Humanities Department offers new courses | The Trumpet

By Kim Rippeth, Staff Writer

For the Fall 2013 semester, the West Liberty Humanities Department will be offering a new class designed for non-majors to fulfill their general education literature requirement.

In the past, English 278 special topics classes were offered ?with the intent that they would be particularly attractive to non-majors,? said Humanities Department Chair Dr. Waller Hastings, ?but they haven?t worked very well.?

The new course is a literature appreciation class that is tentatively going by the course number English 202. Hastings said that this class will run in a similar manner as the music, art, or theater appreciation classes that are used to fulfill general education Fine Arts credits. The vision for the class is that it will cover selections of poetry, fiction, and drama from various time periods of both British and American literature.?

?We think it will better suit the needs of people who are finding themselves in English courses that they are not necessarily interested in,? Hastings said; however, if non-majors have an interest in a certain period of literature, they are still encouraged to take those classes.

He added, ?It?s not that we don?t want people who are interested in, say, Victorian literature in that class. By all means, take it.?

However, for non-majors who do not have an interest in any of the literature classes that are offered, this class will be a great alternative.

Hastings emphasizes the fact that this class is not intended to replace or phase out the special topics classes. In fact, a new special topics English class is going to be offered during the second half of the 2013 spring semester.

The class will be a three-hour course in fairytales taught by adjunct instructor Kristi Howard. According to Hastings, ?The class will be offered for two hours a day three days a week? and is a great opportunity for students that may have had to drop a class and still need a literature class to fulfill their general education requirements.

Students will need to get an add slip from the Registrar in order to register for the course, but any students interested in taking the class are encouraged to contact Kristi Howard at kristi.howard@westliberty.edu.

The Humanities Department has new classes that will be available for English majors as well.

Hastings said that for the last three years, the Humanities Department has been looking over the curriculum to see what kinds of things need to be changed and improved. One thing that they noticed was the lack of concentrated American literature classes.

?It was possible to teach more condensed periods of British literature,? Hastings said, ?but there wasn?t anything like that in American literature.?

This poses an issue for the English Education majors who generally are expected to teach a full year of American literature and a full year of British literature when they enter a typical academic system. To address this issue, the department has created four American literature classes that are currently in the course catalogue and will be offered in rotation beginning in the Fall 2013 semester.

The English Department is also in the process of developing a new graphic novel major in conjunction with the Art Department that will be going into consideration for approval this month.

?This program could be a recruiting tool for the university. People are interested in this subject,? Hastings said. If the program is approved, classes will hopefully be offered starting in the Spring 2014 semester. More details on the program will be available after the approval process is complete.

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://westlibertylive.com/thetrumpet/?p=4685

monday night football monday night football SEC Championship Game 2012 kansas city chiefs Javon Belcher express kindle fire