ENGL 362: British Survey 2

Fall, 2006; MWF 1:30 p.m. - 2:20 p.m.

Schedule of Classes | Papers | Web Resources | Bulletin Board

Professor Karin Westman

106 English/Counseling Services

Office: 532-2171; Office Hours: M, W 9-10 a.m. and by app't.

Email: westmank@ksu.edu

Required Texts

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 2, 7th ed.

Stoppard, Arcadia

Class Pack I: Readings from The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol.1, 7th ed.

Class Pack II: Readings from Selected Authors

(Note: Class Packs are available from the A&S Copy Center in Eisenhower Hall.)

Course Description:

A survey of representative British authors since the late 17th century. We will consider their works in terms of form and the historical context of their cultural production, exploring the often contested relationship between life and art. Our goal is two-fold: familiarity with a canon of British literature and further practice in literary analysis and interpretation. Success in this course depends upon careful reading and participation in our discussions.

Course Objectives:

• To become familiar with dominant themes and forms in British literature, from 1660 to the present.
• To develop and apply critical skills for reading, thinking, and writing about literature.
  • what a literary text conveys (its themes, its view of the world)
  • how a literary text conveys that knowledge (its aesthetic form, its selection/omission of detail)
• To use relevant cultural and historical information when interpreting literature.
• To develop your communication skills for an increasingly technological age.

Requirements and General Expectations:

Reading and Class Participation: Any literature course is a reading-intensive experience, especially a survey class, so plan accordingly!

Our class will be based on discussion, so class participation is expected and will count for 20% of your final grade. "Class participation" is not the same as just showing up and taking notes: you must be an active presence in the class. To participate, you must complete the reading assigned for each class session, think carefully about what you have read, and come to class ready to share your ideas. For each class, bring the appropriate book or course pack, so you can not only contribute to discussion but also mark passages that we discuss; this process will help you understand, remember, and review.

Your participation grade includes your contributions to our discussions in class (in large and small groups) and to our discussions on the Electronic Bulletin Board. I will expect at least one posting a week from each student to the Electronic Bulletin Board; the guidelines and instructions for using the Bulletin Board appear below.

Attendance: Obviously, you can't participate effectively if you aren't in class. Since the University requires that students attend all classes in which they are enrolled, there are no excused absences. You will not be penalized for your first three absences; thereafter, further absences will jeopardize your final course grade. Excessive or repeated lateness will also jeopardize your final grade. Excessive absences (nine or more) may result in failure of the course. If you wish to receive a passing grade in this class, then, attendance is important.

While I appreciate your offering explanations for absences, the only way to excuse an absence is to provide me with an official letter from your dean or an official notice of illness from the Health Center or your doctor. Classroom work or homework assignments missed due to absence cannot be made up. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to find out from another class member any announcements or assignments.

 Quizzes: Quizzes are designed to test your knowledge of the reading assigned for that class session and the critical skills we develop and practice during our discussions. The quizzes will consist of identifications and interpretive questions which will help you improve your critical skills and will allow me to evaluate those skills and your comprehension of the material.

Quizzes are noted on the schedule of classes. I reserve the option to replace a quiz with a two-page, typed response paper, due at the start of class; if assigned, response papers would be in response to a particular interpretative question distributed at the previous class session. Quizzes (and response papers) will be graded on a scale of 1 to 5 points: 5=A, 4=B, 3=C, 2=D, 1=F. I will average the points at the end of the course after dropping the lowest grade. Should you be absent on the day of a quiz, you will receive a zero, unless the absence is excused.

 

Papers: You will write two short papers. The papers are due at the time the class meets. Late papers will be penalized one full grade (i.e., B to C) for each day late. More information about these two papers follows the schedule of classes below. Note: The University's Honor Code obliges you to cite the source of any idea that is not your own. If you quote, paraphrase, or use another's ideas, you must give credit to the person whose ideas you are using. Otherwise, you have plagiarized. If you have any questions, please ask. If you do plagiarize, you will fail this course.

 

Electronic Bulletin Board: To offer an additional venue for discussion, I'll establish during the first week an electronic bulletin board for our class. Each student is required to post once a week about the materials we're studying in class. I will monitor these discussions and assess a grade (at the end of the semester) based on the thoughtfulness of your comments, their ability to foster discussion among your classmates, and their responsiveness both to our readings and to your classmates' comments in class and on the list.

An average posting should run about one or two paragraphs in length. In other words, your postings do not need to be long; however, they need to be substantive: they must be long enough to convey clearly the problem you are taking up and your point of view, connecting your comment to others' comments whenever possible. I will offer models of successful comments early in the semester. Your grade for these postings will become part of your class participation grade.

