[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-597808-105":59,"doc-detail-597808-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","field-fragmentation-and-non-major-literature-courses","FIELD FRAGMENTATION AND NON-MAJOR LITERATURE COURSES","","The article examines English department identity and teaching priorities, arguing that fragmentation within the field limits how literature serves undergraduates in general-studies courses. It contrasts faculty assumptions with student perspectives, using quotations from golfer John Daly and discussions by scholars such as Edward Said, James Berlin, and Gerald Graff. The text highlights two intertwined problems: students’ dislike of required works and a deeper misunderstanding of what literature is, shaped by curriculum and instructional practices.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/field-fragmentation-and-non-major-literature-courses/597808/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/field-fragmentation-and-non-major-literature-courses/597808.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"SANS","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":19},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What problem does the article identify regarding non-major literature courses?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It argues that disciplinary fragmentation and curricular assumptions restrict how English studies reaches undergraduates taking sampling literature courses for general-studies requirements.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How does John Daly’s viewpoint relate to the article’s argument?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Daly’s criticism illustrates that many students resent required literature courses and also may not understand what counts as literature or why they are studying it.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What does the article say about students’ understanding of literature?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"It presents the concern that students who have studied English for years still show little idea why they study literature, suggesting issues in curriculum and instructional practices rather than only student fault.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},597808,1792694730,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":19,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":41,"preview_page_count":4},962090760505,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","The CEA Forum  \nWinter/Spring 2007: 36.1  \nFIELD FRAGMENTATION  \nAND NON-MAJOR LITERATURE COURSES  \nRichard C. Gebhardt  \nArticle Text  \nAssignment Appendix Useful References  \nDiscussions of English department identity and mission more often center on the undergraduate major curriculum than on classes for general-studies and other non-major students. In such courses, though, we have an opportunity to touch the intellectual lives of far more people than we do in courses for majors. So, as I will argue here, English departments and their faculty should give more thought to classes and teaching for undergraduates who take a few literature courses and who do so for reasons quite different from those which motivate English majors.  \nMy starting places will be two very different kinds of perspectives, one coming from influential voices within English and one from a celebrity outside our field. When Edward Said was President of the MLA, he wrote that we face “a new fragmentation, an often reckless abandonment of what could be a common intellectual pursuit in favor of highly specialized, exclusivist   approaches that destroy and undercut the historical as well as social bases of the humanities” (3) . And James Berlin began his last book by observing that “English studies is in crisis   [V]irtually no feature of the discipline can be considered beyond dispute [, not] the elements that constitute the categories of poetic and rhetoric [   nor] their relative place in graduate and undergraduate work”  \n(xi) . Comments like these sometimes appear in discussions of the intellectual and professional divisions of English, used to suggest a field-wide crisis of fragmentation or disintegration before a writer moves on toward some solution. I have both of these motives in mind as I write this essay exploring how fragmentation within our field limits the way English serves undergraduates who take a sampling of literature courses to meet general-  \nstudies requirements.  \nOne such general-studies literature student, professional golfer John Daly, evaluates his response to college literature courses this way:  \nI could care less about books and all that crap. I liked some of the classes some. I liked English   History wasn't bad. But World Literature and all that crap? I could care less about what happened, all these fiction stories about what happened in the year 1500 or 1600. Half of ‘em aren't even true. Who cares? Take a test on fiction? Something that ain't even true? It doesn't mean anything to me. (120)  \nDaly's point of view illustrates two related issues facing faculty who are concerned about undergraduate literature courses and the way we teach general students. The first is that many students don't like the literature courses they are required to take or the works they are required to read in those courses. The second issue is more subtle: students may have a fundamental lack of understanding about what literature is. Notice that Daly claims to have “liked English” more than some of his courses—though not fiction or world literature, which, presumably, he did not see as part of English.  \nGerald Graff writes about both these issues in a 1995 essay. Acknowledging the “dislike many students harbor for literature,” Graff notes that “[s]tudents often feel coerced and therefore turned off by the presumption that many teachers convey that “we all love literature, don't we—otherwise why should we be here?”(333) About the second point, Graff is less direct. He recounts a faculty friend's story about a student who asked why the class was reading poetry when it had been advertised as a course in literature. His friend, Graff comments, told the story as yet another sorry illustration of the abysmal ignorance of today's students, as if there had not been a time when he or any of us didn't know that poetry is a subclass of literature. To be fair, when I challenged him on the point, my friend acknowledged having recently noticed in a local bookstore ","cbCaibabQGkZiwUB","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaibabQGkZiwUB","pdf",54789,12,"English","# FIELD FRAGMENTATION AND NON-MAJOR LITERATURE COURSES\n## English department identity and non-major students\n## Student attitudes and misconceptions about literature\n## Scholarly perspectives on fragmentation and disciplinary crisis\n## Faculty responses and curriculum/instructional practices","[{\"question\":\"What problem does the article identify regarding non-major literature courses?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that disciplinary fragmentation and curricular assumptions restrict how English studies reaches undergraduates taking sampling literature courses for general-studies requirements.\"},{\"question\":\"How does John Daly’s viewpoint relate to the article’s argument?\",\"answer\":\"Daly’s criticism illustrates that many students resent required literature courses and also may not understand what counts as literature or why they are studying it.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the article say about students’ understanding of literature?\",\"answer\":\"It presents the concern that students who have studied English for years still show little idea why they study literature, suggesting issues in curriculum and instructional practices rather than only student fault.\"}]","FIELD FRAGMENTATION AND NON-MAJOR LITERATURE COURSES | PDF",1792085744]