Literature Course

Lesson 1 • Core Elements of Narrative

Introduces plot, character, setting, point of view, and theme as analytical tools. Provides a shared vocabulary used throughout the course.

Lesson 2 • Reading Actively and Critically

Teaches annotation, close reading habits, and question-driven engagement. Active reading skills underpin every analytical task in the course.

Lesson 3 • What Literature Is and Does

Defines literature as a category and examines its cultural functions. Establishes the conceptual baseline for all subsequent analytical work.

Lesson 1 • Language, Diction, and Tone

Examines word choice, connotation, and tonal register as meaning-making tools. Connects micro-level language decisions to larger interpretive claims.

Lesson 2 • Syntax, Structure, and Rhythm

Analyses sentence construction, paragraph organisation, and rhythmic patterns. Shows how form reinforces or complicates a text's content.

Lesson 3 • Writing a Close Reading Analysis

Guides students from passage selection through thesis formation to polished prose. Integrates all close reading skills into a coherent written argument.

Lesson 4 • Irony, Ambiguity, and Complexity

Explores verbal, situational, and dramatic irony alongside textual ambiguity. Prepares students to hold multiple interpretations simultaneously.

Lesson 1 • Prosody: Meter and Sound

Teaches scansion, metrical feet, and sound devices such as rhyme and alliteration. Students hear how sound patterns create meaning and emotional texture.

Lesson 2 • Thematic and Imagistic Reading

Traces recurring images and thematic threads across a poem or a poet's body of work. Connects local imagery to larger conceptual arguments.

Lesson 3 • Speaker, Voice, and Persona

Distinguishes the speaker from the author and examines how voice constructs identity. Builds interpretive precision around who speaks and to whom.

Lesson 1 • Setting, World-Building, and Atmosphere

Explores how physical and social environments shape character and theme. Students read setting as an active narrative element, not mere backdrop.

Lesson 2 • Narrative Point of View

Examines first, second, and third-person narration and their interpretive consequences. Students assess how perspective shapes reader access and sympathy.

Lesson 3 • Short Story vs. Novel Dynamics

Compares the compression of the short story with the expansiveness of the novel. Students adapt analytical approaches to each form's distinct demands.

Lesson 4 • Plot, Time, and Structure

Analyses chronological and non-linear plot structures, including flashback and frame narratives. Shows how temporal manipulation creates suspense and meaning.

Lesson 1 • Theatrical Conventions and Context

Surveys conventions of Greek tragedy, Elizabethan theatre, and modern realism. Students situate plays within their theatrical traditions to deepen interpretation.

Lesson 2 • Dramatic Structure and Conflict

Applies classical and modern structural models to plays, including exposition and crisis. Students trace how conflict drives dramatic action and character revelation.

Lesson 3 • Character and Dialogue in Drama

Analyses how playwrights reveal character exclusively through speech and action. Students interpret monologue, soliloquy, and ensemble dynamics.

Lesson 1 • Reader-Centered and Psychoanalytic Approaches

Examines how readers construct meaning and how psychoanalytic concepts illuminate character. Students apply reception theory and Freudian or Lacanian frameworks.

Lesson 2 • Introduction to Literary Theory

Explains what theory does and why multiple frameworks coexist. Students understand theory as a tool for generating questions, not a fixed truth.

Lesson 3 • Identity-Based Critical Frameworks

Applies feminist, queer, and postcolonial theories to expose power dynamics in texts. Students analyse how identity categories shape literary production and reception.

Lesson 4 • Formalism and New Criticism

Focuses on the text as a self-contained aesthetic object independent of context. Students practise close reading as a theoretically grounded method.

Lesson 1 • Modernism and Its Experiments

Explores stream of consciousness, fragmentation, and formal innovation in modernist texts. Students connect modernist technique to the cultural crises of the early twentieth century.

Lesson 2 • Classical and Medieval Foundations

Surveys epic, tragedy, and lyric traditions from antiquity through the medieval period. Students identify foundational forms and themes that recur in later literature.

Lesson 3 • Postmodernism and Contemporary Literature

Analyses metafiction, pastiche, and the collapse of grand narratives in postmodern texts. Students situate contemporary writing within and against postmodern conventions.

Lesson 4 • Renaissance Through Enlightenment

Examines humanism, the sonnet tradition, and Enlightenment rationalism in literature. Students trace how print culture transformed literary production and readership.

Lesson 1 • Developing a Literary Thesis

Moves from observation to arguable, specific, and significant thesis claims. Students distinguish weak theses from interpretively rich ones through revision.

Lesson 2 • Revision and Peer Review

Applies systematic revision strategies to strengthen argument, evidence, and prose style. Students give and receive productive feedback through structured peer review.

Lesson 3 • Evidence, Quotation, and Citation

Teaches selection, integration, and citation of textual evidence in literary essays. Students avoid over-quoting and learn to analyse rather than summarise.

Lesson 4 • Engaging Secondary Sources

Integrates scholarly criticism to support, complicate, or contest a student's argument. Students position their own readings in dialogue with existing scholarship.