Transcript title

Diversity in Literature

Credits

4

Grading mode

Standard letter grades

Total contact hours

40

Lecture hours

40

Recommended preparation

WR 121Z.

Course Description

Examines cultural diversity as recorded in American literature since 1965, emphasizing literary and cultural values in poetry, fiction, and drama. Readings focus on writers’ views of life within historically marginalized groups based on ethnicity, gender, and sexual identity.

Course learning outcomes

1. Identify distinctive cultural characteristics, genres, and periods of selected American literature from diverse, multicultural perspectives.
2. Explain how individual multicultural texts reflect or represent their larger literary, regional, historical, cultural, sociopolitical, and/ or biographical contexts.
3. Explain the limitations and benefits of studying multicultural works in cross-cultural translation (i.e. across different languages, writing systems, cultures, and creative media).
4. Demonstrate analytical skills, using evidence from primary and secondary sources to illustrate and support one’s argument.

Content outline

1. Cultural characteristics, genres, and periods of selected American literature from diverse, multicultural perspectives;
2. Cross cultural differences and similarities among different texts and cultures; between diverse language arts/cultures and one's own; and/or between diverse language arts/cultures and those of other groups;
3. History and cultural traditions of various marginalized groups within the U.S.;
4. The effects of individual and culturally-determined factors (such as race, gender, class, nation, biases of information sources, prior cross-cultural experiences, etc.) in one’s own and others’ responses to multicultural texts.

Required materials

Required materials include readings from a textbook and/ or articles provided on the LMS, a flash drive or other means of storing work, a notebook or laptop for taking notes and participating in any in-class writing activities, and a writing utensil.

General education/Related instruction lists

• Cultural Literacy
• Arts and Letters