English Department Knowledge Base

Constructing a Toolkit for English 10 …

English 10 will be a required course for undergraduates entering the English major in, or after, the Fall quarter of 2002.

This is a selection of syllabi and assignments taken from the English 10 Tooolkit which is preserved in Dana Spoonerow’s office to help you when planning your own English 10 Course.

What works? What Doesn’t? Contribute your own ideas to this eternal work in progress.

February 20, 2002

Introduction to the English 10 Toolkit

As a result of the undergraduate meetings of 2000-2001, it was decided that the following statement be used as a guideline for teachers of English 10:

"English 10 should teach students to interpret a variety of literary works, including poetry, enabling them to participate in the discourse of literary studies. In practical terms, the course will teach students to do close readings, to develop an interpretation of a text, to use evidence from the text to support their interpretations, and to shape essays appropriate to upper-division literature classes. In addition, instructors may also wish to teach students how historical context affects the meaning of a text, how to read critical essays and use them in their own interpretive essays, how to revise their own writing, and how different critical approaches (or theories) ask different questions of a text and produce different interpretations. Students will be expected to develop their writing throughout the term and produce a series of essays, totaling approximately 4,000 words.

The literary content of the course will be decided by the individual instructors, with some emphasis on poetry. Instructors are encouraged to teach the fundamental vocabulary of literary analysis and the basics of MLA style."

The following course description was submitted for English 10, effective Fall 2002, and appears in the catalog as such:

"Acquaints students with purposes and tools of literary interpretation. Introduces techniques and vocabulary of analytic discussion and critical writing. Some emphasis will be on poetry with attention also to drama, essay and the novel."

S. D. Blau
Fall, 2001
ENGLISH 10: INTRODUCTION TO LITERATURE

Texts: The Norton Anthology of Poetry

The Story and Its Writer (5th Ed), ed. Ann Charters

Sharon Olds, The Gold Cell

Additional readings, TBA

Reading Assignments

The readings assigned for this course will include a large body of work selected by the instructor and a somewhat smaller body of work selected by students. All of the instructor's selections and some of the student-selected work will become part of our shared syllabus and serve as common texts for discussions and critical experiments in class. This common body of texts will include representative poems and poets from various periods of English and American literary history; all the poems in Sharon Olds' The Gold Cell, a broadly representative selection of short stories; plus some additional readings assigned to provide critical and cultural contexts for the assigned literary works and to introduce particular theoretical or critical perspectives.

Writing Assignments

A. Reading Log. Every student will be required to maintain a reading log to record impressions of, responses to, and reflections on assigned and self-selected literary works as they are being read and studied and at the conclusion of each reading. These logs should be useful to you in several ways. First, they will help you to notice what you notice as you read -- the first step toward becoming an independent and powerful reader. Recording what you notice in your log will also help you discover the value of your own impressions, observations, questions, and other responses as starting points for discussions of literary works. Your log will also provide you with a place to do some low-stakes writing, experimenting with critical approaches and new strategies of analysis introduced to you in this course. Finally, the responses, reflections, and experiments recorded in your log will serve as a reservoir of ideas and first draft writing you can draw upon for the public and more formal papers you will be asked to submit during the quarter. Although your log is largely a private document, written primarily for your own use, you will be asked occasionally to share some entries with classmates and to allow your instructor to audit your logging work. Your log entries will document your reading for the course.

Your log will be of most use to you as a resource and as a record of your reading if you will carefully date each entry and make it clear what text or segment of text you are writing about. So that you might periodically turn in sections of your log, it is wise to use a loose-leaf binder for your log.

B. Papers:

1. A Reading Autobiography. An informal account of your history as a reader from your earliest experiences to your current reading practices, including observations about what and how you read and how you learned to do what you do as a reader.

(Due Wed.Oct. 3)

2. Reading Process Research Report. This paper will be an informal research report on your own mental processes as you attempt to read and make sense of an assigned short poem. The idea will be for you to conduct an informal research study of yourself as a reader of a difficult text. Your paper will be an account of what you do as a reader from the first time you look at a poem until you complete what you regard as a satisfactory reading of it or the best reading you think you can manage in the time you are willing to give to it. Your report must also include a reflection on what your self-study reveals about you as a reader or about the particular demands of the work you are reading or about the reading process in general. A good research tool for you to use might be that of the think-aloud protocol, a transcript or portions of a transcript of a tape recording of you thinking out loud as you engage in the process of reading and trying to

figure out a poem. In class we'll examine some ways of engaging in this sort of study. The poem to be used for this study will be announced in class. Additional guidelines for this paper will follow. (Due Mon. Oct. 15)

3. Commentaries. These are brief (1-2 pp.) observations, reflections, or critical comments (possibly built on log entries, but revised as more considered contributions to a class discussion) on selected literary works. Your first commentary will be written on a poem you will be nominating for inclusion in our syllabus (see below). Others will be required as the course progresses.

