Shmoop -- Literature in the Media ("review")

[a2jc4life]

This class was a mixed bag, in more ways than one.  Had I been taking it in a leisurely way, for the sake of pure personal interest, I would have really enjoyed it.  It was interesting and thought-provoking, and rather fun.  However, when attempting to take it for credit, in a timely manner (for the sake of economics), it was pretty frustrating.

I don't know if I managed to miss something somewhere or what, but I found a lot of external resources required throughout the course, with no way (that I can tell) to know what those resources are before you get to them.  (I mean, you could read the whole course ahead of time and then go back, I guess.  But I didn't see a list anywhere.)  This was very frustrating from a time standpoint, because I had to keep waiting while I tracked down books, movies, etc.  And it got costly because it was, in many instances, quicker to buy a copy of something than to procure one by less expensive means (like the library).  

The navigation was kind of annoying, too.  After taking a quiz, the site doesn't return you to the quiz results; you have to open the syllabus back up (which always reverts to having unit one open, no matter where you are in the course) and navigate back to where you just came from, or back up with the back button.  After taking a test, you're not even in the course content exactly, and have to use the back button even to be able to access the syllabus.  This is rather clunky.

It seems as though some bits of the information are missing, and there are other bits we didn’t know we needed to look for. (For example, the course material expressly says to look at the fiction section of the NYT bestseller list online, and then questions about how the children’s section is sorted are on the quizzes/exams.)

Some of the articles linked to are stuck behind paywalls or otherwise unavailable/not readily available.

Some of the quizzes have questions that are “out of order,” asking about readings that follow the quizzes, rather than precede them.

All of this made for a rather tense passage through the course.  I was pushing it to keep the necessary 70% through most of the course, even when I thought I knew the material.  (In one unit I answered every question right on every quiz without even having to really think -- save one question where I couldn't remember which poem a given line came from -- and then completely bombed the unit test.  The quizzes and tests were that disconnected from each other in style/content.)

I found the final slightly easier than most of the unit tests, though, and did better on it than 10 out of 11 unit tests.

Required Materials:
(Note that some of these are more "required" than others.  I managed to fudge it without most of the ones that called for a single chapter.  Others are more extensively referenced.)

UNIT 2
The Hero with a Thousand Faces  (essential, but available here: https://archive.org/details/JosephCampbe...usandFaces  The formatting is kind of hard to read, so a print version is preferable if you can manage it.)
     I also recommend this: http://changingminds.org/disciplines/sto...ourney.htm
The Dark Crystal (Jim Henson movie, $3.99 to rent on Amazon; uses the last 30 minutes)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid  ($3.99 to rent on Amazon)

UNIT 3
The Fault in Our Stars (essential)

UNIT 4
Frankenstein (movie – $3.99 to rent on Amazon – and book – free online or at most libraries, both essential)

UNIT 5
The Tempest. (Probably available free online, and is certainly at most libraries. The least expensive Kindle version was 99 cents, but has “footnotes” that help explain some obscure words and phrases.  Essential)

UNIT6
Understanding Comics ($13.82 on Amazon; possibly at the library; essential)
The Incredible Hulk #1 (digital version $1.99)
Uncanny X-Men #1 (digital version $1.99) (or $9.99 for these two and others for a month)
Pride of Baghdad (Kindle/CosmiXology $8.84 or $9.31 for print)
I Kill Giants (Kindle/CosmiXology $9.99 or $7.99 for print)

UNIT 8
Inside Jokes (for one chapter)
Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor ($31.99 Kindle; for one chapter)

UNIT 9
The Graduate ($2.99 to rent on Amazon -- If you've seen it before, the Shmoop summary might suffice.)
The Image ($14.99 on Kindle or $12.85 print; for one chapter)
Decoded ($9.99 on Kindle or $18.88 paperback; for one chapter)

UNIT 12
The Gutenberg Elegies ($9.99 on Kindle or $15.98 print ; for one chapter)
“Hills Like White Elephants” (short story by Hemingway, in anthology for about $15; I was able to locate an online version.)
Send 

[dfrecore]

Wait, so you have to pay additional money for all of the sources?? I thought these courses were a monthly fee, with no additional cost? The fees you listed would make this a pretty pricey course!

[a2jc4life]

Wait, so you have to pay additional money for all of the sources??  I thought these courses were a monthly fee, with no additional cost?  The fees you listed would make this a pretty pricey course!

I agree.  I was under the impression these courses were pretty self-contained, and was disappointed to find that so many outside sources were required, without advance warning.  I'd guess you can get most, if not all, of them from a local library (all of the absolutely essential ones, anyway), but then it might end up costing you time.  It just depends on your library's available resources and your timing.

[Ideas]

Hm, I don't look forward to doing more Lit courses at Shmoop. Maybe I won't.

[Flying-Ace]

My sister took the class without the additional reading material. She managed to pass. She thought it was very much worth the effort for an UL 3-credit course. No papers to write was a big time-saving payoff for the hassle of trudging through the Shmoopiness.
Literature in the Media transferred to TESU as LIT-430 Literature and the Media

[socsci]

There are summaries available for the vast majority of the literature material on Shmoop.
The summaries along with the important character, themes and analysis sections are actually enough to pass the courses. A lot of answers can be found in these sections and it is best to have another tab open with the guide when taking a test.

For example: https://www.shmoop.com/fault-in-our-stars/
Click summary on the left for a summary of every chapter.

Other literature summaries are here: https://www.shmoop.com/literature/
Poetry summaries are here: https://www.shmoop.com/poetry/