Theme-Based Approaches to Teaching the Sophomore Literature Survey

Abstract

In the last decade or so, the university culture surrounding traditional core curriculum offerings has changed. English departments have begun to reconsider general education or core literature courses that were traditionally organized around literary periods and nationalities. English departments needed to change the way they thought about the literature survey. What emerged for our department at Coastal Carolina University is English 205, Literature and Culture, which has quickly grown into a course that attracts a wide variety of majors and non-majors who wish to fulfill their core with a literature class. This article discusses ways to make the theme-based literature survey fit the university's expectations for a multicultural, humanistic elective while meeting faculty standards for academic rigor, and at the same time successfully introducing students to the pleasures and rewards of reading literature.