcome to Eng 104: Introduction to Literature, Fiction: Spring 2007
For more detailed information about this course, please open the following PDF document (click on the title--note that it may take a few minutes for Adobe Reader to open the document):
"Finding Your Way Around Eng 104 in Blackboard"
Pre
requisites:
College entry level
reading and writing skills
Successful completion of
Online Orientation:
http://web.cocc.edu/onlineorientation
Required Materials:
Ø Ann Charters, Ed. The Story and Its Writer, Compact 7th ed (Bedford/St. Martin's Press, 2007)
(the book will be available via the COCC Bookstore at http://web.cocc.edu/bookstore/ or at local or online bookstores. A copy of our textbook will be placed on reserve in the COCC library behind the circulation desk. You will need your student id in order to borrow the book and the book cannot be taken out of the library).
Course Description:
“I hungered for new books, new ways of looking and seeing. It was not a matter of believing or disbelieving what I read, but of feeling something new, of being affected by something that made the look of the world different.” (Richard Wright)
“Fiction...is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.” (Virginia Woolf)
“No one else can read a literary work for us. The benefits of literature can emerge only from creative activity on the part of the reader.” (Louise Rosenblatt)
We will explore these and other ideas about the value of fiction this term in English 104. We will read several short stories paying attention to the literary elements of setting, character, plot, point of view, symbol, style, and theme. Through our readings and online discussions, as well as informal and formal writing assignments, students will be asked to take an active role in interpreting and analyzing fiction. That analysis is done by questioning “why” something is done in a text (story). The answer to your question “why” is your interpretation. The act of questioning and searching for the answer is called literary analysis—a rewarding critical thinking skill. The fiction we will read this term will not always be purely entertaining: literary fiction asks us to participate, to empathize and to question. In return, we learn a little bit more about humanity than we did before.
Last Updated: April 2, 2007
