CCOG for ENG 244 Winter 2025
- Course Number:
- ENG 244
- Course Title:
- Introduction to Asian American Literature
- Credit Hours:
- 4
- Lecture Hours:
- 40
- Lecture/Lab Hours:
- 0
- Lab Hours:
- 0
Course Description
Intended Outcomes for the course
Upon successful completion of the course students should be able to:
- Examine the intersections of economics, history, culture, politics, religion, and gender in Asian American and Pacific Islander literature.
- Recognize the diversity and vitality of Asian American and Pacific Islander experiences and expressions.
- Analyze individual narratives as independent literary pieces and as part of the cultural and historical tradition and experience of the Asian American diaspora.
- Perform textual analysis by using literary terminology and theory to examine relationships between literary forms and themes.
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
Class meeting time will often consist of lecture, full-class discussion, small group discussion; individual and collaborative projects, and/or flipped-classroom approaches where concepts learned outside of class are analyzed and applied when class meets. Meeting time may also include the following: writing; researching; viewing video and multimedia productions; listening to guest speakers; field trips.
Outcome Assessment Strategies
Instructors vary on methods of assessment, but students will generally be assessed in response to their labor as members of the class community. In this context, student “labor” refers to all aspects of class participation, including time spent preparing for class (e.g., reading, annotating, researching); work products such as student writing (e.g, reading journals, informal responses, formal essays, summary-response papers); and active and respectful participation in classroom and/or online discussions.
Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)
Some of the central concepts of the course may include:
- Issues of language and rhetorical use of non-English languages.
- Issues of voice and aesthetics within specific Asian American cultural contexts.
- Social issues, such as family dynamics, gender roles, issues of labor and class, media representation.
- Cultural issues, including multi-ethnic identities, acculturation, connections to the "homeland."
- Political issues, such as immigration and naturalization policies, Affirmative Action, identity politics.