ENG 204: Introduction To Contemporary Literature

Course Description

This course explores currently important works in American literature. We will be reading fiction generally agreed upon as "best" from the last few years. Students can expect to leave class with a better understanding of the breadth of what counts as "literature" in America in 2014

Course Schedule

There are two components to the course schedule. One is a note about how to listen to the class podcasts. The other is a schedule of due dates for class components.

Podcast Listening

Much of this class is free-form, in the sense that you have a set amount of reading to finish before a certain date. However, I do provide podcasts to help move you through each of the books we will be looking at in this class.

For each book, there will be an introductory podcast and a set of my own responses to the novel for each response you have to write. You should listen to the introductory podcast before you begin the novel. Each of these introductions gives background on the novel and also explains a little about what to look for as you read the novel. You should listen to each of the response podcasts before writing your own response. The response podcasts contain quotations that can be used on exams.

Due Dates

The reading in this class works out to 35 pages of reading, roughly per day over the course of the semester. You need to be aware that this is the vast majority of your work in this class (other than keeping your reading journal, which you can do at any point before the date on which the entry is due), and, while I do not think this is an unreasonable amount of reading (roughly 1 hour a night), it is a lot of reading. If you find that you cannot meet this commitment, please consider dropping the course.

Your Browser Does Not Meet Class Requirements

For this class, you are required to have a more modern web browser than Internet Explorer 8, the browser you are using. IE8 is 5 years out of date with regards to web standards, riddled with security errors, and no longer supported or maintained by Microsoft.

To view course content, you are required to install a more modern browser. I recommend downloading and installing the newest version of Mozilla Firefox. It is easy to install, compatible with a broad range of websites, and runs on many old computers.

When you have installed the required browser for this course, please return here to read the syllabus.

Help

Here are instructions for installing Firefox on Windows.

Basic information literacy as a prerequisite for this course. If you are having trouble installing a working browser, contact ASU support or consider dropping this course.