Course Description, Goals, Requirements

Catalog Course Description

Horror Literature (ENGL 213) is a three-unit course using various works and critical theories as a basis for the analysis of the horror genre in the context of literary merit. The emphasis is upon the analysis of issues, problems, and situations represented in horror literature and on the development of effective written arguments in support of the analysis, CSU; UC · Prerequisites: ENGL 101 and ENGL 103 (strongly recommended).

Prerequisites/Rationale

This is a full-credit university-level English composition and analysis course. Grammar was to be learned in previous courses, and will be dealt with harshly in this class. Furthermore, if English is not your primary language, you are likely to have difficulty with some of the concepts discussed in the course. It is your responsibility to grasp this material. You should have successfully completed ENGL 101. ENGL 213 is a literature analysis course. The writing and reading assignments in this course are designed to help you understand the ways that writers of horror literature get their ideas across through their work. This requires a willingness and ability to draw logical, fair conclusions from the author's work before one can refute the assumptions and messages being presented. Inability to do so will seriously affect your grade. We will also look historical and societal context of works written by and for the horror genre. My job is to give you the tools to create pieces of writing that reflect your thoughts, attitudes and what you have researched in a collegiate, scholarly manner. Your job, if you accept it, will be to utilize those tools to analyze, criticize, reason both inductively and deductively, and advocate ideas. We are not only concerned with What the main point is, but also the author's rationale, method, and support. If the author tells a story, it is not enough to know merely what happened. We want to discuss what it means.

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Course Goals and Methods

Goals

This course will consist of reading, analyzing, discussing, and, ultimately, writing about the material assigned for the class. The fundamentals of the writing process will be stressed, but individual styles and tastes will not be discouraged. That means you will be responsible for understanding how an author, artist, or director gets his or her message across and how one analyzes literature. You will be required to substantiate your analysis clearly from text, but there is not necessarily one correct answer. The method by which you discuss these works will be the most important aspect of your grade. You will, of course, do a lot of writing in this class, including some short assignments culminating a final research paper. The most important goal for you as a student in this class is to become familiar with writing at a competent level. Keeping up with the work is imperative.

Method

Overview
My job is to give you the tools to create pieces of writing that reflect your thoughts, your attitudes and your research. We will be analyzing a series of works, as well as discussing various analytical approaches. If this is an internet course, you must pay attention to messageboard postings. We will use the MLA format for all papers, including the quoting of sources. Out-of-class essays are expected to be word processed, double-spaced, as neat as possible and on time.

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Required Texts
All works are available on line.

• College level dictionary.

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© T. T. Eiland, December 2008
Last modified: January 25, 2017