English 601

English Studies: Content, Methods, and Bibliography

Spring 2002

 

 

Nancy Myers                                                                                         Office: 110 McIver

Phone: 334-5484                                                                                    Office Hours:T & Th 12-2:30

Mailbox: 133 McIver                                                                               W 2-5 or by appointment           

E-mail: nancymyers@uncg.edu

 

Focus:  This course offers an introduction to the discipline and profession.  It provides strategies and resources for research, practice in critical methodologies, and an overview of the profession and the disciplines of English. The content, methods, and bibliography of English Studies are examined at both the local and global levels.

 

Learning Goals:

Through the readings, assignments, and class activities in this course, you will

A. learn about the multidisciplinary and institutional histories of English Studies;

B. conduct extensive, systematic, and thorough research on topics related to English Studies;

C. analyze and critique bibliographic resources and reference texts;

D. be able to inform high school and undergraduate college students about useful research materials for English studies;

E. establish practical, systematic, and creative approaches to learning about literary theories that will serve you as critics, teachers, and scholars and that can lead you to more specialized studies of literary theory; and

F. reflect on and locate yourself and others as professionals in specific fields of English Studies.

 

Readings: 

Besides the five required texts, we will be engaging in extensive research and supplementing the following texts with those on reserve.  (The reserve list is attached.)

 

Joseph Gibaldi.  MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.  5th ed.  NY: MLA, 1999.

Gerald Graff.  Professing Literature: An Institutional History.  Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.

James L. Harner.  Literary Research Guide.  3rd ed.  NY: MLA, 1998. 

Donald Keesey.  Contexts for Criticism.  3rd ed.  Mountain View: Mayfield, 1998.

William Shakespeare.  The Tempest.  New York: Penguin Books, 1959.

(or a copy of The Tempest with act, scene, and line numbers on each page)

 

Graded Work for This Course

Response and Research Notebook                                                                                  20%

The Profession Project                                                                                                   20%

faculty profile and article report

The Bibliographic Puzzle Project (done in teams)                                                              20%

            creating a problem and solving anothers

Teaching the Text (done in groups of 3-4 persons)                                                             20%

            presentation and annotated bibliography

Researching and Writing about Your Interests                                                                  20%

            annotated bibliography, conference paper,

thesis/dissertation proposal, or high school curriculum

 

Handouts on each assignment to follow. 

 

Attendance:  Since this course is based on collaboration and community and since your course grade will be influenced by your class participation and your preparedness, regular attendance seems the most logical approach.  If you cannot be here, let me know.

Schedule for English 601: English Studies

Finding Our Way in and across the Profession, the Institution, and the Disciplines

 

 

16 January:                The Profession, This Course, and You

 

23 January:                Globalizing and Localizing the Profession

 

Library Instruction #1: Meet Electronic Citi in Jackson Library at 6:30 p.m.

 

Readings: Professing Literature 1-118, plus response

Look through and bring Harner and MLA Handbook for class discussion

 

Set faculty assignments and interviewing strategies

Set teams for research activities and Puzzle Project

 

30 January:                The Scope and Breadth of English Studies

 

Five-minute talks over Article Report and disperse copies of write up

 

Readings: Professing Literature 121-179  & Hobbs and Berlins A Century of Writing Instruction (e-reserve), plus response over histories. Also read Contexts for Criticism pp.1-8

 

Go over Teaching the Text assignment and set up groups and dates for critical frameworks

 

6 February:                 Making Sense of Our Histories

 

Library Instruction #2: Meet Electronic Citi in Jackson Library at 6:30 p.m.

 

Readings: Professing Literature 181-262; Gleason's "The Origins of Modern Linguistics" (e-reserve) and one of the following: 

1. Katherine Adams Teaching Creative Writing pp. 70-99 (on reserve)

2. D. G. Myers, one chapter from The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880 (on reserve)

Bring Hobbs and Berlin article too

Response: How have the other histories reinforced or altered your perspective of Graff's history?

 

13 February:               Designing Research Questions and Interpreting TextA Beginning

 

Reading: Chopins The Awakening, plus response

 

Go over Bibliographic Puzzle Project and Researching and Writing about Your Interests

Bibliographic problem and solution strategies

 

20 February:               Faculty Profiles

 

Library Instruction #3: Meet Electronic Citi in Jackson Library at 6:30 p.m.

