One of the most difficult aspects of learning to do theoretical analysis is differentiating literary theory from literary criticism. Here's a quiz to help you do that.
Criticism and theory are synonyms for interpreting literature.
Answer
Nope. I know about the first, but I'm still learning the second.
Yes, and I know so because the Purdue OWL uses them that way.
Yes, and I know so because the LIT-500 course uses them that way.
I just want to be a creative writer.
Question 2
Question
The readings are
Answer
Different but easy. After all, this is a literature class, and I love literature.
Philosophy. Why are we reading philosophy in a literature class?
Different and difficult, but I just need to slow down, and I'll get them.
Different, difficult, and incomprehensible at first. I'll need the help of my peers and the instructor to understand them.
Question 3
Question
The course design is
Answer
perfect, so I'll make my way through this easily because of it.
not perfect, but it's good enough that I won't need any other resources.
horrible, and there's no help. I'm going to drop now.
imperfect, but there is plenty of help in the many resources to help you understand what you need to know.
Question 4
Question
In this first module, I
Answer
am free to do literary criticism since that's all I know, but I will work toward understanding theoretical analysis since that's what I'm learning here.
am free to do literary criticism because it's the same thing as theory.
must get this right because I'm expected to know and apply theory correctly in Module One.
am already confused.
Question 5
Question
Hacking Literary Theory is
Answer
what happens when my cat eats my literary theory anthology.
a video resource my instructor has provided that goes into great detail about how to do theoretical analysis of a literary text.