4. Two Interpretive/Critical Papers. These papers may be interpretive or critical or both. In an interpretive paper you might examine and attempt to illuminate any text or set of texts or portion of a text (a short poem or a short passage from a story, for example) that may be said to be interpretively problematic. The purpose of such a paper would be more to reveal and explore a problem rather than solve it, although solutions or possible solutions would be welcome. In a critical paper you might discuss how a particular work of literature (or two or more works considered together) achieves or fails to achieve its effects, or you might evaluate what it accomplishes philosophically, or analyze how it reflects or enacts or subverts particular cultural or aesthetic values or contexts. Further guidelines will be discussed in class. (Due dates TBA, approx wks 5 & 9).

C. Experiments and Exercises. We will conduct a number of in-class experiments in writing poetry and prose and responding to literary texts in a variety of ways. Save everything you write for possible use in a paper and for submission (revised or unrevised) with your portfolio (see below).

D. Portfolio. At the end of the quarter and at midterm time each student will submit for evaluation a portfolio of all written work produced for the course during the quarter. Portfolios will include introductions to the work submitted and retrospective reflections on the body of reading and writing completed. Midterm and final grades will be based largely on the quality and quantity of the material submitted in the portfolio. Guidelines for preparing portfolios for submission will be provided separately.

Contact Information:

Sheridan Blau

Office: South Coast Writing Project

Blgd 402, Rm. 215 (Arts & Lectures Ticket Office Blgd.)

(805) 893-2510. For appointments call 893-3218 or 4422

<sherblau@aol.com>

<blau@education.ucsb.edu>

Assignments for First 3 Weeks:

Wed. Sept 26. The Goldilocks Assignment. Select three poems from our poetry anthology: one that's too hard, one that's too easy, and one that's just right. Write entries in your log on all three poems and write an additional reflection on what makes a poem difficult. Bring the three poems to class and be prepared to discuss the reasons for their difficulty or simplicity.

Wed. Oct. 3. Reading Autobiography

Sept. 26-Oct. 8. Start looking in the first two weeks of class for two poems in our anthology that do not appear on the assigned list (below) but that you think deserve to be on our syllabus as poems everybody should read or will want to read. At least one of these poems must be new to you, one you have never studied before. You will undoubtedly have to read many poems to find two that you would recommend as required reading for all of your classmates. So use the opportunity to write about at least some of the candidate poems (surely those you select and some that you reject) in your reading log. Be prepared by Oct. 8 to introduce your top choice to other readers by helping them to understand the poem and why you selected it. (Don't hesitate to read other poems by the same poet and check the biographical note in your text for useful information you might want to provide). Turn your notes and ideas about your first choice poem into a short written introduction to the poem or commentary on the poem.

Turn in your written commentary on Oct. 8.

Mon. Oct. 15. The reading process research report.

Weeks 1-3. Read as many of the following 60 short poems (all from The Norton Anthology

of Poetry and listed here in approx. reverse chron order) as possible:

Li-Young Lee, "Persimmons"

Dionisio Martinez, 2 poems

Audre Lord, "Hanging Fire"

Gwendolyn Brooks, 9 very short poems

Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays"

Stanley Kunitz, "Touch Me"

W. H. Auden, "Musee de Beaux Artes"

Langston Hughes, "Theme for English B"

Robinson Jeffers, "Carmel Point"

William Carlos Williams, 6 very short poems

Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Richard Cory," "Reuben Bright"

A. E. Housemen, "To an Athlete Dying Young"

Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The Windhover," "Pied Beauty," "Spring and Fall"

Thomas Hardy, "Hap"

Emily Dickinson, #185, 241, 249, 254,303,435, 465, 1129

Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"

Wm Wordsworth, "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge," "My Heart Leaps Up"

Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

Richard Lovelace, "To Lucasta, Going to the Wars"

George Herbert, "The Altar," "Easter Wings," "Prayer I," "The Flower"

Ben Jonson, "On My First Son"

John Donne, "Song," "Woman's Constancy," "The Sun Rising," "A Valediction Forbidding

Mourning," "The Flea," "Elegy 19...," plus Holy Sonnets #5, #7, #10

Christopher Marlowe, "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"

Sir Walter Raleigh, "The Nymph's Reply-," "The Passionate Man's Pilgrimage"

Thomas Wyatt, "They Flee from Me"

Anon (15th Cent), "Western Wind"

Syllabus: Introduction to Literary Study

Professor Carol Pasternack

Office: 2704 South Hall, 893-8429 E-Mail: cpaster@humanitas.ucsb.edu

Office Hours: Mon. 1-2, Wed. 2-3, URL: http://archserve.id.ucsb.edu/eng110/cp/ep.htm or by appointment

Requirements:

• Attendance and Participation in all class meetings.

