COURSE GUIDE W ix

COURSE GUIDE DESCRIPTION

You must read this Course Guide carefully from the beginning to the end. It tells
you briefly what the course is about and how you can work your way through
the course material. It also suggest the amount of time you are likely to spend in
order to complete the course successfully. Please keep on referring to Course
Guide as you go through the course material as it will help you to clarify
important study components or points that you might miss or overlook.

INTRODUCTION
HBET4303 Introduction to Novels and Short Stories is one of the courses offered
by Faculty of Education and Languages at Open University Malaysia (OUM).
This course is worth 3 credit hours and should be covered over 8 to 15 weeks.

COURSE AUDIENCE
This course is offered to all students taking the Bachelor of Education (TESL)
programme. This module aims to familiarise you with some of the key debates in
contemporary literary studies, and to provide you with the necessary basic,
critical skills to profitably engage with any text you decide to pick up.

As an open and distance learner, you should be acquainted with learning

independently and being able to optimise the learning modes and environment
available to you. Before you begin this course, please confirm the course material,
the course requirements and how the course is conducted.

STUDY SCHEDULE
It is a standard OUM practice that learners accumulate 40 study hours for every
credit hour. As such, for a three-credit hour course, you are expected to spend 120
study hours. Table 1 gives an estimation of how the 120 study hours could be
accumulated.

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Table 1: Estimation of Time Allocation of Study Hours

Study Activities Study Hours

Briefly go through the course content and participate in
3
initial discussions
Study the module 60
Attend 3 to 5 tutorial sessions 10
Online Participation 12
Revision 15
Assignment(s), Test(s) and Examination(s) 20
TOTAL STUDY HOURS 120

COURSE OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course, you should be able to:
1. Describe the contemporary notion of literature and debunk the many myths
surrounding it;
2. Outline the uniqueness of the novel and short story forms;
3. Identify the common literary devices and concepts; and
4. Independently perform critical interpretation of literary texts.

COURSE SYNOPSIS
This course is divided into 10 topics. The synopsis for each topic can be listed as
follows:

Topic 1 examines the field of literature as it has evolved over time. It examines
and explodes several myths or distorted understanding of literature, and it
explains the importance of the subject in Malaysian schools and for the English
teachers professional development.

Topic 2 continues with the task of demystifying literature, before moving on to

discuss more theoretical issues on the reading and interpretation of literature.
Subjects covered include the difference between summary and interpretation, the
concept of the Romantic Author, and the role of the reader in the act of
interpretation.

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Topic 3 deepens and widens your understanding of literature by considering the

notion of the literary, which is distinguishable from the non-literary, the
popular, or low literature.

Topic 4 examines the novel form through Steinbecks The Pearl. It provides an
introduction to the author, before focusing on tone, setting, characterisation,
foreshadowing, and metaphor.

Topic 5 picks up from the preceding topic to examine the novel form and the
common devices of simile, personification, symbol, and irony. It also revisits
some of the earlier-discussed concepts in order to consolidate your learning.

Topic 6 casts its attention on theme and how to excavate it in a text like The
Pearl. Three themes are examined in detail here: the nature of good and evil; class
struggle; and man as over-reacher.

Topic 7 is the first part of our focus on the short story genre. It opens with a
discussion on the short story form as squeezed in between the novel and poetry.
The discussion is then moved to two short stories by a Singaporean writer (Gopal
Baratham) and a Malaysian one (Che Husna Azhari).

Topic 8 examines short stories by three writers (Mansfield, Lee, and Hemingway)
from diverse backgrounds but who all use the same form to convey themes and
emotions to maximum effect. The topic also briefly covers literary modernism,
stream of consciousness, the short short story, and the participatory role of the
reader.

Topic 9 examines the works of two writers: Shirley Lim (Malaysia) and U Win Pe
(Burma/Myanmar). Their stories are used to tease out the intricacies of point of
view, as well as to deeper your understanding of the important link between text
and context.

Topic 10 brings this module to a close by revisiting some of the main ideas and
concepts covered thus far. The aim is to help you synthesise and consolidate what
you have learned, and to guide you through how to independently think about
and write essays on literature.

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TEXT ARRANGEMENT GUIDE

Before you go through this module, it is important that you note the text
arrangement. Understanding the text arrangement should help you to organise
your study of this course to be more objective and more effective. Generally, the
text arrangement for each topic is as follows:

Learning Outcomes: This section refers to what you should achieve after you
have completely gone through a topic. As you go through each topic, you should
frequently refer to these learning outcomes. By doing this, you can continuously
gauge your progress of digesting the topic.

Self-Check: This component of the module is inserted at strategic locations

throughout the module. It is inserted after you have gone through one sub-
section or sometimes a few sub-sections. It usually comes in the form of a
question that may require you to stop your reading and start thinking. When you
come across this component, try to reflect on what you have already gone
through. When you attempt to answer the question prompted, you should be
able to gauge whether you have understood what you have read (clearly, vaguely
or worse you might find out that you had not comprehended or retained the sub-
section(s) that you had just gone through). Most of the time, the answers to the
questions can be found directly from the module itself.

Activity: Like Self-Check, activities are also placed at various locations or

junctures throughout the module. Compared to Self-Check, Activity can appear
in various forms such as questions, short case studies or it may even ask you to
conduct an observation or research. Activity may also ask your opinion and
evaluation on a given scenario. When you come across an Activity, you should
try to widen what you have gathered from the module and introduce it to real
situations. You should engage yourself in higher order thinking where you might
be required to analyse, synthesise and evaluate instead of just having to recall
and define.

Summary: You can find this component at the end of each topic. This component
helps you to recap the whole topic. By going through the summary, you should
be able to gauge your knowledge retention level. Should you find points inside
the summary that you do not fully understand, it would be a good idea for you to
revisit the details from the module.

Key Terms: This component can be found at the end of each topic. You should go
through this component to remind yourself of important terms or jargons used
throughout the module. Should you find terms here that you are not able to
explain, you should look for the terms from the module.

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References: References is where a list of relevant and useful textbooks, journals,

articles, electronic contents or sources can be found. This list can appear in a few
locations such as in the Course Guide (at References section), at the end of every
topic or at the back of the module. You are encouraged to read and refer to the
suggested sources to elicit the additional information needed as well as to
enhance your overall understanding of the course.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
No prior knowledge is required.

ASSESSMENT METHOD
Please refer to myINSPIRE.

REFERENCES
References are listed at the end of this module.

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University Malaysia
Malaysia (OUM)
(OUM)
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