FALL 2002      ENGLISH 104-02:  APPROACH TO LITERATURE        K.  Meyers

                                             WRITING  INTENSIVE

 

The purpose of this course is to increase your enjoyment of literature by helping you to discover meaning and relevance in what you read.  We will read, analyze, and discuss poetry, fiction, drama, and nonfiction essays grouped under four main themes:  Women and Men, Money and Work, Varieties of Protest, and Peace and War.  Because the course is writing intensive, you will use both informal and formal writing assignments as a way of exploring the texts we are reading.

 

Learning Goals:

 

By the end of the semester you should feel comfortable and competent in these areas:

·         Recognizing the characteristic elements of four literary genres

·         Knowing how to approach the reading of each genre – how to read closely and critically

·         Understanding how literature both reflects and emerges from its social and historical contexts

·         Using writing to explore and expand your awareness of literature’s relevance to your life

·         Building and communicating convincing arguments about literary texts through careful analysis and clear writing that improves with thoughtful revision

 

 

Required Textbook:  

 

Literature and Society:  An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Nonfiction, 3rd ed. 

Edited by Pamela J. Annas and Robert C. Rosen

 

 

Activities and Grading:

               

I expect you to come to class every day having carefully read the assigned texts for that day.  Don’t be surprised if you need to read them more than once in order to be ready to discuss them.  Class will usually begin with brief, informal writing  which I may or may not collect.  Of those that I do collect, each one that is missing or unacceptable will count 1 point off your final grade for the semester.  (However,  I will forgive or drop two “losers.”)

               

Working in pairs, each member of the class will present one short oral report that gives background information on the social or historical context of an assigned text.  It will account for 10% of your final grade.

               

Eleven “think pieces” of 400-500 words each are included in the syllabus.  These are reactions to something in one or more of the previous week’s texts, using evidence from the text (as well as your own experience) to support a thesis.  You will be required to revise the first think piece and allowed to revise one more for a higher grade.  You may either write all eleven and drop one grade or skip one think piece, turning in ten during the semester.  The average of your grades on 10 think pieces will comprise 30% of your final grade.  Two of your think pieces may be turned in one class late with no penalty; however, no additional late submissions will be accepted.

               

Two longer papers will be required.  The first, a minimum 750-word poetry analysis worth 20% of your final grade, will undergo required revision after feedback from me.  The second, worth 25% of the final grade, will involve comparing the author’s treatment of some issue in a play that we read with another author’s treatment of the same theme in a work of a different genre.  Revision of this 1,000-word minimum paper will be optional.  Neither of the two longer papers will be accepted after the due date unless an extension has been granted in advance.

               

A final, synthesizing take-home essay worth 15% of the final grade will be due in place of a final exam on December 11.

Contacting me:

               

Feel free to drop by my office (103 McIver) any time that you want to talk about this class.  I will announce regular office hours soon and extended office hours for paper conferences.  You should also feel free to email me at klmeyers@uncg.edu or call me (office: 334-3282;   home, before 11 p.m.: 272-4996) if

you have questions or concerns.

 

 

 

Attendance and Etiquette:

               

You are allowed 3 “free” absences during the semester.  With proper documentation, you may plead your case for 3 additional excused absences, but there are no guarantees.   (If you have a very good reason for missing class, call or email me in advance or as soon after the absence as possible.)  After that, you’re out of luck and out of the class.

               

You are responsible for keeping up with the reading and writing assignments for any class that you miss.  Call or email me if you’re unsure about an assignment.)

               

Repeated late entrances or early exits from class are rude and disruptive.  The only thing I can think of that is more rude and more disruptive is the sound of a cell phone ringing in class.  To avoid your embarrassment and my wrath, please avoid all such lapses in etiquette!

 

 

Writing Center:

               

Located in 101 McIver and open Mon-Thurs, 9 am – 8 pm and Fri. 9 am – 3 pm, the Writing Center is an excellent place to get advice, suggestions, instruction, or moral support when you are writing a paper for this or any other class.  Call 334-3125 for an appointment or just drop in. 

 

 

Speaking Center:

 

I strongly recommend that you practice your oral report at the new Speaking Center in 22 McIver before presenting it to the class.   You can videotape your practice run and get pointers from the student  consultants there.  It’s open  Mon-Thurs, 12 noon – 8 pm and Friday 10 am – 2 pm.  Call 256-1346 for an appointment.

