Thomas Edison State University | Prior Learning Assessment Course Description
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PLA Portfolio Assessment Course Subjects

Literature

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Courses 1-10 of 102 matches.
Children's Literature and Story Telling   (CDS-214)   3 credits  
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Course Description
A study of the principles of selection, adaptation and the techniques of storytelling, book talks and book reviews. A survey of children's literature and the age appropriate use of various genre.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Discuss how the early childhood educator selects good and age-appropriate children's literature for the classroom.
  • Briefly considers the various genres and the defining elements of each.
  • Talk about the role of children's literature in promoting emergent literacy in early childhood education.
  • Indicate the role of parents/caregivers in terms of incorporating children's literature in the home environment.
  • Consider the role of multi-cultural literature in the classroom.
  • Discuss how literature has a cathartic element in the life of a child.
  • Briefly state how storytelling enhances the experience of literature in the classroom.

 
Introduction to Children's Literature   (LIT-221)   3 credits  
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Course Description
Introduction to Children's Literature is a course designed for adults who care deeply about children and children's books. Recognizing the crucial role adults play in introducing children to the joys of literature, the course encourages and promotes sharing books with children, including infants. The course text, Through the Eyes of a Child, shares this perspective and provides a wealth of information about the history and diversity of children's literature.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Answer knowledge-based questions about the history and importance of children's literature.
  • Identify criteria for evaluating children's literature.
  • Evaluate a wide variety of books available today for children, from newborns to adolescents, according to stated criteria.
  • Recognize and describe the artistry in children's books.
  • Discuss issues surrounding children's literature.
  • Compose essays on various themes related to children's literature.

 
American Literature I   (LIT-205)   3 credits  
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Course Description
American literature blossomed in the early nineteenth century into what historians have called "the Romantic Period of American Literature." With the United States firmly established as a nation by 1800, this proliferation of literature caused the young country to be recognized internationally as a literary force. American Literature I offers an introduction to the major works of key writers of the early nineteenth century from the following points of view their cultural context, historical context, and literary characteristics.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Discuss and analyze the works read to demonstrate understanding of the significance of these works in their own time period and to extrapolate from that their significance to readers in the twenty-first century.
  • Discuss and analyze attitudes towards issues of gender, race, and economic class as they are expressed by the selected authors and trace the development of contemporary attitudes from then to now.
  • Discuss and analyze the literary techniques available to writers--and the reading strategies available to readers--that foster an understanding and enjoyment of literature.

Available by CLEP exam.  
Analysis and Interpretation of Literature   (LIT-291)   3 credits  
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Course Description
From the formal cadences of a Shakespearean sonnet to the echoes of everyday speech in the poems of Nikki Giovanni, literature records our purest emotions and our keenest observations. Literature both reflects and shapes our view of the world, spanning many cultures, time periods, and levels of learning. Students can embrace the great richness and diversity of literature through Analysis and Interpretation of Literature. This course incorporates both contemporary and traditional works in its selection of literary texts. It also places a strong emphasis on writing about literature, allowing you both to refine compositional techniques and to apply advanced literary analysis.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Apply essential literary terminology, including terms such as character, irony, point of view, symbol, tone, and theme.
  • Assess the ways that language, literature, and written expression bring meaning, understanding, and order to experience.
  • Interpret and analyze works of literature in terms of elements such as theme, imagery, setting, use of language, and character development.
  • Compare and contrast themes in different works of literature.
  • Compare the ways that different genres express meaning differently and draw conclusions about effective literary expression.

Available by CLEP exam.  
Nonwestern World Literature I   (LIT-460)   3 credits  
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Course Description
Non-Western Literature has been designed to help students gain familiarity with values and issues from non-Western cultures. The term Non-Western literature generally refers to writings by people in any culture or country except those of Western Europe, Ancient Greece, and the United States. Literature can immerse a reader in another's mind, allowing the reader to live a different life through the writer's imagination. The unfamiliar context of the non-Western writer may challenge a Western reader in this regard. The course will cover both post colonialism and feminist thought, examining each through non-Western eyes. At least one Western work will be introduced in each case, allowing students to contrast a typical Western point of view with the views and issues of non-Western cultures. A third major course topic is literature in translation. We are fortunate to be able to read works of literature that date back thousands of years, but few of us can read them in their original languages. This part of the course will look at issues concerning the translation of thoughts and ideas (specifically religious experiences) from one culture to another.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Examine typical Western ideas about non-Western cultures.
  • Analyze the issues and challenges of being "non-Western."
  • Apply postcolonial theory to the study of non-Western literature.
  • Assess how Western cultures are perceived by non-Western people.
  • Compare and contrast literature from the same non-Western culture in different eras.
  • Analyze gender issues in non-Western literature using postcolonial feminist theory.
  • Evaluate the effects of religious worldviews on non-Western literature.
  • Analyze and assess the effectiveness of literary forms and devices in non-Western literature for communicating universal ideas.

