This Course at MIT pages provide context for how the course materials published on OCW were used at MIT. They are part of the OCW Educator initiative, which seeks to enhance the value of OCW for educators.
This page focuses on the course 21L.501 The American Novel: Stranger and Stranger as it was taught by Dr. Wyn Kelley in Spring 2013.
The course covered American authors and focused on relating the appearance of strangers to different kinds of strangeness. These sophisticated novels collectively illustrated strange places with strange histories, people with strange narratives or backgrounds, and how these can be both strange and estranging at the same time. This course used numerous tools, including Locast and Annotation Studio, along with writing assignments and presentations.
None.
HASS-H
A version of this course, focusing on the American novel, is taught one semester per academic year. The focus of the course changes each semester. Examples of past focus topics include ghosts, wealth and poverty, and the American revolution.
The students' grades were based on the following assessment elements:
Primarily juniors and seniors.
A range of majors.
This is an intermediate-level class, so students have had some experience with college writing and exposure to at least one introductory or survey-level course.
There was no cap.
Less than 18.
During an average week, students were expected to spend 12 hours on the course, roughly divided as follows:
Assignments were due during nearly every class session. For a detailed list of assignment deadlines, see the course calendar.
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On the following pages, Dr. Kelley describes various aspects of how she taught 21L.501 The American Novel: Stranger and Stranger.