This class will explore the rhetorical and narrative strategies used by Chicanx writers to explore the themes of identity, culture, and discrimination in Chicanx novels, short stories, and essays. Engagement with these texts requires not necessarily agreement with, but openness to and respect for, perspectives different from our own.
Course Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the course, students should be able to demonstrate the following knowledge or skills:
- Compose essays that demonstrate an understanding of institutional oppression, prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination against a historically excluded ethnic group.
- Identify the historical and cultural contexts in which these works were produced and how these texts respond to these contexts.
- Analyze achievements and expressions of identity, self-determination, and resistance by a historically excluded group.
- Discuss literary works from the cultural traditions of a historically excluded group.
- Explain how works of literature reflect the cultural values and identity of those who produced them.
Course Content Outline
The course will cover a range of topics within Chicanx Literature that may include, but are not limited to:
- Identity
- National
- Regional
- Personal
- Chicanismo
- Culture
- Repression
- Spanglish
- Anti-imperialism
- Assimilation / Resistance
- Colonization
- The border
- Appropriation
- Acculturation
- The American Dream
- Discrimination
- Political
- Personal
- Racism
- Anti-immigration drives
Department Guidelines
- Students will write the number of essays required by the instructor, and will be required to participate in group exercises, or complete quizzes and tests.
- Grades will be established through consideration of informal writing, group work, discussions, presentations, quizzes, attendance, participation, and formal essays (which may be weighted). 30% of the overall grade will be based on formal essays completed outside of class.
- Grades may be lowered for late work or lack of active participation. Some instructors may require individual conferences.
PO4 should be assessed: Students will be able to recognize or articulate personal/interpersonal aspects of, or connections between, diverse cultural, social, or political contexts.
PO5 should be assessed: Students will be able to solve problems by gathering, interpreting, combining and/or applying information from multiple sources.