Shmoop Literature Courses Overview

[defscarlett]

Are the lit courses doable if literature is not your strong suit?

[Notgodot]

Are the lit courses doable if literature is not your strong suit?

Some are easier than others, and some are a lot longer than others. Also, some of the courses are just put together better than others. If you want to give them a shot, I'd start with Shakespeare's Plays. It's the most straightforward course, and how you do on that one will give you a good idea if you want to continue with others. Good luck!

[Notgodot]

Two more to talk about:

The Bible as Literature

I went into this one with a little misgiving. I have a passing familiarity with the Bible, but the only time I ever really tried to sit down and read it, I crashed into a wall of "this person begat that person" for pages and pages, closed it, and backed away slowly. This course was as much about the history of the Bible as the literature, and I was surprised to find that I enjoyed it. Difficulty: 5/10 Tedium 6/10

Western Literature

Here's the thing with the Western Lit (and the British Lit course, which I'm working through now): They each only have 8 units, but the content in each unit is about double any other Shmoop literature course, and many of the units are quite messy in terms of presentation of materials and association/relevance between materials. It feels like there was kind of a "kitchen sink" mentality going on when they put these together. Difficulty: 7ish Tedium: 8

[alleycat]

Waiting for the TESU transcript! This is killing me

[Notgodot]

Waiting for the TESU transcript! This is killing me

I know I said I'd submit now-ish, but with the holidays, I think it makes more sense to wait until January 3rd. In the mean time, I'll do my best to knock out the remaining courses I plan to take (Women's Lit, Brit Lit, Intro to Poetry, U.S. History 1). I may go back and take American Lit once my JST transcript is evaluated, if my American Lit CLEP doesn't appear. Contemporary Lit will probably remain forever a mystery banghead

[Notgodot]

So I got word from Shmoop that they couldn't recover my progress for the Women's Literature class. They were very nice about it and offered to refund my second month's subscription, if I continued for another month. I won't - I've only got three courses left to take, and two weeks-ish left on my subscription. But it was nice of them to offer.

I went ahead and retook the four unit tests that had been wiped out, and finished up the course last night (no further problems):

Women's Literature

Eight units, interesting material. Some overlap with other courses, like Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, but again, the test questions are not cut and paste. Advice: the Shmoop summaries for the novels are enough to pass, but you'll have to read the poetry. Most of it is quite good anyway (Emily Dickinson FTW!) so it won't be too traumatizing. Note: There is, unsurprisingly, a strong feminist slant to the course, which is quite proper, but that sometimes comes out in less cool ways, as when the material presents texts as overtly feminist that just, well, aren't. It's situations like this where I do wish I was in a classroom setting, and could discuss the material with the instructor and other students, instead of sitting in my kitchen shaking my head. Difficulty:5/10 Tedium: 5/10

[Notgodot]

British Literature

Maybe I'm just feeling the effects of doing too many classes back to back, but this was the most brutal, grueling, and tedious one of them all. I used to love Jane Eyre. Now I think every copy should be hurled into a fire. Same with 1984. Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Me, that's who. But I'm not bitter or anything.

Difficulty: 7.5 Tedium: 11.93

[dfrecore]

British Literature

Maybe I'm just feeling the effects of doing too many classes back to back, but this was the most brutal, grueling, and tedious one of them all. I used to love Jane Eyre. Now I think every copy should be hurled into a fire. Same with 1984. Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf? Me, that's who. But I'm not bitter or anything.

Difficulty: 7.5 Tedium: 11.93

It's awesome that you're doing all these and reviewing them like this! But, I can see why going through all of these courses in so short of a time would be grueling.

Now, to see what they come into TESU as...

[Notgodot]

Introduction to Poetry

...and we have reached the end. Unless my Army transcript doesn't have my American Lit CLEP on it, in which case I'll quickly swing back around and complete Shmoop's American Lit (I expect it'll be much like British Lit, so... not really looking forward to that) before my month's subscription expires. But we're here to talk about poetry!

This one was weird. The units were a mix between really rather easy and hellishly long and difficult. There are lots and lots of terms that you'll, uh, have to come to terms with. I highly suggest you make yourself a reference sheet, because if you try to keep all the tabs open, you'll have far too many open to actually know what each tab is open for. It's a little grueling, but I got it done in a day. I've had poetry classes before, however, so I was familiar with most of the terms, after I knocked the dust off that part of my brain. If you're completely new to reading poetry, take the time you need to absorb the concepts. Don't try to rush it.

Overall difficulty: 8/10 Overall tedium: 7/10

Thank you, and goodnight. You've been a great crowd

[jsd]

Congrats on working your way through all of these! It'll be a bummer as we all wait for the evaluation to see what credit they give you, but so many of us are interested