EPGY’s Special Topics in Literature Courses
Summer, 2012

Intended for students with a strong foundation in writing, EPGY’s Special Topics in Literature Courses provide students the opportunity to focus intensely on a genre, theme, or a single literary work. In these courses, students will be introduced to literary theory and will be required to complete reading assignments and written responses, participate in class discussions, and complete a final course project.

Classes meet once a week in the Centra virtual classroom. During the summer quarter, each class meeting runs for one hour and thirty minutes and student attendance is required.

Students may register for one Special Topics in Literature Course per quarter. Students currently enrolled in an EPGY writing course may enroll in Special Topics in Literature concurrently.

Course Description:
The Gold Rush is on! Join us for an exciting journey from California to Alaska as we make the trek towards the gold rich fields of the Alaskan Yukon as part of a dog team in Jack London's classic novel Call of the Wild. This journey will be an exciting, often violent, and tragic trip into some of the most rugged country in North America. Students will research London's experiences in the Yukon and learn how different elements of his years there serve as the basis for the setting and characters found in his book. We will consider the historical significance of this period of time, how London's readers would have received his accounts, and the ways in which modern readers can share in this experience. Our class will examine London's use of an animal perspective in relaying his tale. And, we will discuss the brutal nature of survival of the fittest as well as what it means to be civilized.

This course is a reading and research course in which students will contribute additional readings and data from various online sites which will help to develop their understanding of the novel, its characters, setting, and author. The basic literary concepts of character, plot, theme, and perspective will be introduced and the course will culminate in an extended piece of writing in which students incorporate the information that they have researched and shared with each other during prior weeks.

Course text: Online text of Jack London’s The Call of the Wild available from Google Books.
URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=VCo_AAAAYAAJ

Course Description: What does it mean to be a hero? In his epic poem, The Odyssey, Homer presents a story of human struggle and the triumph of wit as ultimate strength. In this course, we will follow Odysseus on his journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, encountering along the way mythical gods and goddesses, powerful temptations and both natural and divine obstacles. We will examine Homer’s poetics, the history of the Trojan War and Greek mythology, as well as themes of heroism, endurance and the bonds of culture and community. In doing so, we will seek to understand why readers have been enthralled with The Odyssey for generations.

Course text: The Odyssey by Robert Fagles, Homer, and Bernard Knox
ISBN: 0140268863; ISBN13: 9780140268867

For questions regarding these courses, please contact:

Rebecca Shields
Supervising Instructor of Secondary English
Education Program for Gifted Youth
shields@epgy.stanford.edu