• Always have the assigned reading completed before class and bring the appropriate books. • Missing and/or not participating in classes will undoubtedly affect how well you learn the skills being taught. Missing and/or not participating in a substantial number of meetings (3) may lower your grade; missing more may result in a failing grade.

• If you miss a class, you are responsible for finding out from a classmate what you missed before asking the instructor. If you are missing class because of a personal or family crisis, please consult with the instructor.

• For many meetings, you will be asked to do specific analytical tasks as preparation. You will be asked to hand these in.

· Attendance at at least one special meeting: a showing of the film Zoot Suit.

• Participation in all group work, including acting as reader for members of your writing group and a group conference with the instructor (20%). Much of this work will be done on the Web.

• Quizzes, including culminating quiz on last day of class (20%).

• Three essays written in successive versions, with the assistance of your draft group. For each, you will post each paper, receive comments from your group, and post a revised-version. For whichever two you choose at the end of the term, you will also post an ultimate version, for which will receive a grade (each worth 30%).

NOTE WELL: Plagiarism will not be tolerated in this class. Using the words or ideas of another person without the proper citation is a crime. Possible penalties include failure of the assignment, failure of the course, or even expulsion from the university. All cases will be reported to the Dean.

Also note: This syllabus is subject to revision.

Texts:

• Reader at Grafikart, 6547 Pardall in Isla Vista

• M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms

• R. S. Gwynn, Poetry: A Longman Pocket Anthology, 2^ndedition

• Steven Lynn, Texts and Contexts Writing About Literature with Critical Theory, 2^ndedition.

• Langston Hughes, Selected Poems

• Leslie Marmon Silko, Storyteller

• Dept. of English, UCSB, Success in English Courses

• Optional: Diana Hacker, A Pocket Style Manual

Calendar

The Text Itself

R Jan 7: Meaning and Pleasure. Translation (into prose) and loss (of meaning and pleasure). Millay, "Still will I harvest beauty where it grows" (R); Keats, "On first looking into Chapman's Homer" (110); Lee, "Eating Together" (329). Begin writing sample in class.

T Jan 12: Writing sample due: "The Purposes and Pleasures of Poetry: My Thoughts" ( 2-3 pp. Should be your own ideas but organized into an essay, with specific examples, if possible of quoted phrases or lines. Proofread!). The rose. Herrick, "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" (56); Edmund Waller, "Song: Go, Lovely Rose!" (59-60); Robert Burns, "A Red, Red Rose" (82). Abrams, "Figurative Language," "Imagery," "Lyric." Excerpts from Wirmatt, "The Concrete Universal" (R) on metaphor and role of critic. Advice: Read around in the anthology to choose the poem you want to write your essay about, due on Jan. 29.

R Jan 14: Against roses. Shakespeare, "My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun" (48); Millay, "Say what you will, and scratch my heart to find" (R); Parker, "One Perfect Rose" (199); Ana Castillo, "Women Are Not Roses" (R). Bring in a paragraph about the rose metaphor in one of the poems. The paragraph should be on a diskette (see below) and in a hard copy.

11 a.m. class moves to Pentium 333 Lab (Phelps 1526). Upload explication of a metaphor. Bring Your paragraph on Q diskette formatted for IBM-compatible machine, in "text" or "ascii" format or "html" (see "Manual").

T Jan 19: Against roses, continued: Modeling in metaphors. Abrams, "Symbol." The sonnet's confines. Millay, "I will put chaos into fourteen lines" (R). Also read Spenser, "One day I wrote her name" (43); Sidney, "Loving in truth and fain in verse my love to show" (43-4); Shakespeare, "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought" (46-7); Donne, "Batter my heart, three-personed God" (53); Milton, "When I consider how my light is spent" (61); Cullen, "Yet do I marvel" (206). Read Abrams, "Alliteration," "Rhyme," "Sonnet." Workshop on the senses of sound. Bring to class a paragraph on a central metaphor in the poem you have chosen for your Explication Essay.

R Jan 21: The difference of rhythm (scansion as an interpretive tool). Donne, "Death be not proud" (53); Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est" (198-9); Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" (221); Brooks, "We Real Cool" (226). Abrams, "Meter"; Scholes, "Music" (R) Workshop on scansion of quatrains; discussion of the difference the rhythms make. Bring to class revised paragraph on metaphor, with discussion of sound incorporated into the discussion of metaphor.

T Jan 26: New Criticism. Read the "Introduction" and "Critical Worlds" in Lynn, Texts and Contexts, to get an idea of the range of methods possible for critical writing. Then read closely Lynn's chapter, "Unifying the Work" and Abrams, "New Criticism." Also read closely Gwendolyn Brooks, "the mother" (225-6, and included in Lynn's chapter). We will discuss, "What important aspects of the poem has Lynn omitted in his sample essay on `the mother'?" Quiz 1.

R Jan 28: Thesis workshop. Bring in draft of your explication essay with thesis paragraph and also a paragraph that uses rhythm or other aspect(s) of sound to help explicate meaning.

