William T. FitzGerald                                                                                                                                         Fall 2006
English 220 - Introduction to Literary Study

Class: Armitage 206, MWF 10:10 - 11:05                                 Office: Armitage 420
Hours: M 1 - 2; W 12:30-1:30                                                       Telephone: 856- 225 -2925 (H); 610-642-3823

Email: wfitz@camden.rutgers.edu
Course Website: http://crab.rutgers.edu/~wfitz/english220.html
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OVERVIEW

In this course you will become better acquainted with the academic discipline of "English" through careful study of a diverse range of literary texts and intensive practice in responding critically--both orally and in writing--to those texts. You will deepen your understanding of literary genres (e.g., poetry, drama and fiction) and their conventions and you will develop greater facility in writing about literary texts by employing a variety of critical methods. In addition, you will learn more about the many interpretive frameworks (or critical theories) that scholars in English bring to their reading and writing. By semester's end, you should have a much greater sense of what scholars in literary studies (and now you) actually do, when engaged in reading, reflection, discussion, research, and writing.


TEXTS

Required (available at the Rutgers campus bookstore and through Amazon.com):
    Norton Anthology of Poetry, (5e: Brief), eds. Ferguson, Salter, Stallworth ISBN: 0393979210
    The Tempest (Norton Critical ed.), William Shakespeare ISBN: 0393978192
    The Piano Lesson (Plume) ISBN: 0452265347
    Heart of Darkness (Norton Critical ed.), Joseph Conrad ISBN: 0393926362
    Things Fall Apart (Anchor), Chinua Achebe ISBN: 0385474547
    The Bloody Chamber (Penguin), Angela Carter ISBN: 014017812X
    Persepolis (Pantheon), Marjane Satrapi ISBN: 037571457X
    MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6e), Joseph Gibaldi ISBN: 0873529863

Recommended (available through Amazon.com):
    A Glossary of Literary Terms, M. H. Abrams ISBN: 1413002188

In addition, a number of texts and websites will be available online (through links provided in the daily schedule of readings and activities) or on e-reserve at the Robeson library. Finally, it is imperative that you own and consult a good dictionary, both for your reading and your writing.


EVALUATION

Your course grade will be determined as follows:

Class participation (including attendance) :                         10%
Formal Papers:                                                                             65%
        Close reading of a poem                         20%
        Annotated Bibliography                        20%
        Final critical essay                                   25%
Short exercises (summaries, analyses, responses):                15%
Quizzes:                                                                                          5%
Midterm Exam:                                                                            10%
                                                                                                      100%

PARTICIPATION

Attendance: As this class is primarily discussion based, not lecture based, your regular attendance is vital, both for your personal success and for the success of the class as a whole. Consequently, excessive absence will weigh heavily upon the class participation component of the course grade, even up to losing the full 10% for particularly frequent absences or late arrivals.

As befits a writing intensive course, English 220 is structured to integrate writing with reading. You will be participating in draft workshops at various times, and your attendance in these activities is crucial. Missing these sessions will almost certainly result in lost points toward your paper grade.

        nota bene. : For every absence,excused or unexcused,legitimate or otherwise, I request a typed business letter accounting for the date(s) and circumstances                                of the absence, delivered in in person to me prior to the absence (when foreknown) or immediately upon returning to class. This written record                                of your lapse in attendance should be placed into a business envelope with my name and your name clearly handwritten or typed.

Late Papers: Papers and paper drafts are due in class and at the start of class on their due dates. Late papers will lose a half letter grade for every class date they are late. Papers turned in late will not be eligible for revision

Communication: You will be expected to maintain and access an email account in the event that we need to reach one another outside of class. Thus, any email address you give me should be one you check with some regularity. There is a course listserve I will use to send occasional messages (including details of daily assignments) to you. We also have a course website that will be updated frequently throughout the semester.

Class Discussion and Writing Workshops: Engaging conversation is critical to the success of the course. You are thus encouraged to contribute to class discussion through thoughtful comments and active listening as much as possible, including in small group discussions. Of course, the ability to participate in class discussion is dependent upon having read the assigned texts. Equally crucial to our work together are writing workshops in which we will read through drafts of papers. You are expected to come to writing workshops with the

Quizzes: Expect occasional short quizzes, some announced, others not, primarily on readings assigned for that day and critical terms recently discussed or assigned or discussed


ACADEMIC INTEGRITY

I place a high value on professional ethics and expect students to conduct themselves with integrity in their classroom performance and in their research and writing. Suspicion of cheating, plagiarism, the false representation of the work of others as one's own, and helping others to commit these acts will result in a formal procedure of accusation which, should that accusation be substantiated, will result in a failure of the course and the possibility of additional sanctions. You are thus encouraged to clarify any misunderstandings you may have about responsible methods of research and proper documentation.


ACCOMMODATION

If you have a documented disability that requires accommodation, please speak with me as soon as possible so that together we can make appropriate arrangements.

