Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/Diablo Valley College/Composition and Literature: Reading, Writing, and Researching the Harlem Renaissance (Fall 2013)/Course description

This course at Diablo Valley College (ENGL 123) encourages continued improvement in essay composition through a focus on critical thinking about literary works. The course will increase understanding of the creation of aesthetic meaning and the use of symbolic forms in language and thought, and introduce students to several literary genres in the context of culture. Throughout this course, we will also discuss and explore where writing about literature takes place within new technologies and the kinds of digital spaces where we can perform and contribute to new academic work. Importantly, this is also a class about appreciating and enjoying literary pieces and the way in which artists and writers illuminate aspects of our world in beautiful, surprising, clarifying, and also troubling ways.

I like to keep the course cohesive by building in a theme. This semester, we will take on a small slice of literary history and “deep dive” into the Harlem Renaissance—a vibrant, complicated, revolutionary moment in literature and society. The dynamics of the Harlem Renaissance are not easy to pin down—it was a time characterized both by an awakening and promotion of black “intellectual” life in America as well as a revolutionary movement illuminating issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality. The amount and diversity of writers involved in the movement (as well as some that were not fully embraced) is expansive, the geography reaches beyond Harlem, and, just when you think you might have this literary period summed up, it quickly offers new ways to read it. Therefore, it’s a great moment to write about for it offers you a chance to enter it in your own way, explore, contribute, and reflect on its varied interpretations.

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