251Q

English 251Q: Major British Writers, Freshman Inquiry Class Fall 2004

Winston 20. T, Th 11:20-12:35
Section 008
Dr. Morillo

Web syllabus: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/users/m/morillo/public/251Q04.htm

Dr. Morillo's Office is Tompkins 249; 515-4107 email = morillo@unity.ncsu.edu
Office Hours= M, W 10-12; Th 1:30-2:15

Course Description:
This course introduces you to important British writers in several genres and many periods. We will be reading texts chosen from the Medieval to Modern periods and representing a variety of kinds and styles, including epic, lyric, sacred, and satiric poetry; and various forms of prose fiction and nonfiction.. You will be learning the fundamentals of literary representation; how to read literature closely, how to formulate significant questions about it, and how to think, talk, and write about it. We will focus on literature about love, death, and faith, because those have been universal topics of interest to writers, and because each presents special challenges in terms of literary representation. We will read a lot of poetry, but also some prose, including one novella. We will consider how best to translate into your specific written papers some tenets of mature critical thinking, including precision, flexibility, creativity, skepticism about one's own ideas and tolerance for those of others.

Course Objectives
By studying representation in literature, you will be learning how to improve your critical reading, critical thinking. and writing skills. As an Inquiry class, this special freshmen-only section will emphasize the kinds of open-ended, challenging questions requiring significant independent effort, imaginative spirit, and active participation on you part. The majority of the written work will be papers, primarily analytic and argumentative, but with an option for some creative writing as well. There will be a comprehensive final.

Course Outcomes
At the end of the course students will demonstrate that they are able to:

interpret a poem or story with increasingly precise language and appropriate textual or contextual evidence
express the results of that interpretation in well-structured essay that is an argument about a significant and warranted thesis
criticize and revise their own writing based on clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and logic of the ideas
use appropriate dictionaries and other reference resources
understand the provisional nature of all interpretive claims, especially their own
be able to evaluate someone else's literary interpretation
understand the issues involved in literary representation
apply to poetic interpretation the fundamentals of prosody, including rhyme, meter, and metaphor
show some familiarity with literary history and some major writers' literary achievements

Your improved ability to exercise all of these skills will be measured against how well you can initially exercise these skills when you first join the class. To help measure that baseline ability, you will all first have to write an paper interpreting a short poem. This paper will not be graded but will help me determine your baseline ability as writer and a thinker: I will evaluate it and then you will score it yourselves on critical thinking categories we will discuss. Three subsequent letter-graded papers and a written final will allow me to assess how well you have improved in critical thinking.

Course Requirements

Grading:
Participation in discussions, quizzes, in-class writing =15%
Attendance = 15%.
4 Papers = 45%

paper one, 3 pages 5%, ungraded but required
paper two, 3-5 pages=10% graded
paper three, 4-6 pages = 15%; graded
paper four 5-6 = 15% ungraded, but you will turn in a revision of this as part of your final exam, and it will be graded.

Final Exam = 25%

Percentages for each required graded category are figured via a percentage of a 12-pt. scale in which an A+ =12 and
an F=0 points. For example, a B+ on paper 1 would net you 9 x .10 or .9 points. Or, a C on participation nets you 5 x .15 or .75
I then add up the percentage points for each required category to determine your grade. For example, an 8.2 final score = B for the class.

Participation includes your grades on periodic quizzes, and coming to class prepared, having
done the readings and being able to talk and write about them intelligently.

You must complete all the required work to pass the class. I will grade plus/minus.

Attendance: You are allowed 3 absences. If you are absent, unexcused, more than 3 times over
the course of the semester, your absences will count progressively against your final grade, as a
significant part --15%--of your final grade. Anyone who misses the first two classes can be immediately dropped from the class.

Plagiarism: Anyone convicted will receive an F for the paper, or the course at my discretion.
And yes, I have caught people in the past--the last time I taught this very class, in fact.

Late Papers: Papers received ONE class session late will be accepted but docked a full grade.
No late papers accepted after one class session late.