 

Five-minute talks on profiles and profiles due

 

27 February:               Designing Research Questions and Interpreting TextMoving On

 

Reading: Shakespeares The Tempest and Wordsworths Ode, plus response

 

Paired Research Activity #1 due

 

Critical frameworks groups meet

 

6 March:                     Designing and PlanningPosing Problems and Setting Agendas

 

Paired Research Activity #2 due

 

Puzzle teams meet

 

Three-page reading response due over group section in Contexts for Criticism

Set presentation dates and reading assignments for Critical Frameworks 

 

13 March:                   Spring Break

 

20 March:                   Designing and PlanningResearch and Teaching Meet

 

Paired Research Activities #3 and #4 due

Proposal for individual projects due

 

Meeting time for critical framework groups

 

27 March:                   Critical Framework #1

 

Reading plus response

 

Puzzle Problems due and swap

 

3 April:                        Critical Framework #2

 

Reading plus response

 

10 April:                      Critical Framework #3

 

Reading plus response

 

17 April:                      Critical Framework #4

 

Reading plus response

 

Puzzle solutions due

 

24 April:                      Critical Framework #5

 

Reading plus response

 

Last response due:  Locating yourself in the profession, the institution, and the discipline.

 

1 May:                        Presenting Your Research and Discoveries

 

Outline and drafts of individual projects due for paired response and class share. 

 

Course evaluations and discussion

 

8 May:                        New Directions in Research and Teaching

 

Rewrites of individual projects due in my mailbox (McIver 133) or in my office (McIver 110)

 

15 May:                      Personalizing the ProfessionDinner Party

 

 

 

English 601: English Studies

Spring 2002

 

Response and Research Notebook (20% of the course grade):

 

The notebook consists of reading responses and four paired-research activities. For each of your reading assignments, you need to bring to class a one-page (or more), single-spaced, word- processed response that includes your reactions and interactions with the assigned texts. These should be no less than 400 words each. We will use these responses to start the discussions, then I will collect them and respond in writing. The responses are noted on the schedule, but two are unusual. The one due on 6 March is three pages and is a response to all of the readings in the section of Contexts for Criticism that you chose for your group teaching segment. The final response due on 24 April is your reflection on your work, learning, and interests over the course of the semester and on directions you want to pursue next semester. On each response include your name, date, and the reading assignment. In teams of two you will investigate, analyze, and assess four different research issues. The collaborative research and writing involved in these will prepare you for the Bibliographic Puzzle Project.

 

The Profession Project (20% of the course grade):

 

Article Report.  During the first class period, you will submit three choices of articles that you would like to read from Introduction to Scholarship and you will leave class with your article assignment. Once you know your article, you need to draft a one-page single-spaced summary of and critique/response to the article with the appropriate MLA bibliographic citation as the title. On 30 January, you should bring 18 copies of this report and be prepared to talk no longer than five-minutes about the scope and breadth of the discipline/field or issue discussed in the article. 

 

Faculty Profile.  On 23 January you need to bring in three names of UNCG English faculty you might like to interview.  After you know your faculty member, you need to do background research on that person, schedule a one-hour interview, and ask questions about his or her professional life in English. Once you have compiled all of your data, you will write a 2-4 page profile (single-spaced) of that faculty member. On 20 February you will offer a five-minute overview of your research and the faculty member and turn in one-copy of your profile. We will discuss specifics of this assignment, strategies for research, types of questions, and the content of the profile in class. Note: no more than three people will have the same faculty member. If you  share a faculty member with another classmate, you should do a joint interview.

 

English 601: English Studies

Spring 2002

 

Response and Research Notebook: Puzzling Research Questions and Issues

 

The point of these activities is for you to distinguish among the types of information available in research guides, reference books, bibliographies, and indexes (and websites) and to find relevance and value in knowing which information is needed for specific research projects. These are set up as paired activities because the conversations about your research will be as valuable as the research itself. Your written results may take the form of a dialogue between the two of you addressing the issues and questions, may be a series of focused emails back and forth, may be a collaboratively written statement as an essay/critique or in question-answer form, or another form that you choose.

 

Paired Research Activity #1 (Due 27 February)

 

In Harner, read about ABELL: Annual Bibliography of English Language and Literature (#340), Humanities Index (#385), Arts and Humanities Citation Index (#365), and MLA International Bibliography (#335). Then examine both the online databases and the print bibliographies of each. As a team, respond to the following questions: How recent and how far back is the information? What do you see as the strengths and drawbacks of each index whether online or in print? What are the differences in approach to researching in the print sources from the electronic ones? Form two research questions (test them and offer results) that could only be answered by one index and not by the other three. Example: Which online index provides reviews of the first edition of George Lyman Kittredge's Complete Works of Shakespeare within five years of its publication? (Answer: ABELLbook published 1936; lists 5 reviews of the work between 1936-1939)

 

Paired Research Activity #2 (Due 6 March)

 

Often women and people of color published anonymously, with pseudonyms, or with multiple monikers, making it difficult to trace them. However, several types of resources are available that can help in tracing and finding out about these writers. Refer to Harner's sections on "Biographical Sources" (pp. 75-84) and "Anonymous and Pseudonymous Works" (pp. 564-566). At the turn of the last century, Rosamund Ball published anonymously and under several names. How many names did she use and what were they? When and what did she write and/or publish? Provide a bibliography of sources that provide biographical information on this writer and a list of Ball's published works.

