Download Literature and the Judeo Christian Tradition English 2903

Literature and the Judeo Christian Tradition English 2903 Assessment
Gothic Literature (Spring 07)
Goal: Demonstrate humane values, ethical behavior, participation in service, and an
awareness of the spiritual and religious dimensions of life.
Students read gothic novels and wrote final essays that considered the ways one of Gothic
texts we read during the semester presented moral conflicts within social systems. Each
student was asked to identify the religious, scientific or political moral conflict. Then
students were asked to explain whether the writing offered criticism of the moral conflict,
a solution to the conflict or simply presented the problem. Finally in their essay they had
to argue whether or not the work was ethical in its presentation.
The expectation was that students would have to grapple with their own sense of what
moral conflict is, how complex moral issues can be, and finally to develop criteria to
judge whether a piece of literature is ethical.
90% of the students wrote essays that revealed their own complex understandings of
moral conflict and an ability to identify criteria and evaluate what they believe is ethical
in literature.
10% of the students had no difficulty identifying the idea of moral conflict in the
literature they wrote about, but were not able to develop criteria or analysis of the ethics
of the piece of literature.
Overall I think the work the students did allowed them to develop some understanding of
how literature and writing can contain and reflect values and can demonstrate ethical
behavior. Though we did talk a great deal about spiritual and religious dimensions of life,
I did not include material that allowed me to assess student’s awareness. I also did not
include any participation in service in this course.