 

 

Academic Integrity Policy:

 

Be sure to familiarize yourself with the university’s Academic Integrity Policy (particularly the section on plagiarism) which is printed in your student calendar/handbook and available on line at http://saf.dept.uncg.edu/studiscp/Honor.html

 

 

 

Fall ’02                            English 104-02 (WI):  Anticipated Schedule                                K. Meyers

 

M  8/19           Introduction

 

UNIT ONE:  WOMEN AND MEN

 

W  8/21          Brady, “I Want a Wife”  (567) and Shapiro,  “Buick”  (343)

 

F  8/23            Kincaid, “Girl” (72),   Cofer, “Orar: To Pray” (351,  Mirikitani,  “Breaking Tradition”  (385)           

                                    Also discuss Oral Report and Think Piece assignments

 

M  8/26           Ibsen,  A Doll’s House,  Act I    (492-514)               

W  8/28          Ibsen,  A Doll’s House,  Act II   (514--31)               

F  8/30            Ibsen,  A Doll’s House,  Act III  (532-48) 

 

 

W  9/4            Think Piece #1 due  (on a text read during first two weeks of class) 

                        Hughes,  “The Lovepet” (345),   Nayo, “The First Time I was Sweet Sixteen” (371),   Kingsolver, “This House I cannot Leave”  (392)

 

F  9/6              Hemingway, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”  (256-79).

 

M  9/9             Read “How Poetry Works” (1391-1416).    

                        Browning, “How do I Love Thee?”  (358),   Lowell, “A Decade”   (360),   Millay,  “Love is Not All” (365).

                                    Discuss revision of Think Piece #1 and Paper #1 Assignment

 

UNIT TWO:  MONEY AND WORK

 

W  9/11          Think Piece #2 due  (on a text discussed 9/4 – 9/9)

                        Oral Report on conditions during the Great Depression

                        Le Sueur,  “Women on the Breadlines”  (851)

 

F  9/13            Olsen,  “I Stand Here Ironing”  (584)

 

M  9/16           Revision of Think Piece #1 due

                        Oral Reports on  (1) child chimney sweepers (18th century England)  and (2) child labor in the U.S.

                        Blake,  “The Chimney Sweeper” (658),  Cleghorn,  “The golf links . . .” (662),  and DiDonato,  “Christ in Concrete”  (616).

 

W  9/18          Oral Report on Mexicans working in the U.S.

                        Baca,  “So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs . . .”  (650),  Guthrie,  “Plane Wreck at Los Gatos”  (671),  and  Saenz,  “Journeys”  (700)

 

F  9/20            Think Piece #3 due  (on a text discussed 9/11 – 9/18)

                Oral Report on segregated housing (esp. “restrictive covenants” in Chicago, 1940’s and ‘50’s)

                        Hughes,  “Ballad of the Landlord”  (674),   Cullen,  “For a Lady I Know”  (663),   Ruskin,  “The Black Back-ups”  (693)

 

M  9/23           Hansberry,  Raisin in the Sun,  Act I   (781-811)

 

W  9/25          Prospectus for Paper #1 due

                        Oral Report on Jomo Kenyatta and African nationalist movements of 1950’s

                        Hansberry,  Raisin in the Sun,  Act II, scenes 1 and 2  (811-26)

F  9/27            Hansberry,  Raisin in the Sun,  Act II, scene 3  (826-38)

 

M  9/30           Think Piece #4 due  (on poems of 9/20 and/or Raisin)

                        Hansberry,  Raisin in the Sun,  Act III  (838-50)

 

W  10/2          See and discuss part of Miller’s Death of a Salesman

 

F  10/4            PAPER #1  DUE

                        See more of Death of a Salesman

 

M  10/7           Continue watching/discussing Salesman  (some sections to be assigned as reading)

 

W  10/9          Finish Death of a Salesman  and discuss Roethke, “Dolor”

                        Papers will be returned with comments

 

F  10/11          Class cancelled. 