 

Paired Research Activity #3 (Due 20 March)

 

The chasm between popular culture and high or elite culture widened in Britain and America during the last half of the nineteenth century. During their lifetimes, women, such as Louisa May Alcott, were often dismissed as serious writers and categorized as writers of childrens stories, partly due to their popularity. The literary reputations of some male novelists of the time also suffered because of their popularity with the reading masses. Read in Harner about NUC: National Union Catalog (#235), The British Library General Catalogue (#250) and OCLC: Online Union Catalog a.k.a. WorldCat (#225) and research Hall Caines publications in each. From your review of these three sources, what can you tell about the popularity of Caines novels? What evidence is there of multiple printings and/or editions of these works? What languages were they translated into? When does it look like he started to become popular? When did his novels die out? Was he popular beyond his death in 1931? Which novels seemed to be more popular than others? How do you know? How is the information on Hall Caine different across these three resources?

 

Paired Research Activity #4 (Due 20 March)

 

Using the guidelines that Nancy Fogarty gave us, examine and evaluate 5-8 websites on Sappho of Lesbos. What types of information did you find on her, her poetry, her life, and her influence? Did you find conflicting information? If so, explain those differences. Which sites were the least credible and why? Which sites would be appropriate for public high school English students to use as resources and why? Which sites offer information more suited for college research and why? Provide a bibliography of the websites you examined.

 

 

English 601: English Studies

Spring 2002

 

Puzzle Project (20% of course grade)

 

All aspects of research in English Studies revolve around articulated questions that someone wants answered.  In textual research, these questions evolve from the origination, reproductions, or appropriations of a text and from a texts relationships to people, times, places, and other texts.  Whether a definitive truth can be discerned from the investigation into the question or not, the quest or search for an answerderived from bits and pieces of facts and data arranged as a jigsaw puzzleemploys a method that establishes and tests, what Richard Altick in The Art of Literary Research calls, a conjectural explanation for certain observed or recorded phenomena (137). 

 

For example, when I did research for a Victorian scholar, we discovered that a late nineteenth-century woman poet and journalist published anonymously and with at least three different names; moreover, she was known by other names across her lifetime.  Have you ever tried to make a thorough listing of works done by an obscure poet who may or may not sign her work and who has multiple names?  What if you dont even know all of the names?  How do you trace or find her work?

 

Another example, what does it mean that the most recent film version of Little Women pulls not so much from the nineteenth-century novel but from Louisa May Alcotts actual life and times?  What does it mean that radically different film versions of Little Women were produced at three different times during the twentieth centurythe 1930s, the 1950s, and the 1990s?

 

A third, what is Ciceros view toward women?  Is the way that he employs them as examples in his rhetorical treatises indicative of how he interacted with and perceived women in his own home and community?

 

A more current example, how does one find the most recent scholarly reviews of Lee Smiths Oral History?

 

The assignment is simple, but the task is not that easy.  In pairs, design a research puzzle question that you must research to answer.  Then provide a written response that shows the research tools you employed that provided you with information/data/clues which led you to some kind of conclusion with proof or support for it. 

 

On 27 March, youll swap puzzles with another pair and turn in your research strategies and findings to me.  On 17 April, youll provide a collaboratively researched and written document that shows the research tools you tried, what data youve gathered, and what conclusions or answers you can offer.   On that evening, well compare notes about processes, procedures, and the never-ending web of inquiry that arises from research. 

 

On 13 February, well discuss strategies for designing problems and solving them.  Remember to bring Harners Literary Research Guide.

English 601: English Studies

Spring 2002

 

Teaching the Text (20% of course grade)

 

In groups of 3-4, you will do background research and teach one section of the third edition of Contexts for Criticism between 27 March and 24 April. You will have up to, but no more than, two hours (6:30-8:30 p.m.) to help us better understand your critical framework. This two-hour segment should include various interactive activities or discussions. Each member of the group should have some teaching responsibility in that two hours. Each member of the group is responsible for seven sources for the annotated bibliography, of which only one per person may be a website, a media source, or a lecture/class notes or materials. In other words, at least four sources out of each seven need to be texts from various electronic or print publications and books. Any of you may always go over seven, but you do not need to.  The audience members for each teaching segment are responsible for reading the assigned material and writing a one-page response, which they will bring to class. 