Fri., Jan. 29: First version of Explication Essay due on the Web. Lab hours: 3-5, Pentium 333 Lab, Phelps 1526.

The Text and Its Readers: You and Others

T Feb 2: Barbie and You. Lynn, "Creating the Text" (to p.56); Cisneros, "Barbie-Q"; Soto, "Barbie. " For one of the Barbie stories, write down your personal response; in class, we will broaden that to "the implied reader's" response. Abrams, "Reader Response." Also, Schweickart, "Reading Ourselves" (R).

R Feb 4: Point of View: Whose? Paredes, "Macaria's Daughter" (R); Cisneros, "Woman at Hollering Creek" (R). - Comments due on Explication Essays. You and the Library. Lynn, "Investigating the Work" (to p. 222). At 11 a.m., we will move to the Library, Room 1414C.

Mon., Feb. 8: Revision of Explication Essay due.

T Feb 9: Reading the Other. Viramontes, "The Cariboo Cafe" (R). Mazon, "Introduction," The Zoot-Suit Riots (R).

R Feb 11: Viewing the Other. Zoot Suit: Maz6n, "The Sleepy Lagoon Case," The Zoot-Suit Riots (selections) (R). Abstract due of one critical or theoretical essay, on disk.

T Feb 16: Viewing Gender., Zoot Suit: Scholes, "The Elements of Film" (R). Lynn,. "Investigating the Work" (remainder of chapter). Thesis workshop.

Wed., Feb. 17: First version of "Researched Reader" essay

Texts and Their Contexts

R Feb 18: The Codes of Race. Langston Hughes, "Afro-American Fragment" (3), "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (4), "Aunt Sue's Stories" (6), "Negro" (8), "October 16" (10), "As I Grew Older" (11), "Dream Variations" (14), "Song for a Dark Girl" (172), "The South" (173), "Bound No'th Blues" (174). Abrams, "Free Verse." George S. Schuyler, "The Negro-Art Hokum" (R); Hughes, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (R), Gates, "Writing, Race, and the Difference It Makes" (R). Homework: in your own words, write down the thesis for each essay, Schuyler' s, Hughes's, and Gates's. Quiz 2.

Mon., Feb. 22: Comments due on "RR" essay.

T Feb 23: The Idea of Harlem. Hughes, "The Weary Blues" (33), "Morning After" (43), "Harlem Night Song" (61), "Trumpet Player" (114), "Widow Woman" (139); Nathan Irvin Huggins, "Introduction" and "Harlem" (R). Homework: In your own words, what is the thesis that Huggins advances? What is one method he uses to persuade you of its truth? In class: Blues tape.

R Feb 25: Bebopped. Lynn, "Connecting the Text." Abrams, "New Historicism." Hughes, Montage of a Dream Deferred, through "Tag"; Walter C. Farrell, Jr. and Patricia A. Johnson, "Poetic Interpretations of Urban Black Folk Culture" (R). What is the thesis of Farrell and Johnson's essay? What are its concerns? In class: bop tape.

Fri., Feb. 26: Revision of "RR" essay due.

T Mar 2: Hughes, Montage, "Theme for English B" through end. Thurgood Marshall, "The Legal Attack. . ." (R 2916); See also: Ralph J. Bunche, "The Programs . . . " (R). Homework: What codes of race does Hughes create/draw on? How does Marshall contribute to/draw on codes of race? In class: workshop on a thesis re. codes of race in the 1940s.

Optional related texts in the Reader: Alain Locke, "The New Negro"; Malcohn X, "Saved" from The Autobiography of Malcohn X; Miguel Covarrubias, "The Aframerican Cakewalk"; Carl G. Jung, "Your Negroid and Indian Behavior"; Hughes, "Slave on the Block"; James Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues."

R Mar 4: Storyteller (read at least through p. 42, eventually the whole book); Silko, "Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective" (R).

T Mar 9: Storyteller; Paula Gunn Allen, "The Sacred Hoop: A Contemporary Perspective" (R).

Wed., Mar. 10: First version of New Historicist essay due.

R Mar 11: Storyteller.

Fri., Mar. 12: Comments on New Historicist essay due.

Mon., Mar. 15: Revised New Historicist essay due.

T Mar 16: Storyteller.

R Mar 18: Course conclusion and Quiz 3 (cumulative).

Mon., Mar. 22: Ultimate drafts due on Web.

English 10 - Introduction to Literary Study
Instructor: Sumita Lall

Course hours: TA 12:30 - 2:10, HSSB 1237 (enroll# 15156)
Office Hours: R 2:15 to 4:15, South Hall 3432 H (green door)
Mailbox: South Hall, Sankey Room (across from 2617)
Email: s114tAumai1.ucsb.edu (checked only on TWR from 9-4)

(NB the instructor reserves the right to make changes to this document.)

