Aims

You are already a critic. The aim of this module is to improve your existing powers of analysis and communication when it comes to doing criticism. At module’s end, you should feel able to join and contribute to literary critical conversation, be that verbally or in an essay.

To that end, the module has several subsidiary aims: to develop your ability to analyse a wide variety of literature; to introduce you to contemporary critical theory and practice; and to teach you how to communicate your ideas precisely, thoughtfully, and in dialogue with others.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module has an iterative, tripartite structure. It begins with a focus on the analysis of literary texts. It then explores how to put one’s own readings in dialogue with the work of other critics. It finishes with a section on forming an argument and finding one’s place in contemporary, broad critical debates.

The choice of texts, critics, and critical debates will vary from year to year but will always be both broad and reflective of contemporary concerns.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Where possible, this module will integrate sessions from the Academic Skills Team to support its delivery of learning outcomes.

Each the three blocks of this module contains lectures and seminars.

In the first block, lectures introduce the module texts, model methods of analysis appropriate to each text, and provide some broader methodological reflection. In seminars, students will be supported to undertake their own engagement with module texts, and to explore methodological concerns.

Lectures in the second block focus on engaging with scholarship about the module texts. They teach ways of using academic articles, both explicitly and through demonstration. Seminars give students the opportunity and assistance to do this themselves.

The third and final block uses lectures to introduce contemporary trends in literary criticism, and invites students to reflect on their own positions in relation to these trends. Articulating such reflections and developing an independent argument are an additional topic for lectures and the focus of seminars.

Beyond lectures and seminars, students will be instructed, through the VLE, to undertake guided independent work, and encouraged to do their own independent study in response to their own particular needs as critics.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The mid-module formative assessment consists of a portfolio of work, each element of which will allow students to practise key elements of the end-of-module essay (analysis, argument, and presentation).

The summative end-of-module essay will ask students to make use of everything they have learnt on the module in order to produce a persuasive, critical discussion of one of the module texts.

The summative participation assessment will ensure engagement with the module’s teaching, while promoting student reflection on that teaching and their learning.