 

Your Responsibilities

*  Meet with group members to plan, research, prepare, and generate an interactive teaching segment.

*  Completely read and respond to your section of Contexts for Criticism.

*  Decide on the reading assignment for the evening.

*  Research and compile your segment of the annotated bibliography.

*  Schedule audio-visual equipment or computer labs in advance through me.

*  Present me with an outline and a statement of purpose and rationale for the teaching segment that explains who is doing what, what youre doing and its order, and what you believe we will learn from this approach.

*  Make photocopies of the handouts, activity sheets, and annotated bibliography for everyone (18 copies)

*  Set up the room, equipment, and materials as you feel will be most effective for our learning.

 

Dates of Interest

30 Januarygo over Teaching of Text assignment, annotated bibliography information, critical framework groups set

27 Februarygroups meet for 30 minutes, plan, and set calendar

6 Marchthree-page reading responses due over group section of Contexts for Criticism, set dates for teaching the segments, and set reading assignments in syllabus

20 Marchgroups meet for 90 minutes

27 March-24 Apriltwo-hour teaching segments

 

English 601: English Studies

Spring 2002Individual Project

 

Researching and Writing about Your Interests (20% of course grade)

 

For this project, you should pick the approach that will most benefit your work both in your program and in your chosen specialty and profession. All three options may be modified by you in consultation with me. You may do an extensive annotated bibliography, a conference paper with proposal abstract and handouts, or a thesis/dissertation prospectus. Or, you may design your own project, see "Other Options" below.

 

The Extensive Annotated Bibliography will provide you with a range of research on a topic that you either want to know more about or that you are currently working on for a paper, thesis, or dissertation. The bibliography should have at least 30 sources, no more than 5 may be websites. It should include a relevant title, an introduction, and the citations and annotations should be arranged in categories.  Each category may be arranged alphabetically or chronologically depending on your topic and needs.  Most annotated bibliographies are set up as documents, but for those of you interested in pedagogical topics, you might want to arrange this as a resource notebook.  If you choose to do so, at least 20 of the entries need to pertain to the theoretical foundations of the practices and classroom activities you are including.  A notebook would also have an introduction and be organized by sections.   See attached handouts for more information on annotated bibliographies.

 

The Conference Paper with Proposal Abstract will offer you the chance to take an already written seminar paper that you want to pursue, do the next level of research necessary for a solid twenty-minute conference paper, and allow you to resee and rewrite your argument or interpretation with a specific conference and audience in mind.  The abstract should be approximately 250-400 words, the conference paper should be approximately 8-10 pages, the research should add at least 10 additional sources to your thinking if not your text, and a handout should be created if it is warranted or helpful.  A modification of this for classroom teachers would be to plan a ninety-minute workshop for NCTE, IRA, TESOL, or CCCC, write the proposal, outline the activities, create the handouts, and provide a short introduction of 4-5 pages with bibliography that explains the theory-practice relationships of your activities.

 

The Thesis/Dissertation Prospectus will provide you with a working plan for your thesis or dissertation.  This document should be approximately 8-10 pages with an extensive bibliography (not annotated).  The attached handouts from the MLA Style Manual provide the specifics of content and arrangement. 

 

Other Options:  You might do the research for and draft a grant proposal, a program or district philosophy and policy handbook on the teaching of  (you fill in the blank), a website on an author or aspect of some issue/topic of English Studies, or something you think of.  If you choose one of these or plan to modify one of the three above beyond my suggestions, plan to meet with me soon.

 

Individual Project  2

 

By 27 February, Id like a short letter or email from you that states your approach, your topic, and any concerns you have about researching, planning, or writing your individual project. 

 

On 20 March, you need to provide the following information about your project: 

How have you narrowed/focused your topic?

Why did you choose this topic and focus? 

What did you already know about this topic?

What questions did you want your research to answer?

How did you search for these answers?  Where did you look?  What did you find?

How are you organizing or arranging your materials?

What problems or concerns do you have at this time that I might help you with?

 

On 1 May bring drafts of all parts of your project.

 

On 8 May turn in revised and completed projects.  Your projects, my response, and course grade will be returned either to your English Department mailbox or to you at the dinner party on Wednesday, 15 May.