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This course introduces students to various literary genres (i.e. fiction, poetry, drama), approaches or methods of literary analysis, and conflicting ideas expressed in prose about the value of studying literature. Students are exposed to different literary forms (e.g. the American short story, Victorian prose and poetry, contemporary multicultural poetry, the Theatre of the Absurd, the screenplay, and the postcolonial novel) while they are encouraged to develop an understanding of the different codes or contexts (e.g. aesthetic, economic, political, historical, theoretical) that inform both literary production and reception. The students' exposure to different texts and forms of analysis will help them to learn key literary terms, and they will learn how to apply this new vocabulary to literary texts in their own readings and in their discussions with fellow classmates.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

This course will prepare students to assume active or participant roles in the literary community by making them familiar with - and, therefore, initiating them into - the study of literature. Students will learn how effectively to communicate their ideas and intuitions/feelings about the literature they read for the course.

The course's overall intent is to encourage students, by way of exposure to a wide range of literary texts and to many of the concerns and debates within the discipline, to formulate their own arguments about the aesthetic, political, and/or cognitive value of literature.

In very simple terms, students should leave this course with the ability to:

a) read literature "actively" (i.e. read and reread texts slowly, ask appropriate questions, research unfamiliar textual references, take notes recording a set of impressions in a reading log or in the margins of the text);

b) analyze the literature "logically" (i.e. compare and contrast the use of literary devices, make meaningful connections between references in the text or between texts written by different authors);

c) write about the literature "critically" (i.e. develop interesting claims, make arguable points, attempt to answer a set of questions raised during the reading process, understand and apply theoretical approaches, provide comprehensive commentary on ambiguous meanings, TAKE RISKS!!!).

COURSE REQUIREMENTS and GRADE BREAKDOWN:
(Important dates: Feb 5 and 19; Mar 5 and March 18)

Class Participation ... 10%: You are required to keep up with daily reading assignments and to come to class prepared to contribute to class discussions. If you know yourself to be particularly shy in group settings, you MUST still contribute to discussion by taking advantage of alternative forms of communication (e.g. via email or by submitting reading logs).

Quizzes and In-class writing ... 5%: There will be a number of "surprise" quizzes that will involve in-class writing. These quizzes will test for basic reading comprehension (i.e. your ability to identify the text's main characters, basic themes, key moments in terms of the plot, etc.), but they will sometimes also ask for a "critical" response to a passage or to the set of works we are reading for that day.

Midterm ... 15%: For the midterm (Feb 19), you will be expected to interpret - using short-answer form - various passages from the literature we will have covered up until the exam. The midterm will also ask you to identify important literary terms (from M.H. Abrams' A Glossary of Literary Terms) and other concepts discussed in lecture.

Two Papers ... 20% and 25% (total 45%): The first paper (due Feb 5) will be a 5-6 page "literary" interpretation of a short story, either John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums" OR John Updike's "A&P." The paper should consider the many literary devices that the writer uses in his fiction, and it should also formulate an argument about the short story in question. The second paper (due Mar 5) will be a 5-6 page "literary" interpretation of a poem that the student will select from the unit on "Multicultural Poetry" (Reader 85-114). It should demonstrate the student's proficiency in reading poetry (i.e. the student should attend both to the language and to the thematic content of the poem). BOTH papers must be original interpretations, and they should indicate that the student has carefully considered and attempted to answer questions raised in class or during lectures. One can prepare for the writing process by

a.) reviewing one's reading log and lecture notes from class

b.) formulating arguments or debatable claims (i.e. theses) about the literary texts

c.) deciding on which arguments elicit the greatest interest

d.) re-reading those passages in the text that will help one to argue one's thesis

e.) keeping an open mind and taking risks with one's ideas

Papers should be 5-6 pages in length, should be written using proper essay structure, and must be submitted on time. Also,

a.) use standard 8-1/2" x 11" paper (white), and 12 point font (double spaced)

b.) include a title page, on which you will type the title of your paper, your name, the name or number of the course, and the date. Do not number this title page, but number the pages of your paper consecutively, starting with 1

c.) allow margins of l-1/2" on the left-hand edge of each page and 1" on the other three edges. (Note: most word processors provide you with this standard.)

d.) submit a final draft that is clean or without revisions which might have occurred in early drafts. Make sure the paper is stapled only ONCE on the upper left corner.

Final Exam ... 25%: The final (March 18`^h) will be an ESSAY EXAM. Students should demonstrate their understanding of cumulative material (e.g. application of literary terms from M.H. Abrams' A Glossary), but they should also manage the task of writing two essays in the allotted time. Six questions will be distributed in advance to help students prepare for the exam.

REQUIRED READING: -Selections from Fiction: A Pocket Antholosv (Third Edition); course READER (Available at Grafikart, 6550 Pardall in Isla Vista); The God of Small Things (a novel, Arundhati Roy); selections from London Kills Me by Hanif Kureishi (Penguin, 1992); A Glossary of Literar~Terms (7^d' Ed, M.H. Abrams).

