Assessment of Academic Achievement
General:
Assessment may include (but need not be limited to) quizzes, class participation, essays, and exams. But assessment must include a minimum of 2,000 words of formal literary analysis.
Specific:
Students will write at least one out-of-class essay of literary analysis that is at least 1,200 words in length.
Students will take at least one written exam which requires them to analyze literature; whether a single essay or multiple shorter responses, this expository component will count for at least half of the credit for that exam.
General Course Requirements and Recommendations
Required:
Students will read substantial and representative selections from the Hebrew and Christian bibles.
Students will read a substantial and representative selection of biblical passages that explore themes such as good, evil, love, war, family, wisdom, sex, death, faith, despair, power, justice, success, knowledge, deception, beauty, gender, ethnicity, race, and class.
Students will read at least three literary passages that centrally employ a biblical allusion.
Students will regularly engage in thoughtful discussion of the assigned readings.
Students will study terms that are essential to an introductory-level understanding of biblical literature, such as testament, literature, genre, myth, allusion, epic, plot, character, setting, theme, allegory, simile, metaphor, irony, proverb, prophecy, dramatic narrative, epistle, parable, midrash, apocalypse, millennium, exegesis, Pentateuch, Apocyrpha, Synoptics, and Wisdom.
Students will study (through assigned readings and/or classroom discussion) the cultural contexts from which biblical literature emerges.
Recommended:
Students should learn appropriate information about methods for determining the authorship of various biblical texts.
Students should take quizzes on assigned readings.
Students should keep a journal in which they record their responses to assigned readings and class discussions.
Students should learn to place the major assigned writers and texts on an historical time line.
Students should satisfactorily read at least one biblical passage aloud, either in class or in the instructor’s office.
Instructors should welcome and support the diverse identities, backgrounds, and academic experience of our students as essential foundations for college community.