CCOG for ENG 108 Winter 2025
- Course Number:
- ENG 108
- Course Title:
- Introduction to World Literature (16th-Century to Present)
- Credit Hours:
- 4
- Lecture Hours:
- 40
- Lecture/Lab Hours:
- 0
- Lab Hours:
- 0
Course Description
Addendum to Course Description
Instructors may choose an anthology, individual works, or both. This course meets the requirements of a survey, emphasizing breadth over depth.
Intended Outcomes for the course
Upon completion of the course students should be able to:
- Identify crucial literary movements that transpired from the 16th-century to the present, including the Renaissance, Romanticism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism.
- Analyze the effects of war, religion, colonialism, technology, totalitarianism, economic development, racism, and culture on world literature from the 16th-century to the present.
- Compare and contrast important similarities and differences between the various literary forms, periods, and histories in both western and nonwestern literatures from the 16th-century to the present.
- Write clear, focused, coherent essays about literature for an academic audience, using standard English conventions of grammar and style.
Integrative Learning
Students completing an associate degree at Portland Community College will be able to reflect on one’s work or competencies to make connections between course content and lived experience.
General education philosophy statement
English and Writing courses align with the PCC General Education philosophy by providing an appreciation of writing and literature from global and personal perspectives. Students in English courses engage the imagination, critical inquiry and self‐reflection, and in the process of doing so, cultivate a more complex understanding of their own culture(s), linguistic/communication practices, and perspectives in relation to others. Because the literary arts lie at the heart of most human cultures, they are essential for understanding each other and navigating our differences. In literature classes, students explore significant texts from diverse cultures and periods in history. Students look closely at texts from a range of genres, articulating the way elements of writing, content, form, and style are interrelated, and considering how values and interpretations have changed over time and through different theoretical lenses. Students engage texts through critical analysis and creative response, learning to use evidence to support their interpretations and to navigate critical conversations. Students explore literature both as an art form designed to provoke thought and challenge social norms, and as an expression of human experience. Writing and Literature courses foster a stronger sense of engagement with history, culture, and society. Writing and Literature students develop an awareness of themselves as readers and writers in a global world, and an enlarged understanding of the relationships between language, identity, ideas, scholarship, communication, and transformation.
Course Activities and Design
Instructors are free to include any assortment of activities to enhance student enjoyment and learning, including lectures, small-group discussions, writing, film viewings, individual and/or class projects, attending a dramatic performance as a class, research, etc.
Outcome Assessment Strategies
Assessment tools may include--
reading journals
class presentations
formal papers
research
group projects
study questions
in-class writing
exams
Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)
explication of individual works
comparison of works
literary vocabulary pertinent to modern literature
literary periods, canons, cultures
analysis of individual works
synthesis of knowledge about literature as a global phenomenon
variety of styles within modern literature
literary themes unique to modern world literature
Suggested Texts:
Instructors may choose to work exclusively with a single anthology or to include individual works as well. The following list shows only a few examples of what is possible for an English 108 class to read.
The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces: Expanded Edition in One Volume (includes new selections from Asia and Africa).
The Longman Anthology of World Literature (Volume 2).
The Bedford Anthology of World Literature (Package B).
Diary of a Madman. Lu Xun.
Paris Spleen. Charles Baudelaire.
Under the Bus Shelter. Naguib Mahfouz.
No Longer at Ease. Chinua Achebe.
The Garden of Forking Paths. Jorge Luis Borges.
The Sun Hath Looked Upon Me. Calixth Beyala.
Soul Mountain. Gao Xinjian.