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Course Prerequisite: Completion of 620:005, College Reading and Writing, or the equivalent. Objectives of Course: o                   To enjoy, discuss, analyze, and interpret a variety of literary texts in the English and American literary tradition. o                   To gain a basic sense of the formal elements of literature, of the conventions of three main literary genres, and of the vocabulary of literary study. o                   To begin learning to think about how works of literature are shaped by their historical and cultural contexts, and by their engagement with the literary tradition(s) that they perpetuate and revise. o                   To develop the skills necessary to thinking critically about literature:  reading closely, asking questions, making connections, researching secondary sources. o                   To develop the skills necessary to write critically about literature:  generating significant questions and theses, drawing evidence from the text, incorporating secondary sources, developing logical arguments. o                   To practice the strategies of all clear writing:  formulating well-focused paragraphs, composing sentences, undertaking large-scale revision, editing prose to eliminate errors.  Texts to Purchase:   Paul Negri, ed., Great Sonnets   (Dover Publications) William Shakespeare, Othello, ed. Bevington  (Bantam Classics) Ann-Marie MacDonald, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)  (Vintage) Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper, ed. Bauer  (Bedford/St. Martin’s) Schilb & Clifford, Ways of Making Literature Matter  (Bedford/St. Martins Murfin & Ray, The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms  (Bedford) Useful Websites:   My home page:   http://fp.uni.edu/myles.  Official course web-site:  Log on from http://sparky.uni.edu/webct/public/home.pl (password required:  initial password is the same as your username, i.e. smithj1234, but you can change it to whatever you want).   Class Preparation:   Unless I specify otherwise, you are required to bring the main book (or other material) we are using that day to class.  Of course you should also have paper and pen.  Coming to class well-prepared will help you participate well in class discussion and will help generate good discussions that will make better and more fun learning experiences for everyone.  When you arrive in class, you are expected to have done the following: 1.         Read with care the works on the syllabus for that day, several times for poems and, if time permits, twice for stories and plays.  If you don’t have time to fully read a story twice you should at least skim over it a second time once you’ve reached the end, look closely at the beginning and end, reread key passages, etc., now that you have a sense of the plot.  Underline or otherwise mark passages that you find especially important, striking, or perplexing.  Note the year each work was published; if biographical information on the author is available, read it.  Think about what difference this background information makes.   When sections from Making Literature Matter are assigned, be sure to read them, making particular note of any information that is new to you.  I will expect you to be able to tell me what the section covered and what, if any, parts you want further explained.   As you reread/review the assigned texts (no one can do this on an initial reading):  Think about what is going on in these work(s):  How do you see the element(s) of literature discussed in the assigned chapter(s) operating in them?  Other elements?  What do you understand, or not understand, about how these texts are working, what they mean?  How do you feel about each text?  What shapes your response?  How does each piece connect with or differ from other works we’ve read?  What questions do you imagine are likely to come up in class discussion of these works?  What would you say about these questions?  What questions would you choose to raise in discussion?   Jot down some notes about these matters so you remember them in class.   2.         As you work through the process above, look up any words you don’t understand in a dictionary.   You can’t understand what a piece of literature means if you are missing words, and waiting until class to find out is not doing your job!   I also strongly encourage you to look up fuller definitions of any literary terms you encounter in The Bedford Glossary.   3.         When class begins you should be prepared to tell me if there are particular points about the day’s reading you want clarified and/or particular pieces or issues you would like to discuss.   Graded Assignments: Four essays, final exam, WebCT postings, informal writing   1.      Four essays:   1.   Short fiction essay.  Analysis.  2-4 pages.  Choose one story we read and examine in detail how it uses plot, character, setting, or narration/tone to shape its distinctive treatment of the coming of age story.  If you like, you may refer to other stories by way of comparison, but there should be no question about which story is your focus.  Whichever element you choose to focus on, be sure not to neglect the conclusion of the story:  where does it leave the protagonist, and so what?   2.  Short poetry essay.  Explication/argument.  3-5 pages.  Choose one sonnet we did not discuss extensively in class (it does not have to be from the book; many of these poets wrote other sonnets not included here, and there are many poets not included, especially modern ones).  Paying attention to the poem’s content, language, and form, explain how the poem both creatively continues and departs from  or revises the traditions of the English sonnet.  Depending on which poem you pick, you will probably have more to say about one of these dimensions – that is fine, so long you as it is evident that you are thinking about the possibilities for both continuity and change, and where on the spectrum you would locate your particular poem.  