The Literature Major at Ramapo College

Understanding the Goals of the Literature Major

This page describes for students what is expected of them in Ramapo's Literature courses.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES FOR REQUIRED COURSES AND CATEGORIES IN THE LITERATURE MAJORS The following objectives inform your professors as they design your courses. As you move through the Literature Major, we hope you will achieve the following goals. LITR 101 INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE COURSE OBJECTIVES: Students successfully completing this course should learn to do research on literature, including using the databases available through the college library, and learn to incorporate that research into their own writing. Understand the different purposes to reading literature, including for personal pleasure and development. Explain and quote from a work of literature as evidential support in verbal and written communication. Learn the elements of at least three different genres of literature (short story/novel/poetry/essay/personal letter/the novel). Learn to read closely and annotate literary texts. Consider literature in several contexts, including aesthetic, cultural, historical, rhetorical. Gain an understanding of various schools of contemporary literary theory and be able to apply some of these schools in writing. Learning Outcomes for Survey of British Literature I (LITR 203) LITR 203 SURVEY OF BRITISH LITERATURE I COURSE OBJECTIVES: Students successfully completing this course should Read and analyze a representative sample of texts and writers of the English speaking peoples of the British Isles from the Anglo-Saxon period to about 1780. Demonstrate a familiarity with the major authors and genres, important texts, and main themes of this literature. Demonstrate and articulate an understanding of the cultural and historical ideas and contexts of this literature, as well as the connections to our present culture. Write clear, logical, well-organized, well-developed, and well-supported literary analyses of the literature of this period. *LITR 215 READINGS IN POETRY* COURSE OBJECTIVES: Students successfully completing this course should Learn to read and analyze poetry, and understand the significant ways in which poetic language differs from prose. Gain an understanding of distinct poetic movements and their corresponding terminology. Develop an awareness of poetry’s cultural and structural evolution through the centuries in both England and America, ranging from Elizabethan to contemporary works. Speak and write clearly about poems, taking into account their historical context as well as their aesthetic significance. Pay close attention to the way language is used to evoke images. LITR 319 MAJOR AUTHORS COURSE OBJECTIVES: Students successfully completing this course should** Understand the value of reading one major author in some depth. Develop a sense of the importance and limits of literary biography. Be able to apply literary theory to longer research essays incorporating quotations from literary works and a variety of secondary sources. LITR 414 LITERATURE SEMINAR COURSE OBJECTIVES: Students successfully completing this course should Be able to develop complex, argumentative theses independently. Synthesize materials from diverse sources, including several primary and secondary sources. Draft annotated bibliographies. Compose proposals for longer essays. Independently read well below the surface of even complex literary works. Develop leadership skills—begin and sustain class discussion. be able to identify and discuss a variety of literary schools and eras within one discussion. to analyze literature and its related cultural influences in an interdisciplinary fashion. Apply the various skills acquired in previous years at a semester-long intensive study of a very narrow literary topic. NOTE: We are still developing learning goals for “Drama,” “Pre-1800,” and “Theory and Process of Language” categories, as well as some of the Teacher Education categories.


COURSE LEVEL: 100 (Introduction to Literature)

WRITING SKILLS	READING SKILLS	OTHER SKILLS/ISSUES
Explain and quote from a work of literature as evidential support in verbal and written communication. Learn to do research on literature, including using the databases available through the college library, and learn to incorporate that research into their own writing.	Understand the different purposes to reading literature, including for personal pleasure and development. Learn the elements of at least three different genres of literature (short story/novel/poetry/essay/personal letter/the novel). Learn to read closely and annotate literary texts.	Consider literature in several contexts, including aesthetic, cultural, historical, rhetorical. Gain an understanding of various schools of contemporary literary theory and be able to apply some of these schools in writing.

