Shmoop Literature Courses Overview

[Notgodot]

I thought it would be useful to create a separate thread commenting on each of the Shmoop Literature courses are like, as I make my way through them. I plan on taking most, if not all of the courses. I'll keep updating this original post.

If you are not familiar with how Shmoop delivers their content, you should take a moment to look over this post by OakLakeNC. This pretty much says it all.

Contemporary Literature: Nope. Just nope.

Modernist Literature: I completed this one in about 12 hours (24 with sleep and life stuff thrown in). I was familiar with much of the material beforehand. It consists of four units (3 unit tests and a final). Advice: Don't skip the activities, keep all your links open in the browser, especially the ones that link to Shmoop website summaries and plot analyses, etc. 6/10 for difficulty. 5/10 for tedium (higher numbers are, uh, not good).

Literature in the Media: 12 units. This one you can't conquer in a day. Or even two. Units vary in difficulty. You will be forced to learn about things you have consciously avoided until now (The Fault In Our Stars, in my case), which will make you bitter. Okay, I may be projecting. Difficulty: 7ish. Teduim: 8.

More to come.

[OakLakeNC]

I did like Literature courses I took through Shmoop. (Bible, Holocaust and started Poetry) But I can get through Study.com courses so much faster. I wish Shmoop was more straight forward. You read bits and pieces of so many different things. There is some silliness in their writings too. That gets old. And the jumping from link to link annoying. I had to give up Poetry when it got to understanding the different types of rhythms. The first 4 or so units went by smoothly. But getting a grasp on the rhythms was going to take more time than I was willing to sacrifice. I learned a lot from Holocaust. Very good material, makes up for the insanity of the course layout. Bible I just went to the exams. I usually knew all but 3/4 questions. Usually archeological or who wrote what book type questions I needed to look up. I used the search box on the Shmoop site. Then on the final exam I didn't need to look up anything, probably half were repeat questions.

[alleycat]

I can't wait to see how TESU places these courses on a transcript! Please keep us posted!

[Notgodot]

Next review:

Drugs in Literature

This one I finished in about six hours. Again, it was helpful that I'd read a fair bit of the material. Is it absolutely necessary that you read the texts? No. You can probably squeak by just with the Shmoop chapter summaries and character descriptions. But it helps.

It was laid out very similarly to the Modernist lit course - 4 units - and had approximately the same amount of material to cover. Speaking of material, there is some overlap between this, Modernist Lit, Contemporary Lit and Lit in the Media. The question materials and study aids are not copy/paste, however. Difficultly: 6ish. Tedium: 5ish. Frigging Moonstone I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, but Neuromancer is one of my favorite novels ever.

[alleycat]

Can't wait to see the TESU transcript for these guys! When are you sending it in?

[Notgodot]

Can't wait to see the TESU transcript for these guys! When are you sending it in?

I just finished Holocaust Lit; I'll complete Women's Lit and Shakespeare's Plays, then submit. Maybe another week, maybe less. That would be all the ones that have a reasonable chance to get upper level credit, as KayV points out.


And then TESU will take who-knows-how-long to evaluate (20 business days)

[Notgodot]

Three more to add to the pile (sort of):

Shakespeare's Plays

If you're afraid of this course, don't be. Reading the Shmoop summaries should be enough to get a passing grade. The sumaries are long, but not as long as the plays themselves, thankfully. Difficulty: 3/10, Tedium: 5/10


Women's Literature

Things didn't go so well here. Not because of the material, which was fine and interesting, but because of some sort of programming bug. I passed the first three unit tests, and completed the fourth. When I hit the finished button on the fourth unit test, the page got hung up. after about five minutes, I hit refresh, and somehow that wiped out all my progress on the entire course. I've put in a ticket. I don't know if the problem is specific to the course, but until it is cleared up, you should steer clear of this one to be safe.

Holocaust Lit

Barely passed this one. Not because there's anything wrong with the material, but for personal reasons - it's just too bleak a subject for me to want to invest in at this point in my life. So I rushed through the material just to be done with it. Difficulty: 7 Tedium: 6

[alleycat]

You are a Shmoop Rock Star!:hurray::hurray: I am just waiting to see how this all goes on that transcript!

[Notgodot]

Literature is the only academic area I've ever been pretty decent at. It sort of makes up for the fact that any math higher than arithmetic is like a foreign language to me. Ditto science.

I also want to be able to report back where these classes slot in at TESU. These forums have been invaluable to me; it makes me happy to be able to pay back the debt with a little knowledge for everybody else.

[socsci]

Literature is the only academic area I've ever been pretty decent at. It sort of makes up for the fact that any math higher than arithmetic is like a foreign language to me. Ditto science.

I also want to be able to report back where these classes slot in at TESU. These forums have been invaluable to me; it makes me happy to be able to pay back the debt with a little knowledge for everybody else.

Thanks for sharing your experience with these, I was looking at taking a few courses myself and this really helps.