9/8 -- Introductory Discussion on Poetry
Compare translations of Homer's Odyssey to identify poetic elements at play; see
http://clem.mscd.edu/~holtzee/odyssey/compared.html

Week Two (September 11 - 15) -- Versification and Orality
9/11: Oral vs. Written Forms; Ballad, Lyric ( ... /~wfitz/220hw9-11.html)
        "Sir Patrick Spens" (anon); "They Flee From Me" (Wyatt);
"Because I Could Not Stop For Death" (Dickinson)
9/13: Scansion; Rhythm and Meter (... /~wfitz/2/20hw9-13.html); selected poems
9/15: Scansion (cont.); rhythmic forms; selected poems

Week Three (September 18-22) -- Verse Forms and Genres; Figuration
9/18: Stanzaic forms; Quiz #1: on Scansion
9/20: Poetic genres: Sonnets (selections); Exercise #1 assigned
9/22: Poetic genres: Odes (selections)

Week Four (September 25 - 29) -- Poetic Syntax, Diction, and Voice; Introduction to Criticism
9/25: Odes (cont.); Paper #1 assigned; Analysis Exercise due
        "Ode to the West Wind" (Shelley); "Ode on Melancholy" and "To Autumn" (Keats)
9/27: Voice Address and Diction; Reading Strategies
        "My Last Dutchess" (Browning); from "Song of Myself" (Whitman)
9/29: Figurative Language (cont.); New Criticism vs. Reader Response;
        "Valediction Forbidding Mourning" (Donne) ; "Poetry" (Moore);

Week Five (October 2 - 6) -- Developing an Essay in Close Reading
10/2: Criticism (cont); Thesis and development; Summary exercise due
        "Letter to My Husband" (Bradstreet); "Sailing to Byzantium" (Yeats)
10/4: Citation practices (MLA); Citation Exercise due
        "That the Science of Cartography is Limited" (Boland); "Parsley" (Dove)
10/6: Effective paragraphs and transitions; Invention notes for Paper 1 due
        "Ulysses" (Tennyson); "Persimmons" (Lee)

Week Six (October 9 - 13) -- Revising an Essay in Close Reading
10/9: In-class writing workshop; Work-in-progress draft due
10/11: Peer responses to drafts due
        "Filling Station" (Bishop); "Diving into the Wreck" (Rich)
10/13: My/your responses to drafts; selections from Aristotle's Poetics

UNIT TWO: DRAMA
Week Seven (October 16 - 20) -- The Tempest
10/16: Tempest (Shakespeare) , Act 1; Paper #1 due;
10/18: Tempest, Acts 2 & 3; Historical contexts from Norton Critical Edition; OED exercise assigned
10/20: Tempest, Acts 4 & 5; Summary Exercise assigned; Paper #2 (Annotated Bibliography) assigned

Week Eight (October 23 - 27) -- The Piano Lesson
10/23: Tempest (cont.); selected background and criticism from Norton Critical Edition; OED exercise due
10/25: Piano Lesson (Wilson), Act I, pp. 1 - 54; Summary Exercise due
10/27: Piano Lesson, Act II, pp. 55 - 108; Library Research Exercise assigned

Week Nine (October 30 - November 3) --
10/30: Critical conversation on drama; Library research exercise due
11/1: Review for midterm; In-class writing workshop; Work-in-progress draft due
11/3: Midterm Examination (on poetic forms, critical terms, and documentation practices)

UNIT THREE: FICTION
Week Ten (November 6 - 10) -- Modernism , Marxism and Their Discontents
11/6: Heart of Darkness (Conrad), Part I ,pp. 3 - 31); Paper #2 due
11/8: Heart of Darkness , II, pp. 31 - 54; selected background readings
11/10: Heart of Darkness, III, pp. 54 - 77; selected critical readings

Week Eleven (November 13 - 17) -- The Empire Writes Back: A Post-Colonial Response
11/13: Things Fall Apart, Part I, pp. 1 - 74
11/15: Things Fall Apart, Part I - II, pp. 75 - 125
11/17: Things Fall Apart, Part III, pp. 129 - 209

Week Twelve (November 20 - 24) -- Cultural criticism
11/20: Critical conversations on HD, TFA and fiction; Final Essay assigned
11/22: Critical conversation (cont.)
11/24: THANKSGIVING BREAK

Week Thirteen (November 27 - December 1) -- Feministic Tellings and Retellings
11/27: The Bloody Chamber (Carter),
        "The Bloody Chamber," "The Tiger's Bride"
11/29: The Bloody Chamber,
        "Puss-in-Boots," "The Snow Child"
12/1: The Bloody Chamber; Proposal for Final Essay due
        "The Werewolf," "The Company of Wolves," "Wolf-Alice"

Week Fourteen (December 4 - 8) -- Graphic Narratives and Memoir
12/4: Persepolis (Satrapi), Intro. ; pp. 3-71
12/6: Persepolis, pp. 72 - 153
12/8: Critical conversation on feminist theory and psychoanalytic criticism

UNIT FOUR: WRITING/REVISING A RESEARCHED CRITICAL ESSAY

Week Fifteen (December 11 - 15) -- Putting in all together
12/11: In-class writing workshop; Work-in-progress drafts due
12/13: Last day of class; Peer responses due;  CONFERENCES (Armitage 420)
12/15: CONFERENCES (Armitage 420)

Week Sixteen (December 18 - 22)
12/18: CONFERENCES (Armitage 420)
12/20: Final essay due -- no later than noon in Armitage 420