 
Introduction to the Humanities II: Drama, Poetry and Narrative   (HUM-102)   3 credits  
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Course Description
Introduction to the Humanities II: Drama, Poetry, and Narrative surveys classics of Western literature in their cultural context. The course is divided into three parts, each focused on one of the genres featured in the course title. The first section of the course considers the sweep of drama from its earliest religious and ritual context (Oedipus the King) to works that reflect a culture adrift from its moorings (Waiting for Godot). The second section presents poetry as a "rediscovering of common experience," beginning with Shakespeare's sonnets and moving through Blake, Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, and Rich. In the third part of the course, surveys of narrative literature, students read and discuss authors such as Dickens, Bront, Melville, Kafka, and Walker. Course content consists of a series of half-hour video lectures that discuss authors and works. Works of literature will be sampled or read in entirety from both online sources and hard-copy texts. This course is based on the course "Understanding Literature and Life" from the Teaching Company.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Discuss the cultural context of a broad selection of Western literary works.
  • Compare and contrast works of literature.
  • Discuss issues of race, class, and gender presented in Western literature.
  • Explain the use of dramatic devices such as irony, plot, conflict, setting, and theme.
  • Describe the use of poetic devices such as rhythm, meter, metaphor, and point of view.
  • Discuss the evolution over time of literary topics such as the tragic hero, views of love, the crisis of death, and the search for human meaning.
  • Discuss the use of narrative devices such as character, plot, setting, language, and point of view.
  • Differentiate between the literary forms of drama, poetry, and narrative.

 
Korean Literature II   (KOR-343)   3 credits  
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Course Description
The major literary works: Chunhyang Jeon (The Tale of Chunhyang), Hong Gildong Jeon (The Tale of Hong Gildong), Gu Eun Mong (The Cloud Dream of the Nine) in addition to Classical Korean literature and its relation to Korean thought.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Demonstrate knowledge of a survey of the above-referenced works of Korean literature as well as knowledge of the history associated with the literature of the time.
  • Select topic(s) to be addressed, and connect the authors' lives to their historical context, the history of the time relative to literary trends and the political and social implications of author's work.
  • Discuss their historical, social and cultural contexts in your narrative.
  • Build an annotated bibliography or literary database of texts, authors and genres, with a minimum of 20 entries. Literary texts must have been read in the original Korean.
  • Submit portfolio narrative written in Korean.

 
American Literature II   (LIT-206)   3 credits  
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Course Description
American Literature II offers an introduction to the major works of the major writers of the United States from the late nineteenth century through the twentieth century. The emphasis is on the literary movement called Realism and the societal factors that contributed to that movement--such as the Civil War and the Reconstruction Period, increased industrialization, and the influences of Freud and Darwin. In addition, there will be a discussion of the literary techniques that writers employ and the reading strategies necessary to understand and enjoy literature.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Discuss and analyze the works read to demonstrate understanding of their significance in their own time period and to extrapolate from that their significance to readers in the twenty-first century.
  • Discuss and analyze attitudes towards issues of gender, race, and economic class as they are expressed by the selected authors and trace the development of contemporary attitudes from then to now.
  • Discuss and analyze the literary techniques available to writers--and the reading strategies available to readers--that foster an understanding and enjoyment of literature.

Available by CLEP exam.  
Children's Literature in Hispanic World   (SPA-262)   3 credits  
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Course Description
Study of children's literature of Spain and Spanish America. Readings from traditional children's poems, stories, plays, and from works written for children by authors such as Benavente, Gabriela Mistral, and Garcia Lorca.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Identify Latin American and Spanish writers who have written stories and poetry for children.
  • Identify literary genres and movements of selected children's works by authors from Spain and Latin America.
  • Explore the cultural context of children's literature by Latin American and Spanish authors.

 
Creative Arts for Preschool Children   (CDS-110)   3 credits  
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Course Description
The student will be able to demonstrate knowledge of the theory, content, and methods available to facilitate children's creative expression in the early childhood classroom (pre-kindergarten to third grade) through graphic art, music, drama, and literature as they impact both cognitive and affective development in children.

Learning Outcomes
Through the Portfolio Assessment process, students will demonstrate that they can appropriately address the following outcomes:

  • Discuss theories related to the emergence of creativity in young children.
  • Describe and compare methods to enhance the creative expression of young children in areas of art, music, literature and drama.
  • Describe methods to foster creativity and artistic expression in a given content area.
  • Explain how to adapt instruction to meet the creativity needs of children experiencing developmental delays or disabilities.
  • Discuss how music and movement relate to the development of cognitive ability and analytical skills.
  • Compare and contrast philosophical approaches to creativity in the early childhood classroom.
  • Explain and provide examples of how culture and ethnicity can be explored and celebrated through mediums of art, music, and drama.

 
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