IMPORTANT REMINDERS:

Attendance and Participation: Your participation grade depends on your regular attendance. The frequency with which we meet over the quarter provides us with the opportunity to engage in discussion, and this interaction with each other helps us to generate responses to the challenging questions the course poses.

Although classes will often begin with a short lecture, I expect you to take an active role in class discussions and group work. "Active" participation means that you are willing to take risks with your ideas while you attempt to present an informed opinion about a work. You can demonstrate that you are "active" by answering questions that I pose to the class, engaging in class discussions, expressing your views freely in small groups, sharing with the class your insights about the readings, and (if you know yourself to be particularly shy) discussing with me the class material either via email or during my office hours.

I will give you ONE excused absence during the quarter: for this SINGLE absence, I will require no explanation or physician's note. However, subsequent absences will lower your grade, the logic being that you cannot prove to me your enthusiasm for learning if you are not present in the classroom. I encourage you to save your ONE "free" absence for unexpected illness or emergency. Furthermore, you are responsible for whatever material you missed, including handouts, assignments, and announcements. Only after you have made an attempt to catch up with the course material will I answer questions concerning missed classes. Please do not email me with requests for missed material.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is a crime. Materials submitted to fulfill academic requirements must represent a student's own efforts. Please read carefully Charles Bazerman's essay on "Plagiarism" in your Reader. Additional information can be obtained at XXX, or XXX . Realize that I will deal harshly with any suspicious activity. If you have questions, see me during my office hours or send me an email.

SYLLABUS:

January 8: -intro to instructor, readings, and assignments; diagnostic essay (based on overhead prompt of a quotation from Cardinal Newman's The Idea of the University); terms from A Glossary of Literary Terms (Abrams) include "connotation/denotation", "figurative" vs. "literal" meaning

January 15: -"Paul's Case" (Cather 94-113); "Eveline" (Joyce 113-117); "A Small, Good Thing" (Carver 304-326); terms from A Glossary of Literary Terms (Abrams) include "naturalism", "characterizing" (showing/telling, round/flat), "epiphany", point of view ("limted omniscience"), tragedy ("sympathy/empathy", "pathos/ethos"); sections from Aristotle's The Poetics (READER 161-174)

17: -"The Rocking Horse Winner" (Lawrence 115-132); "Psychological and Psychoanalytic Criticism" (A Glossary Abrams 247-253), also "motif' (repetition); for help with your papers, read "Making a Mark" (Bartholomae et al.) in your READER 175-182.

January 22: = "Vandals" (Munro 271-303); "Where are you Going, Where have you Been?" (Oates 327-343); "Happy Endings" (Atwood 344-347); "Feminist Criticism" (A Glossary Abrams 88-94), also from A Glossary "allusion" (popular, i.e. Bob Dylan), "mimesis" (representations of women)

24: -"Sweat" (Hurston 142-153); "A Party Down at the Square" (Ellison 228-234); "Everyday Use" (Walker 362-370); "Barbie-Q" (Cisneros 410-411); terms from Abrams' A Glossary include "point of view" (first-person participant), "narratology" (implied reader/audience and, at times, a fictional "you")

January 29: -from the course READER: "Poetic Meter... " and "Metrical Variations" (Fussell); "The Flea" (Dome); "Upon Julia's Clothes" (Herrick); "To His Coy Mistress" (Marvell); terms you should know are "scansion", "rhythm", "accent", "prosody", "poetic feet" (memorize only iamb, trochee, and spondee... and their effects on a poem's meaning), meter, caesura and its effects, and substitution or metrical variation and its effects; terms from Abrams' A Glossarv include "tone", "diction", "carpe diem", "courtly love", "imagery" (five senses, also "kinesthetic" imagery), effect of "triplets" (Herrick), allusions (biblical, classical, courtly love), "ironic understatement" (figure of speech)

31: Matthew Arnold's poems and prose (READER); terms from Abrams' A Glossary include "lyric", "figures of speech" (metaphor, simile, personification, apostrophe ["thou lonely heart"], and invocation); classical "allusion", looking for "double meanings" of words, "paradox" ("longing like despair"), changing mood/tone of speaker ("pathetic fallacy")

February 5: "PAPER #1" IS DUE!!!