SEQUENCE OF LITERARY CONTENT: 100 LEVEL	Introduction to Literature ( LITR- 101 ) is the only class on the 100 level. An introduction to the study of language and literary form intended for the general student and those who are considering a Literature major, the course of necessity remains broadly imagined. Students encounter a number of themes, authors, texts, and literary strategies in poetry, fiction, drama, non-fiction, and mixed genres, across periods and cultures, with the aim of exploring the ways writing structures and articulates experience and engages us as readers in the process of giving it meaning.


COURSE LEVEL: 200-Level courses

WRITING SKILLS	READING SKILLS	OTHER SKILLS/ISSUES
Compose longer essays incorporating quotations from literary works and some secondary sources. Use parenthetical citation & Work Cited format when referring to several texts.	Develop a sense of the depth and range of literature, nationally and internationally in survey classes. Move beyond personal response to consider other readings. Familiarity with literary anthologies and an understanding of the elements of those works: glossary, index, introductory essays, timelines, etc.	An understanding of literary schools and eras. Research skills, including familiarity with literary reference works (literary dictionaries, Gale encyclopedias, etc.). The ability to identify and discuss a variety of literary schools and eras within one discussion. Familiarity with how literature and issues of nationhood are related.

SEQUENCE OF LITERARY CONTENT: 200 LEVEL	Courses on the 200 level are more diverse and numerous than the 100-level offerings. Many 200-level courses are surveys of national literatures (i.e., Survey of British Literature I and II, Survey of American Literature I and II , Survey of African Literature ). Other courses are similarly broad in scope, while building on the basic concepts covered in Introduction to Literature . Other courses like, Readings in Poetry , Literature of the Middle Ages , European Short Story , American Short Story , and others tend toward broadly conceived surveys of genres, periods, or national traditions.



COURSE LEVEL: 300-Level courses

WRITING SKILLS	READING SKILLS	OTHER SKILLS/ISSUES
Compose longer research essays incorporating quotations from literary works and a variety of secondary sources.	Focus in depth on one or more genres of literature. Read one or more major author in some depth. Develop a sense of the importance and limits of literary biography.	More sophisticated research skills, including the ability to access and comprehend journal articles, and books like The Chelsea House series.

SEQUENCE OF LITERARY CONTENT: 300 LEVEL	300-level courses embark upon more specific subject matter than that covered by 200-level courses. In courses like Literary Theory and Criticism and Grammar: Theory and Pedagogy , and Existentialism students engage in the study of theoretical concepts 200-level classes may comment on but cannot investigate fully. In other courses, like Major Authors; Chekhov's Plays; Comic American Novel ; American Romanticism ; Homer: The Epic , and The Victorians , students study individual authors in depth or explore very specific movements in greater detail than a 200-level class can afford.



COURSE LEVEL: 400-Level courses

WRITING SKILLS	READING SKILLS	OTHER SKILLS/ISSUES
Develop complex, argumentative theses independently. Synthesize materials from diverse sources, including several primary and secondary sources. Draft annotated bibliographies. Compose proposals for longer essays.	Independently read well below the surface of even complex literary works.	Develop leadership skills—begin and sustain class discussion. The ability to identify and discuss a variety of literary schools and eras within one discussion. The ability to analyze literature and its related cultural influences in an interdisciplinary fashion. Apply the various skills acquired in previous years at a semester-long intensive study of a very narrow literary topic.

SEQUENCE OF LITERARY CONTENT: 400 LEVEL	As with the 100-level, the 400-level capstone offers only one course, but this course varies depending upon section and instructor. The 400-level capstone is designed to allow students to apply the lessons of the Literature Major to a specific, intriguing literary issue. Section offerings range widely (Woolf and Mansfield , Postmodern Literary Theory , 20th Century American Women Writers , International Women's Voices , Nature in American Literature , Classics of War Literature , Literature from 20th Century Genocide , American Autobiography , and others). The course is marked as much by the raised expectations of the instructor as the greater specificity of most of the offerings. LITR 414 is taught as a seminar , and students are expected to exhibit greater independence in their reading, writing, and research.