If possible, try to consider the following:  given that poets write in many different verse forms, what does the poet gain or accomplish by using the sonnet form in this particular poem?  This is a particularly important question for 20th century writers.   3.  Drama essay.  Comparison/argument.  4-7 pages.  The broad topic for this essay is “Shakespearean revision.”  You have two choices of focus:  A)  how Shakespeare’s play Othello revises its textual sources, and what the play[wright] accomplishes through these revisions;  B)  how MacDonald revises her canonical sources in Goodnight Desdemona…(concentrate on Othello, unless you’ve read Romeo and Juliet fairly recently), and what she accomplishes -- or doesn’t accomplish – for a modern audience through these revisions.  Whichever focus you choose, concentrate on aspects of revision you can say something significant about; be careful not to let your paper turn into a mere listing of how the texts you are comparing differ, with little analysis of why these differences matter.   4.  Researched essay/revision.  (Length will vary significantly depending on your topic and sources; many have been roughly 6-9 pages.)  College-level critical writing about literature is informed not only by your reading of primary texts, but by secondary sources as well -- materials that provide background on, or offer other critical discussions of, the work(s) you are considering.  For this assignment, you will take one of your previous papers for the class and revise/expand it through research in secondary sources.  Possibilities include learning how a story or poem fits within the larger range/themes of the author’s work; exploring what critical debate has taken place about a given work (or about a particular aspect of it); or seeing how your reading of a work might be influenced by learning more about its historical context.  It will be up to you (in consultation with me) to determine where you want to go.  A good starting point for thinking about this is:  what would you like to understand about one of the texts you’ve written on that you can’t know without research?   4a.            As part of this research project you will also prepare an Annotated Bibliography.   Following an in-class introduction to literary research in the library and research time on your own, you will assemble a bibliography of ten sources (books, essays published in books, or articles in critical journals) related to the topic of either your poetry or fiction essay.  Several these sources may be from the Web, but you should not expect to find the majority of your material there.  These should be sources that seem relevant and useful for the project you are working on, although you may include one or two entries for items where you question the helpfulness (they must still be relevant).  An annotated bibliography is a list of sources, cited correctly in MLA form, followed by a brief summary and evaluation of each source.   I will provide an example.   2.         Final Exam:   The exam will be held in the scheduled period during finals week.   It will consist of two sections:    A definition/short-answer section, which will test your knowledge of the basic terminology of literary study.  I will be giving you a list of recommended terms to study in The Bedford Glossary, and we will be defining terms as we use them in class.    An essay section which will focus on our work with The Yellow Wallpaper; it may also have a question asking you to address the idea of literary revision in a more general way.  I will let you know more about this section and about how the entire exam will be graded in the week before finals.   3.  WebCT discussion postings:   The class has an associated website and will have an online discussion component to supplement our in-class discussions.  There will be an orientation session early in the semester in which I will show you how to access and use WebCT.  The site has a number of features that I believe you will find useful and enjoyable, such as a calendar, course-e-mail, and a course chat-room.  Crucially, however, it has a discussion board, on which you will be expected to post comments (and read others’ comments) a minimum of ten times during the semester.  There will be several ongoing topics, and in addition, every week I will indicate a selection from, or question about, the assigned reading as a topic for discussion.  Your posts need to be on a relevant topic and at least a short paragraph (3-4 sentences) in length to count.  If you fulfill 10 satisfactory posts during the semester, and post on a reasonably regular basis (i.e. you don’t let it go until the end then post ten times in the final week) you will get the full 30 points allotted to this course element; if you post more or especially well, I will give you extra points.   4.  Other informal writing:   At several points in the semester you are required to turn in brief, informal written pieces, sometimes journal-style and sometimes more analytic.  If you do so as requested, you will get the full 20 points allotted to this course element. Grading Criteria:   Your course grade will be determined by the percentage of points that you earn, minus any subtractions for repeated absences, weak participation, or late work.  Especially strong class participation will strengthen your final grade if your grades for written work do not seem to me to fully reflect your overall performance in the course.   The total number of points possible for the semester may vary slightly from this estimate.     WebCT discussion:                   30 pts. Required informal writing:   20 pts. Fiction Essay:                           100 pts. Poetry Essay:                           100 pts. Drama Essay:                           100 pts. Annotated Bibliography:      50 pts. Researched Essay:                  100 pts. Final Exam:                                100 pts.   Total                                             600 pts.   