EL4001 - Introduction to Literary Studies

Learning and teaching will be through a weakly 1.5-hour lecture and a weakly 1.5-hour seminar. The critical discussions and explorations that the students will be exposed to and participate in will be consolidated by a combination of formative and summative modes of assessment facilitating and enabling students’ awareness of the relevant issues in literary study, while also encouraging self-assessment and reflexive learning.

Lectures are supported by power point presentation and handouts; seminars are supported by handouts; both lectures and seminars are supported by a dedicated Bb site; by a detailed module guide that clearly sets out in detail the structure of formal teaching; by detailed bibliographies that draw upon the latest scholarship in the field of English Literature by text assigned and by period covered: early modern studies to the present. Discussions with the module tutor and with the other students in the supporting seminar are invaluable for the development of speaking, listening, and critical skills gained through participation in classroom activities.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk
(Reading List service online guide for academic staff this containing contact details for the Reading List team – http://library.northumbria.ac.uk/readinglists)

Knowledge & Understanding:
• An introductory knowledge and understanding of issues raised by a range of literary texts and contexts from the early modern period to the present

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
• Introductory intellectual skills in employing theoretical and critical material in relation to literature.
• Introductory abilities in close and interdisciplinary textual analysis

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
• Introduction to debates around class, race, gender, religion, nationality and sexuality and literature’s intervention in those debates.
• Introductory skills conforming to relevant standards of good academic conduct in the expression of an informed argument in written forms through completing the various activities prescribed.

Summative assessment
• A 1500-word essay. (100%)
This essay allows students to engage with two of the course texts, offering the opportunity to apply the theoretical and conceptual approaches discussed in lectures and seminars.

In addition to formative oral feedback throughout the semester delivered in seminar discussions, students will receive written feedback on their summative work.

This assessment task addresses MLOs 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

Additional two formative assessments – detail of process and rationale
• A 1000-word annotated bibliography.
Students are required to find three secondary sources (printed and electronic) which support their understanding of one of the course texts. For each source, students supply a 300-word account and evaluation of the critical argument offered.
Formal written feedback will be supported and reinforced by oral tutor feedback and student group discussions during the seminars. The rationale for this is to enable students to road-test ideas before committing themselves to an argument.
This assessment addresses MLOs 2 and 5.

• A 500-word essay plan that will include essay question, choice of primary texts, theoretical approach, main arguments, and indicative bibliography. The students will discuss their plan in a 10-minute tutorial with their tutor at the end of the semester and before they start writing their summative assignment.

Feedback for both the formative and the summative assessment will be provided using the Departmental feedback sheet and comments on the script. The students will also complete a Self-Evaluation Document for the summative as part of the feedback procedure

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This module aims to introduce you to a wide range of approaches to the study of English literature through discussion of literary texts from 1590 to today. You will be interrogating and investigating conceptual issues such as the tragic, war, canonicity, the unconscious, the nature of the author, gender, the uncanny, psychoanalysis and postmodernity in relation to a carefully selected range of literary texts that cover four genres: play, poetry, novel and short story. Lectures will introduce you to the historical and theoretical contexts and to the literary texts themselves, whilst seminars will provide an opportunity for you to discuss and debate the content of the lectures and additional reading in a forum designed for discussion and debate.