M  10/14         Fall Break

 

 

 

UNIT THREE:  VARIETIES OF PROTEST

 

W  10/16        Think Piece #5 due (on Salesman)

                        Oral Reports on   (1)  Frederick Douglass   and  (2) Chicago riots of 1919

                        Dunbar,  “We Wear the Mask”  (1244),     McKay, “If We Must Die”  (1246),   Hayden,

                        “Frederick Douglass”  (1252)

 

F  10/18          Childress,  Florence   (1318-29)

 

M  10/21         Revision of Paper #1 due.   (Turn First Submission with my comments back in too.)

                        King,  “I Have a Dream”  (1366)  and  Hughes,  “Harlem”  (1253)

 

W  10/23        Think Piece #6 due  (on reading discussed 10/16 – 10/21)

                        Espada,  “Sleeping on the Bus”  (1282),  Walker,  “For My People”  (1227)  and

                        Durem,  “To the Pale Poets”  (1257)

                        Discuss Paper Assignment #2

 

F  10/25          McPherson,  “A Loaf of Bread”  (1153-67)

 

M  10/28         Oral Reports on  (1) The Death of Malcolm X    and  (2)  Harriet Tubman

                        Patterson,  “At That Moment”  (1234),   Griffin,  “I Like to Think of Harriet Tubman”  (1229)

                       

W  10/30        Oral Report on motives for Mexican-American War

                        Thoreau,  excerpts from Civil Disobedience  (133- - end of para. 2, p. 1334)   and King,

                        Excerpts from “Letter from Birmingham Jail”  (handout)      

 

F  11/1            Think Piece #7 due  (on reading discussed 10/23-30)

                        Sophocles,  Antigone,  (1285-1294  -- up to Scene II)

 

M  11/4           Antigone,  (1294-1317)

 

W  11/6          Finish discussing Antigone

                       

 

 

 

 

 

UNIT FOUR:  PEACE AND WAR

 

F  11/8            Think Piece #8 due  (on Antigone)

                        Lovelace,  “To Lucasta”  (973) ,  Tennyson,  “The Charge of the Light Brigade”  (974),

                        Whitman,  “The Dying Veteran”  (977)

                        Grouptalk about Paper #2

 

M  11/11         Sappho,  “To an army wife”  (972),   cummings,  “my sweet old etcetera”  (983),   Kipling,  “Tommy”  (976),   Hughes,  “Without Benefit of Declaration”  (1003)

                       

W  11/13        Oral Report on use of mustard gas in WW I

                        Owen,  “Dulce et Decorum Est”  (960),   Sassoon,  “Does It Matter?” (980),   Hardy,  “The Man He Killed”   (handout),   O’Brien,  “The Man I Killed”  (955-9)

 

F  11/15          PAPER #2 DUE

                        Film in class

 

M  11/18         Oral Report on PTSD among Vietnam vets

                        Erdrich,  “The Red Convertible”   (943-59)

 

W 11/20         Think Piece #9 due  (on material discussed 11/8  –  11/18)

                        Oral Report on napalm use in Vietnam

                        Weigl,  “Song of Napalm”  (1010),  Borton,  “Wars Past and Wars Present”

 

F  11/22          Levertov,  “Life at War”  (962),    Sackville,  “Nostra Culpa”  (978)

                       

M  11/25         Optional Revision of Paper #2 due.  (Turn in original graded version too.)     

                        McKay,  “Look Within”  (992),   King,  “A Time to Break Silence”  (1102)

 

 

Thanksgiving Holiday

 

 

CONCLUSION:  Money, Gender, War, Peace and Protest from a Native American Perspective

 

M  12/2           Think Piece #10 due  (on reading discussed 11/20 – 11/25)

                        Discuss Final take-home essay due 12/11

                        Oral Report on events leading up to Wounded Knee

Rose,  “Three Thousand Dollar Death Song”  (686),   Black Elk,  “The Butchering at Wounded Knee”  (1081)

 

W  12/4          Silko,  “Lullaby”  (123-30)

 

F  12/6            Harjo,  “Remember”  (149)  and  Whitecloud,  (1360)

 

M  12/9           Think Piece #11 due  (on reading discussed 12/2 - 12/6)

                        Tidying up

 

 

W 12/11 at 3:00 p.m.     FINAL TAKE-HOME ESSAYS DUE IN MY OFFICE.