Your semester grade will be based on the following standard percentage scale:               A            95%                 B-            80%                 D+            67%             A-            90%                C+            77%                D            64%             B+            87%               C            74%                  D-            60%             B             84%                C-            70%       If you are unable to complete all the work by finals week and wish to receive a grade of I (Incomplete) you must request this of me specifically.  I will not give Is to people who have vanished for most of the semester and make a sudden late reappearance.  According to University policy, the final date you may drop the class and receive a W on your transcript is Friday, November 2.   Format for Submitting Class Work:   All essays must be word-processed/typed in a plain, average-sized font, double-spaced, with approximately 1” margins on all sides, on 8 1/2” x 11” plain paper.   I recommend Times Roman 12-pt. font (as in this syllabus) or something similar.     No separate title page is necessary.   At the top of the first page of your paper (I don’t care which corner[s]), include your name, the name of this course, the date, and an indication of which assignment this is (e.g. “Poetry Essay”).   Centered beneath that, give your paper a title that gives some idea what it is about – do not use just the title of the work you are writing about.  Double-spacing between the title and the beginning of the text makes it easier to read.  Also, please number your pages -- do so by hand if you forget to do it on the computer.   In a separate page at the end of your paper, list all the texts you have used in the paper in correct MLA style.    All quotations from the text or direct references to passages in the text of the work(s) you are writing about must be followed by references:  for poems, cite line numbers; for stories, cite page numbers.   I expect both prose and poetry to be quoted in the correct form(s).  We will review these conventions in class; for more information about them, see the appropriate sections of Making Literature Matter or one of the many other handbooks that exist.   Proofread your paper carefully (spell-checkers help but won’t do the hole job [see?]); numerous typos and other errors you could easily have fixed make you look careless or indifferent and will detract from your grade, probably more than one or two honest mistakes in syntax will.   Also, be sure to save all your work on a disk.  On rare occasions papers do get misplaced during the grading process – or your hard disk may crash.  Don’t let this become a crisis.   Class Policies:   Attendance: Expected and required.  I generally take attendance.  Legitimate reasons for missing class include your own illness; a death or medical emergency in your immediate family; your required attendance at an official University-sponsored event; or dangerous driving conditions.  If one of these pertains to you, please notify me by e-mailing me or leaving a message on my office voice-mail, if possible before the class you will miss.  If a situation arises that will cause you to miss a number of classes, notify me as soon as you reasonably can so that we can discuss how we will handle it. Deadlines   Papers are due on the date specified.  They are normally due at the beginning of class, but I will not penalize you so long as they are in by 5 p.m. on that day.  (Do not skip class because you’re having trouble with your printer, etc.!)   There will be subtractions from your grade for late papers, increasing with the length of time the paper is late.  In those cases I will give the paper a “merit grade” which lets you know how I responded to the paper in itself, and the official “recorded grade” which factors in the lateness.  I am willing to negotiate extensions requested at least one class in advance.   Revision Policy:   You are allowed to revise your essays (in addition to the one you will revise and expand for the final paper).  If I give the revision a higher grade, it replaces the old grade.   However, you are required to meet with me first to go over my comments and your revision plans.   I expect substantial rethinking/rewriting in a revised paper; except in special, mutually-agreed-upon cases, I will return unmarked revisions that contain only mechanical or sentence-level changes.  When you submit a revised essay, you must also attach the original copy of the first version with my comments and the grade sheet.   Under normal circumstances, I will accept revisions of each essay until the next one is due.  There is not a long time between papers, however, so this means that if you want to revise you need to get going fast, so you don’t cut into your time for working on the next assignment. Academic Ethics: All students are expected to abide by the University’s official policy on academic ethics.  You can review this policy at http://www.uni.edu/pres/policies/301.html.  We will also be discussing in class how to work with secondary sources in a literature paper; I am assuming you have covered the basics of documenting research in 620:005.  If you have any question about what would constitute plagiarism in relation to your use of a particular source, please consult with me or, if I am not available, with another faculty member.  Keep a record of the sources you consult while doing research for a piece of writing; you should be able to produce all the sources you have consulted if an issue should arise.   Any work you submit that appears intentionally plagiarized (you attempt to pass off language, ideas, or a complete text from another source as your own, assuming or hoping I won’t be able to tell) will be graded F and you will have to redo the assign­ment from the beginning on another topic, under close supervision – a laborious and humiliating experience.  Final essays that are plagiarized in whole or part cannot be redone.  You will receive no points for either the researched essay or the annotated bibliography.  In addition to the above penalties, I reserve the right to automatically fail any student from the course for wholesale or repeated plagiarism.