Essential Questions and Answers
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This page lists the three essential questions this course has raised as well as the answers we have developed together through class discussions. |
1. What is the value of studying literature?
- A salary
- Building empathy
- Touching our emotions
- Fostering discussion
- Addressing the affective domain (i.e., rather than memorizing and listing the facts of what a horse is, such as how many legs they have [the cognitive domain], instead considering what the experience of being next to a horse is like or even of what the horse’s personal experience or emotions might be)
- Addressing cultural controversies
- Addressing the “collective unconscious”
- Conveying nuanced tones of the human emotional experience that are not easily conveyed otherwise and training us to become more sensitive to those subtle tones
- Providing a particular kind of experiential “snapshot” of a place or a culture not easily replicated through other ways.
2. How do authors and readers construct meaning?
- voice
- characterization
- sound
- plot
- narrator/speaker
- setting
- symbols
- figurative language
- theme
- structure
3. What is the significance of literature as a form of art?
- Suggests the interests of both the creator and the audience
- Conveys emotion and human experience
- Provides a framework within to discuss the important issues impacting human life
- Provides a space for artists to attempt to engineer new responses to the problems facing individuals and society.
- Can makes us form questions or unsettle our received ideas and beliefs.
