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English 301, Survey of British Literature I fulfills a requirement in the English major at University of Louisville, but it is also a course that students from many other majors—typically History, Philosophy, Psychology, Biology, and Art History—take as an elective.  One of the challenges of teaching it is to make sure it teaches the technical skills that English majors need, like the ability to analyze metrics and poetic forms, but also that it has enough humanistic range to appeal to majors and non-majors alike.  Although it has a lot of “content,” I think of it mostly as a skills course; I want it to teach students how to read historical texts for themselves.

My syllabus gives this description: “We will read a selection of the writings of English-speaking peoples from 660-1733.  We will focus on the ways they constructed their views of the world and on the role of writing in that construction, paying particular attention to changing cultural values.”

When I first taught English 301 online in fall 2005, I was surprised to find that many of the students were majoring in Justice Administration, a program in which we offer an online degree.  This is a new “constituency” for the course and one I am delighted to have.  Their perspective greatly enriched the conversation.  I realized, however, in the first month, that they had not generally had as much practice in thinking historically as the students I was used to teaching in the on-campus version of the course.  So I worked to teach this skill through my responses to their essays and posts.