American Literary History and Selected Readings - Volume 1

Author: Wu Weiren (Editor)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-07-01
Features: English majors in higher education institutions in China (including normal colleges and teacher education colleges) typically offer two courses in senior grades: "History of British and American Literature" and "Selected Readings of British and American Literary Works." It is advisable to teach "History of Literature" alongside "Selected Readings of Literary Works" to ensure coherence, as otherwise, a disconnect may occur. Therefore, it is necessary to compile a textbook that combines both literary history and selected readings. This combined history and selection textbook is designed for use by senior English majors in higher education institutions. The historical portion provides a concise overview, while the author and work section includes: (1) detailed introductions to authors; (2) summaries of works (if the selected text is a fragment of a work); (3) key selected excerpts, with brief coverage of older works and in-depth analysis of newer ones; and (4) annotations. In the classroom, teaching primarily focuses on the works, while the historical portion is left to the instructor for reference by students. Similarly, the combined history and selection portion is also left to the instructor for student reference. Combining history and selected readings in teaching can achieve twice the result with half the effort, yielding excellent teaching outcomes, which is the purpose of this book.