To post to the bulletin board, follow these directions:

1. Go to my homepage at http://www.ksu.edu/english/westmank/ and click on our course (ENGL 362).
   
2. From the course web page, click on Bulletin Board.
   
3. A window will pop up that asks for your user name. Type: engl362 (Be sure to use lower-case letters, since the software is case-sensitive.)
   
4. Click into the password box and type the password I've distributed in class.
   
5. You should see all the messages posted to date and the newest ones first. (If not, click on "Preferences" and set the options to "12 months" and "Mixed Threaded, Reversed." Click on the button that says "View Message Index." You should be able to see all the messages posted to the threaded bulletin board.)
   
6. To post, you can choose to "post response" to a message you are viewing or you can "post a new message."
   
7. I encourage you to select "post response," so you can engage directly in the conversation and your message can "thread" beneath the one you're responding to. I also encourage you to change the subject line so it reflects the content of your message. Whichever option you choose, you will have to enter your name, your email address, and the subject of the message. You can preview your message before sending it; then, click "post message."
   

Examinations: You will have a midterm and a cumulative final exam. A missed exam counts as a zero; no make-up exams will be offered without a dean's excuse.

 

Conferences: There are no mandatory conferences for this course. I encourage you, however, to stop by during office hours, particularly before an assignment is due, or if you have any questions or concerns about the course or the readings. You can always reach me by email to make an appointment if my office hours are not convenient for you.

Email: I highly recommend email as a way of touching base with me about your work for the class -- a kind of virtual office hours. You can send me queries about reading or writing assignments, your thesis statement for an essay, or anything else that could be handled with a quick exchange of messages. I check my email throughout the day, but please remember that I am not perpetually online.

Note: If you have any condition such as a physical or learning disability that will make it difficult for you to carry out the work as I have outlined it or which will require academic accommodations, please notify me within the first week of the course.

 

Grading:

Paper #1	10%
Paper #2	10%
Quizzes	15%
Class Participation	20%
In-class 10%
Postings 10%
Midterm Exam	20%
Final Exam	25%

 

Schedule of Classes (subject to change)

[Unless otherwise indicated by CP for class pack, readings are found in a required book.]

 

General Instructions

• Papers should follow the general rules of composition and be typed or word-processed with standard double-spacing, 1-inch margins, and either 10- or 12-point typeface. Title pages and covers are unnecessary.
• Pages should be numbered, stapled together, and spell-checked.
• Please follow the M.L.A. style for quotations and citations.
• Errors in grammar and punctuation will be marked and will be significant factors in the grading of the paper if the mistakes are so numerous or egregious as to distract from the argument.
• Papers are due at the time the class meets; late papers will be penalized one grade (i.e., B to C) for each day late.

 

Paper #1 (Due Friday, September 29th; 3-4 pages in length)

Identify and analyze the patterns of imagery that you find in one of Keats' odes on the syllabus: "Ode to a Nightingale," "Ode on a Grecian Urn," "Ode on Melancholy" (849-54), or "To Autumn" (872-3).

As preparation for your paper, make a list of the poem's images, and identify the patterns that emerge from that list.What sensory experiences does the speaker describe? What types of people, places, objects, or emotions do the images describe?

With this list in hand, decide how those patterns of images develop the poem's theme(s). What are some of the themes in the poem? How does the poem's imagery tell us about the theme(s)? Your thesis should answer these two questions, and the pattern(s) you uncover should help you answer them.

 

This paper should be in standard essay form. You should include a very short introduction that states the pattern(s) of imagery in the poem and the imagery's contribution to the poem's theme(s) -- that is, the thesis of your paper. The rest of your paper will support this interpretation by supplying the details of your analysis.

 

 

Paper #2 (Due Friday, November 17th; 4-5 pages in length)

Choose one of the following topics for your paper on Part I of Eliot's "The Waste Land" (2369-72). As for Paper #1, this paper should be in standard essay form. You should include a very short introduction that states the thesis of your paper in response to one of the topics below; the rest of your paper will support this interpretation by supplying the details of your analysis.

 

1. Use the poem's title ("The Waste Land"), the epigraph (translated in your footnotes), and the section title ("The Burial of the Dead") as a way into an analysis of Part I of Eliot's poem. How do each of these "introductions" clarify or connect to the narrative which follows in Part I? Be sure to refer to specific lines and images in your discussion.

 

or

 

2. In footnote #4 on p.2371, Eliot tells the reader that he "associate[s], quite arbitrarily," an image from a tarot card with the mythical image of the Fisher King. Consider Eliot's choice of the word "arbitrarily": What might Eliot's comment tell us about the way in which the poem is and will be constructed? Does the poem's speaker -- the "I" and "we" of the poem -- "associate, quite arbitrarily" as well? Can we, as readers, begin to detect a pattern to these "arbitrary" associations? Be sure to refer to specific lines and images in your discussion.