-finish discussion of Arnold; begin Thomas Hardy's Poems (READER); terms from Abrams' A Glossary include "paradox" as a theme (how can hope and desolation coexist?), "figures of speech"

10: -Fiction: A Pocket Anthology... "Introduction" (1-20); "Young Goodman Brown" (Hawthorne 31-43); "An Upheaval" (Chekhov 73- 80); terms from A Glossary of Literary Terms (Abrams) include "allegory", the "story"Ithe "tale", "plot", "setting", "point of view" (omniscient third-person), "modern short story", "in medias res", "interior monologue", "realism", "naturalism", "theme" (of class consciousness); "irony"

7: -finish with Hardy; discuss poetry of Alfred Lord Temyson and Robert Browning (READER), ); terms from Abrams' A Glossary include "dramatic monologue" (Browning) and "persona" (Tennyson's "Ulysses")

February 12: -discuss poetry of W.B. Yeats; begin discussion of poetry from Unsettling_` America (READER); also read the section called "Ethnic Studies and the Postcolonial Approach" (also from the course READER); ); terms from Abrams' A Glossary include "metonymy" (also a figure of speech), "symbol" (Byzantium), "alliteration", "invocation"

14: finish discussion of multicultural poetry from Unsettling_ America; read "Who is Ethnic?" (Werner Sollors READER)

February 19: MIDTERM!!!

21: The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy); "The Story" and "The Plot" (E.M. Forster, in the course READER); "Form and Genre" (Seymour Chatman, in the course READER)

Februrary 26: Roy; read "Orientalism" (Said, READER)

28: Roy; also read "The Gendering of Critical Discourse" (READER)

March 5: "PAPER #2" IS DUE!!!; read "Semiotics of Theatrical Performance" (Eco, in the course READER); "A Preface to Drama" (in the course READER); also read The Sandbox (Edward Albee, in the course READER); "theatre of the Absurd" (Abrams, 1)

7: begin discussion of "The Alchemy of Happiness" and "London Kills Me" (in Hanif Kureishi's London Kills Me 267-353); discuss Kureishi's screenplay; we will also watch sections of the film "London Kills Me" and compare the visual product with Kureishi's written text.

March 12: finish discussion of Kureishi; also, I will distribute the final exam questions (you will prepare answers to all six, but I will choose four questions from which you will answer two on the day of the exam... closed book).

14: review

March 18: FINAL EXAM

English 10/ Blau
Fall 2001

The Interpretive Project: Poetry

For this project you are to take on an interpretively difficult or problematic poem (or passage in a poem) and write a brief paper presenting the interpretive problem and exploring possible solutions. Ideally, in the course of working on this paper you will resolve the problem in a way that is satisfying for you and convincing to your reader. However, it is possible -- even likely -- that your work on the problem will advance your understanding of the problem and clarify its dimensions for your reader, but that your paper will still not reach any conclusion that might be called a solution or resolution for the problem you have examined.

This project and the study it entails will be completed in 2 stages, with each stage yielding a paper or a draft of a paper. The two stages of the project are described below.

Stage 1. The first stage of the project requires you to write an interpretive paper as described above on one of the seven poems listed below (all in our anthology). Your choice of a poem will be complicated, however, by the need to join a group of four to six students all of whom are required to agree on the one poem from the list that all the members of your small group will write about (or form your group with class members who come to class already interested in the same poem you want to write about from the list below). However you form your group with members who will be writing about the same poem, your job will be to write your paper and bring it with you to class on the specified date (see below) with copies for every member of your group (and one for your instructor). At that point you and the members of your group will read and respond to each other's papers and discuss the poem at length within your group during the class period.

In completing the paper for stage 1 you will not be expected to engage in any library research or use web-based resources (though there is no prohibition against them), but it would be wise to read the biographical sketch of your author at the back of our anthology and some additional poems by the same author. Stage 1 paper due Mon Oct. 29.

Read all 7 of the eligible poems for this assignment as carefully as possible, so you'll know what poems you'd prefer to write about at the class meeting on Mon. Oct 22, where groups will be formed. The eligible poems (all in our anthology and on our syllabus) are the following:

John Donne, "The Flea"
Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"
Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"
Robinson Jeffers, "Carmel Point"
Robert Frost, "Birches"
Langston Hughes, "Theme for English B"
Stanley Kunitz, "Touch Me"

Stage 2. This stage asks you to revise your paper in any way that you think will strengthen it, but with the one additional requirement that you now draw upon one or more of the papers written by your colleagues to support or clarify or stand in contrast to your own ideas about the poem. In other words, you are obliged to acknowledge in your paper the existence of a body of writing by your colleagues about the same poem you are explicating and to incorporate the ideas of your colleagues (at least one of them and preferably more) into your paper, either to illuminate or support some point you wish to make or to show a contrasting or opposing point of view. You may quote from your colleague's paper or paraphrase or summarize what he or she has written, acknowledging your sources by using parenthetical abbreviated citations within your text and list of references at the end. (Conventions and forms for citation will be discussed in class, well before the due date). Stage 2 paper due Mon. Nov. 5.

English 10/ Blau
Fall 2001

Interpretive or Critical Paper on Short Fiction

Your final paper will be on one of the assigned short stories (or possibly a pair of stories) in our short story anthology. The story you write about must be one that is selected by at least two other members of the class who will serve as your discussion group. You may explore any problem raised for you as a reader of the text or raised through class discussion or your reading about the story or its author. Or you may write an interpretive or critical paper on the story, offering simply to help a reader read it more deeply or comprehensively or pleasurably. Or you may want to advance some idea you have about the story or reflect on some idea you find advanced or illustrated by the story.

