English 104 - Cora Agatucci
Introduction to Literature: Fiction

 Fall 2003 Course Information:
ENG 104 Syllabus | Course Plan

Required Texts for Cora's Fall 2003 English 104,
CRN #42856 (Available for purchase from COCC Bookstore) :

• Charters, Ann, ed. The Story and Its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Compact 6^th ed. Boston: Bedford-St. Martin’s, 2003.

• Tolkien, J. R. R. The Fellowship of the Ring, being the first part of The Lord of the Rings.  Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1994.

Some online/handout readings & in-class  film viewings will also be required.

Recommended for success in ENG 104:
Students with college entry-level reading, thinking and writing skills are best prepared to succeed in this course.  No previous coursework in literature is required, although such background is helpful.
NOTE: Courses in the Introduction to Literature A-list humanities sequence--ENG 104, 105, & 106--may be taken in any order.

Welcome to English 104 - Introduction to Literature: Fiction
Fall 2003 ENG 104 Syllabus | Course Plan

English 104 will introduce the study of narrative fiction, focusing on the genres of the short story and novel.  Survey of storytelling traditions and the Western literary history of fiction will establish contexts for study of significant fiction writers and works from the 19th and 20th centuries. As we sample works representing the rich diversity of fiction, students will be guided in analyzing fiction’s major elements (or conventions), such as plot, character, theme, point of view, setting, style, and symbol. Comparative analysis of these elements will develop students' appreciation their functions and contributions to the meaning and impact of literary works.  Biographies and critical commentaries by and about fiction writers and their works will provide additional contexts and approaches for analyzing and interpreting fiction. Film adaptations of selected literary works will also be viewed to examine the possibilities and limitations of different genres of narrative fiction.  It is Cora's hope that English 104 will enhance students' personal enjoyment and appreciation of literature as a uniquely human form of creative expression, and of narrative fiction as a richly diverse and meaningful form of serious imaginative play.  And no less valuable and instructive are the diverse interpretations and evaluations that even the same work of narrative fiction can generate, so English 104 students will be given many opportunities to present their own opinions and consider the opinions of others.

GENRE:  "A type of literary work, such as SHORT STORY, NOVEL, essay, play, or poem. The term may also be used to classify literature within a type, such as science-fiction stories or detective novels. In film, the term refers to a recognizable type of movie, such as a western or a thriller, that follow familiar NARRATIVE or visual CONVENTIONS"  (Charters 1048).

FICTION:  "The word fiction comes originally from Latin fingere, to fashion or to form," and "Fiction is usually narrative..." (Lynch): that is, a sequence of events is recounted to tell a story. In "Glossary of Literary Terms," Ann Charters defines FICTION as "A NARRATIVE drawn from an author's imagination, made up of an ACTION or PLOT of imaged events involving imaged CHARACTERS in imagined or imaginatively reconstructed SETTINGS;" or, put another way, FICTION is "lies told with the tolerance, consent, and even complicity of the listener or reader" (1047).

Contact Cora Agatucci

Homepage:  http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/ 
Office Location: Deschutes 14
Office Phone & Voicemail Messages: (541) 383-7522
Office Hours: TBA; also by appointment
See Current Schedule: http://web.cocc.edu/cagatucci/schedule.htm
Mailbox: Humanities Dept. Office, Modoc 226
Electronic mail: Cora Agatucci
cagatucci@cocc.edu
Fiction ~ Authors ~ Index (under construction & to be linked)
Humanities Dept Website:  http://web.cocc.edu/humanities/ 
Humanities Instructional Resources
(including some resources relevant to ENG 104):
http://web.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/