Disabilities: Reasonable accommodations will be made for students with verifiable disabilities. In order to take advantage of available accommodations, students must register with Disability Services for Students at 1900 Student Health Center, Campus
Box 7509, 515-7653. http://www.ncsu.edu/dss/

Academic Integrity Assumption
Universities are unique communities committed to creating and transmitting knowledge. They depend on freedom - individuals' freedom to explore ideas and to explore and further their own capabilities. Those freedoms depend on the good will and responsible behavior of all the members of the community, who must treat each other with tolerance and respect. They must allow each other to develop the full range of their capabilities and take full advantage of the institution's resources.

Texts
Required Print Text--available now in the NCSU bookstore.

1.   M. H. Abrams et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major
        Authors. 7th edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
    It comes bundled with a CDrom.
       This is the latest edition of the one-volume Norton. Be sure to get the one that says
        "The Major Authors." All readings from this Norton Anthology are indicated by page numbers in parentheses.

Required Online Texts

2. How to Use the Oxford English Dictionary Online (Morillo)

3. Guide to Prosody (Morillo)

4. English Translation of Petrarch's Sonnet 140

5. Shelley's "On Love"

Topic 1: Representing Love

Th Aug. 19 Introduction. Literature, representation, and critical thinking: careful words and imaginative thoughts. Read Guide to Prosody (see link above) and "Poetic Forms and Literary Terminology" (Norton 2838)

T Aug. 24 Byron "She Walks in Beauty" (1640) First Paper due
Th Aug. 26 Wroth "Song: Love What Art Thou?" (656); Marvell "The Definition of Love" (681)

T Aug. 31 Writing and critical thinking. Readings: On sonnets (494); Spenser "Sonnet 64" (431)
Th Sept. 2 Writing and critical thinking; self assessment of paper 1

T Sept. 7         Petrarch "Sonnet 140" (click here for Petrarch poem); Wyatt "The Long Love That in My Thought Doth Harbor" (340); Surrey "Love, That Doth                             Reign and Live Within My Thought" (344)
Th Sept. 9        Marlowe "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" (457); Raleigh "The Nymph's Reply"; Herrick "Upon Julia's Clothes" (670)
                        (667)

T Sept. 14 Shakespeare "Sonnet 18" (496), "Sonnet 129" (504), "Sonnet 130" (504)
Th Sept.16 Shelley "On Love" (online)

Topic 2: Representing Death
T Sept. 21 Raleigh "On Death" (444); Boswell, "Johnson on Fear of Death" (1280) Second Paper Due.
Th Sept. 23 Swift Ch. 10, Bk. 3 Gulliver's Travels: "The Struldbruggs [Immortals]" (1062)

T Sept. 28 Wordsworth "A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal" (1451); Keats "When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be" (1803)
Th Sept. 30 Gray "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (1283) and Gray's draft of this poem, in "Poems in Process" (2756)

T Oct. 5 Gray "Elegy" continued

Th Oct. 7 NO CLASS, FALL BREAK

T Oct.12 Rossetti "When I am Dead, My Dearest" (2135); "Dead Before Death" (2136) and "After Death" (2136);
Th Oct. 14 Hemans "England's Dead" (1782); Hardy "Drummer Hodge" (2294)

T Oct. 19 Thomas "After the Funeral" (2699)
Th Oct. 21 Larkin "Aubade," Larkin reading his poem Norton CD-ROM 2 (2709); Heany "Casualty" (2725)

T Oct. 26 Third Paper Due

Topic 3: Representing Faith
Th Oct. 28 1 Corinthians 13, King James Bible (347); Blake "A Divine Image" (1364)

T Nov. 2 Julian of Norwich, "The First Revelation; Jesus as Mother; Conclusion" (278-82)
Th Nov. 4 Donne "Holy Sonnet 14" (624)

T Nov. 9 Herbert "The Altar" (661) and "Easter Wings" (662)
Th Nov. 11 Hopkins "God's Grandeur" (2158)

T Nov. 16     Yeats "Leda and the Swan" (2386), "Adam's Curse" (2372)

Topic 4:         Love, Death, and Faith
Th Nov. 18     Joyce, The Dead (2496-2524)

T Nov. 23 The Dead continued
Th Nov. 25 NO CLASS, THANKSGIVING

T Nov. 30 The Dead finished. Fourth Paper Due
Th Dec. 2 Reflections on Representation, Literature, critical thinking

Final Exam
T Dec. 7 Winston 20 8:00-11:00 Revision of Paper 4 due

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