Any of the following stories (among others) would serve especially well for this assignment:

Carver, "Cathedral" or "What We Talk About..."

Lawrence, "The Rocking Horse Winner"

LeGuin, ".... Omelas"

Flannery O'Connor, any of the three stories in the anthology

Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"

Whatever issue you address or problem you explore in your paper, please be certain to do some reading about the story or its author or context and make some use of your reading in your essay. You may read any of the supplementary readings in our anthology -- readings that were included to illuminate the stories-- or you may use other resources that you find in journals or in books about the author or the story. The idea is simply to make sure that your essay is informed in some way by your engagement in a conversation that begins with discussions with members of our class, but then also includes perspectives available through the wider and more carefully constructed conversations that are represented by the body of literature about literature. Be sure to cite all your sources (parenthetically) when you draw on or refer to them in the body of your paper. Also identify them more fully in a list of works cited at the end of your paper.

You will need to read a number of potential selections during the week of November 5t" so that you can join a discussion group on Mon. Nov. 12 and select the story you will write about. Then on Wed. Nov. 14 you will need to bring ideas for your paper (and some draft paragraphs and notes) to class to discuss with your colleagues in your group. Your completed paper is due during the week of November 19, any time prior to the Thanksgiving holiday.

Pasternack New Historicist Essay Engl 10-W99

General Instructions: Write an essay in which you demonstrate how a literary text (or cluster of two to three short texts) and a nonliterary text draw upon certain cultural ideas and/or reshape those ideas or how they try to resolve a conflict in-the culture concerning certain cultural ideas. You may center your essay on Hughes's or Silko's writing.

• A concept you might concentrate on that was (and is still) under contestation is the construction of American identities-African American identity, American Indian identity, or the construction of American identity in a society many think of as multi-racial and multi-ethnic, or you might choose another category on which to focus your analysis.

• In any case, your thesis will either be about

• how the particular literary and non-literary texts contribute to the construction of a significant cultural concept . (basically a comparison essay)

• how recognizing that this cultural concept was being constructed in a certain way can illuminate ways that the literary text(s) contribute to or contest that construction (an essay which forefronts the Hughes or Silko text, as Lynn's forefronts the Cheever story).

Specific Requirements:

• If you write about Hughes, focus your analysis on

• one poem by Hughes that we have^-not discussed in great detail in class (two or at most three if they are short and closely related). These may be from the Harlem Renaissance period or from Montage of a Dream Deferred, written in the late 1940s.

• and one other, non-literary text from the "Hughes" section of your Reader. (If there is another text you wish to write about instead, see me about it first.) This other text should be from the same period as the Hughes poem(s). Append to your essay a one-page abstract of the text not written by Hughes.

• If you write about Silko, focus your analysis on

• one section of Storyteller (or two closely related sections)

• and another, non-literary text on issues of American Indian education and assimilation on Reserve for our class in the Library. As most of these are books, you will need to select a section on which to focus your analysis. Note the date of this text in relation to the date when Storyteller was published.

• Be sure that the vast majority of your paper consists in close reading of these primary materials,

• for the poem or other literary text, analyzing the contributions that ^-image, metaphor; layout, rhythm„ point of view, and other such concrete details make to constructing the idea,

• for the non-literary text, analyzing such details as diction, tone, order of points, and assumptions, as well as imagery and even metaphors as they contribute to the construction of the idea;

• Do not begin your essay with generalizations about the period (see Lynn, p. 114, for a list of assumptions red ected by New Historicisms). Do not make the essay about Hughes the man or Hughes the poet, Silko the woman or Silko the writer (follow the directions for New Historicism, not for Biographical Criticism).

To do the two close readings adequately and make explicit your reasoning about them, you will need to write at least 5 pp. Do not go over 7 pp.

• Document your sources, using MLA-style citations; that is, use brief parenthetical citations and a "Works Cited" list at the end of your essay. See Lynn's examples in his biographical criticism essay (pp. 135-9) and the pamphlet, Success in En 1' ish Courses, as well as the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (available at the Reference Desk in the library) and the Web site linked to "Resources" on our class page if you need more information. You will find full bibliographic information for the pieces -in the Reader in the table of contents. Be sure to document the literary as well as the other texts you^, discuss

Your first draft is due on the Web 5 p.m., Wed., March I0.

Comments are due Fri., Mar. 12.

Revised essay is due Mon., Mar. 15

Your file name should be "<first three letters of your last name>3.htm". Publish it under your group name and then "p3." Your comments should have the file name "<first three letters of author's last name><first three letters of your last - name> htm". Publish them under your group name and then "p3."