CCOG for ENG 222 Winter 2025
- Course Number:
- ENG 222
- Course Title:
- Images of Women in Literature
- Credit Hours:
- 4
- Lecture Hours:
- 40
- Lecture/Lab Hours:
- 0
- Lab Hours:
- 0
Course Description
Intended Outcomes for the course
Upon completion of the course students should be able to:
- Examine ways in which the text constructs images of women within diverse cultures and a variety of historical moments.
- Compare and contrast representations of women within various literary traditions, conventions, and in relation to other forms of artistic expression.
- Identify stylistic choices authors make within given forms and the ways they affect the creation of images of women in literature.
- Analyze how form influences meaning in complex documents that invite multiple interpretation.
- Write clear, focused, coherent essays about literature for an academic audience using standard English conventions 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
This course design can include lecture, discussion, and group work, along with activities such as participating in group projects, film viewing, etc. Students will read, respond to course materials, and participate in various other course activities.
Appreciation
- Articulate ways in which the text constructs images of women.
- Engage, through the text, unfamiliar and diverse cultures, experiences and points of view.
- Appreciate an apparently simple text as a complex fabric or document.
Context
- Recognize images of women in the text as products of particular cultures and historical movements.
- Understand the text within the context of a literary tradition or convention.
- Acknowledge the possibility of multiple interpretations of a text.
- Recognize the text’s relationship to different art forms.
Form/Structure
- Recognize the variety of stylistic choices that authors make within given forms, and how they affect the creation of images of women in literature. This may include decisions about theme, image, character, plot, setting, voice, point of view, figurative language, etc.
- Use knowledge of form as a tool to analyze the text, as well as to demonstrate how form influences meaning.
Analysis
- Evaluates various interpretations of a text and their validity through reading, writing, and speaking, and through individual and group responses.
- Through close reading of a text, discover and analyze the support/evidence for a particular interpretation.
- Write clear, focused, coherent essays about literature for an academic audience using standard English conventions and style.
Outcome Assessment Strategies
Assessment 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 other types of informal writing; presentation 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.
May include student critiques of student work, evaluations of in-class and out-of-class writing, analysis of close reading exercises, instructor conferences, and written instructor comments.
Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)
Competencies and Skills
- Analysis
- Synthesis
- Understanding prose fiction through contexts such as society, politics, artistic conventions, multiple interpretations of an author, etc.
- Writing about fiction
- Close readings
- Critical reading employing reviews and critical essays
- Speaking and listening reflectively
- Small-group collaboration
- Information literacy
Text Possibilities:
Written by Herself, Jill Ker Conway, Ed.
Writing Women°s Lives, Susan Cahill, Ed.
Writing a Woman°s Life, Carolyn G. Heilbrun