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A Brief Introduction to Critical Strategies for Literature

This session serves as an introduction to critical strategies used in upper-level high school and college literature courses.
Stephanie Carta, B.Sc.
Average rating:
4.6
Number of reviews:
(46)
Class

What's included

1 live meeting
1 in-class hours

Class Experience

In this one session course, students will receive an introduction to the different critical approaches used in literature. This introduction can feed into my own 12-week Advanced Literature course and will introduce students to the strategies that I teach for literary analysis. It can also be helpful for students going into advanced courses in 11th or 12th grades or into dual enrollment at colleges and universities. 

In literature courses, students are expected to engage in literary criticism, which means deep analysis. That is, they'll need to write arguments on interpretation, supported by evidence. That evidence can come from the text itself or from other primary or secondary sources which contextualize the literature. While this sounds complicated, the good news is that schools of thought have established different angles and methods from which to analyze. It's the students' task to understand which strategies are applicable for a given literary work and how to apply them. 

In this introduction, I'll briefly explain the following strategies: formalism and New Criticism; biographical strategies; psychological strategies; historical strategies; Marxist criticism; feminist criticism; archetypal and mythological strategies.     

The format for this course is primarly lecture because I don't expect students to have prior knowledge of the topic. There will also be time for questions. Students should have at least completed 9th grade English.  

Photo Credit: The cherubs of comedy, poetry, and tragedy in the Great Hall of the Library of Congress, open access collection of the Library of Congress.

Learning Goals

Students will learn the varieties of strategies used in literary criticism, relevent to many genres, eras, and cultures.
learning goal

Other Details

Parental Guidance
Political, cultural, religious, and sociological questions, as they're raised in literary work as well as in the perspectives of scholars and critics are all part of the core purpose of literary studies.
External Resources
Learners will not need to use any apps or websites beyond the standard Outschool tools.
Joined October, 2018
4.6
46reviews
Profile
Teacher expertise and credentials
I've been teaching AP and Advanced Literature for eight years, and my formal training in the social sciences leads me to an emphasis on cultural criticism and historical strategies. Most importantly, not only do I teach these topics, but I use them while writing literaturary, film, and music criticism for technical and literary publications.    

Reviews

Live One-Time Class
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$15

per class

Meets once
60 min
Completed by 2 learners
Live video meetings
Ages: 15-18
3-10 learners per class

This class is no longer offered
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