Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Upon completion of the course students will be able to:

1. Analyze and discuss texts from a range of genres in the literature of social protest (e.g. poetry, novels, films, nonfiction, songs, and multimedia).
2. Identify persistent themes and their expressions in the literature of social protest (e.g. solidarity, systems of power, systems of social control, oppression and revolution).
3. Articulate ways that the literature of social protest is embedded in historical and cultural forces.
4. Identify relationships between historical moments of social protest and expressions of literary aesthetics.
5. Produce critical, reflective, and/or creative writing about the literature of social protest.

Course activities may consist of any combination of the following: lectures, group discussion, group projects, viewing films and video texts, listening to recorded readings, guest lectures, research projects, student presentations, in-class journal writing, students' original creative writing, and attending cultural events as a class.
 

Assessment tools may include informal responses to study questions; evaluation of small- and full-group discussion; in-class and out-of-class writing; formal essays, as well as informal responses to study questions and other types of informal writing; presentations by individuals and groups; short and long essay exams; close reading exercises using support/ evidence; writing exercises which include evaluation of various interpretations of a text and their relative validity. Both instructor and peer evaluation may be incorporated in the assessment process.

Concepts & Skills

• Critical reading
• Textual comparison and analysis
• Historical and contextual analysis
• Genre analysis
• Documenting social protest and revolution