Time Schedule:
Kim Johnson-Bogart
ENGL 440
Seattle Campus
Themes and topics offering special approaches to literature.
Class description
Tracking the reader’s journey. We book lovers have had our hearts stolen, our minds remapped, and been transported to a different world by at least one book. Because you can never take the same journey twice, rereading a beloved book can reveal new insights, into the reader as well as the book. In this course we’ll focus on the experience of reading, exploring the difference between first readings and subsequent readings, discovering how the book is never the same and how we change as readers trekking across readings and through time. In addition to Anne Fadiman’s Rereadings, a collection of essays by diverse writers on the surprises and insights rereading brings, shorts from The Book that Changed My Life by Roxanne Coady and Joy Johannessen, and a modest selection of articles, you will work closely with a book you choose to revisit. This is a writing-intensive course; assignments include regular reflective exercises to log your journeys, formal essays you develop through rereading and revision, and a portfolio essay to sum it all up. To prepare for this class, begin thinking about some of those old bound loves you yearn to revisit. Works of literature you read several years ago when you were in another time and place will be good candidates. For now, please don’t start rereading! You have memories to plumb first. Hopefully, when you do reread your selection, the experience will leave both you and the book you revisit changed. And you, dear traveler, will have a deepened appreciation for who you are as a reader and the role reading can play in your present and future journey.
Student learning goals
know and be able to describe the histories, skills, abilities, investments, and dispositions that define you as a reader
understand the contribution of your education and major to your strengths as a reader
understand and characterize how you have evolved as a reader over time
articulate why and how reading matters to you and the role reading can play in your goals for the future
General method of instruction
discussion, reflection, small group work, individualized projects, writing/revision intensive
Recommended preparation
Class assignments and grading
Reading: selected articles, a collection essays, and work of literature selected by the student for her/his individual project Writing: informal responses, essays, a longer essay students will develop over the course of the quarter through writing and revision, and a summative portfolio essay Presentation: present selected reading to class
participation 1/3 writing assignments 2/3
