This course seeks to introduce students to the artistic mind through Literature and help them to begin to understand ways of thinking about the world, thereby fostering critical analysis of culture, religion, and politics of industry and of text in general. This course complements the student’s study of Academic Writing I as it helps to sharpen her/his thinking, writing skills, and understanding of communicating through the word.

This introduces students to the traditional genre classifications of literature-prose, poetry, and drama--because these categories provide a convenient and logical structure for an introductory study of Literature. Additionally, the course seeks to emphasize the universality and diversity of imaginative literature as an expression of ideas and emotions, readings, culture, ideas and even language itself through works from various cultures and from differing segments of society, as well as from a variety of time periods.

At the end of this course students should be able to:

• Interpret literary and non-literary text based on the use of literary and figurative terms.
• Discuss theories of the relevance of Literature.
• Identify improvements in his/her own writing.
• Support ideas advocating the positive contribution which literature makes to society.
• Discuss theories of the relevance and contribution of Literature to the individual and human society as a whole;
• Identify the characteristics of the three main literary genres and differentiate each from the other;
• Interpret and critically analyze texts based on a knowledge of figurative terms and literary concepts;
• Identify improvements in his/her own writing by an appreciation of the qualities of good literature.