Dr. Shane Graham ENGL 2600 LITERARY ANALYSIS Spring 2017 MWF 3:00 4:15 RWST 214

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1 Dr. Shane Graham ENGL 2600 LITERARY ANALYSIS Spring 2017 MWF 3:00 4:15 RWST 214 Instructor Contact Information Office: Ray B West 420C Office Phone: Office Hours: TR 1:30 2:45; other times by appointment shane.graham@usu.edu Writing Fellows: Morgan Bronson morgan.bronson@aggi .usu.edu Millie Tullis millie.tullis@gmail.com Course Description and Goals This course is designed especially for aspiring English majors and minors, but is valuable to anyone wanting to learn fundamental concepts and methods in the study of literature. You will learn the formal elements of three basic genres of literature poetry, drama, and fiction and the critical terminology for the kinds of figurative language that characterize literary writing in all genres. We will discuss how to research, organize, and write essays in literary studies, how to cite sources, and how to sharpen your writing style in general. Ultimately, the skills and methods you acquire in this class will help you better appreciate the richness, complexity, and beauty of the works you will read as a student of literature in English, and it will help you begin to develop the critical thinking skills, the mental flexibility, and the ability to cope with ambiguity required for most any career you might pursue. Books Be sure to buy the edition listed; ISB Numbers are provided for your convenience. You must have your own copy of each text, and you must bring it to class on the days indicated on the schedule below. Sharon Hamilton, Essential Literary Terms Second Edition (Norton, ) Kelly Mays, Norton Introduction to Literature Custom Portable Edition (Norton, ) A good college dictionary; I recommend the Merriam-Webster Collegiate. Other required readings are available for electronic download via Canvas Course Requirements You will write three Critical Analysis Essays of 3-4 pages each, and you will take a Midterm and a Final Exam. Participation in class discussion and exercises is a critical part of the course, and will constitute 20% of your total grade, calculated as follows: Critical Analysis Essay #1 3-4 pages 15% Critical Analysis Essay #2 3-4 pages 15% Critical Analysis Essay #3 3-4 pages 15% Midterm Exam 15% Final Exam 20% Participation 20%

2 Weekly Schedule All readings should be completed before class on the indicated day. Please bring Essential Literary Terms to every class meeting, in addition to whatever other readings are scheduled. This schedule is subject to change, and other short readings may be added throughout the semester. ELT = Essential Literary Terms, 2 nd Ed. NIL = Norton Introduction to Literature, Custom Canvas = Available for download from canvas.usu.edu Week One T 1/10 UNIT I - FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE INTRODUCTION R 1/12 Simile and Metaphor [ELT 34-42] Blake, The Tyger [NIL 2] Burns, A Red, Red Rose [NIL 3] Olds, The Victim [NIL 4] Atwood, Death of a Young Son by Drowning [NIL 5] Week Two T 1/17 Review Simile & Metaphor [ELT 34-42] Personification/Pathetic Fallacy [ELT 42-44] Joyce, Araby [NIL 6-11] Wordsworth, The World is Too Much With Us [NIL 12] R 1/19 Review Personification [ELT 42-44] Synecdoche, Metonymy [ELT 44-47] Shelley, Ozymandias [NIL 13] Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel [NIL 14] Keats, Ode to a Nightingale stanzas 1-3 [NIL 15] Dickinson, Because I Could Not Stop for Death [NIL 18] Week Three T 1/24 Irony [ELT 47-59] and Contrasting Levels of Meaning [ELT 59-67] Hardy, The Ruined Maid [NIL 20] Williams, This is Just to Say [NIL 21] Chopin, The Story of an Hour [NIL 22-24] R 1/26 Figures of Speech [ELT 67-73] Arnold, Dover Beach [NIL 27] Walcott, Crusoe s Island [Canvas] Annotations to Crusoe s Island [NIL 25-26] Sample Thesis Statement and Analysis of Crusoe s Island [NIL ] In-Text Documentation and Notes [ELT ] Graham, 2600 p. 2

3 Week Four T 1/31 UNIT II POETRY ESSAY #1 FIRST DRAFT DUE (bring hard copy to class, AND submit to Canvas) Poetry [ELT 1-8] Diction [ELT 74-81] Stevens, The Emperor of Ice-Cream [NIL 30] Johnson, The Creation [NIL 31-33] Rich, Aunt Jennifer s Tigers [NIL 34] Bring a good dictionary and/or a web-enabled electronic device R 2/2 Meter [ELT ] Spenser, Sonnet 75 [NIL 35] Week Five T 2/7 ESSAY #1 FINAL DRAFT DUE (submit to Canvas by 11:59 pm) Review Meter [ELT ] Shakespeare, Sonnet 18 [NIL 36] Blake, Introduction and The Lamb [NIL 37-38] Browning, Porphyria s Lover [NIL 39-40] Raleigh, The Nymph s Reply to the Shepherd [NIL 41] Cullen, Incident [NIL 42] R 2/9 Rhyme [ELT ] Marvell, To His Coy Mistress [NIL 43-44] Browning, When Our Two Souls Stand Up, [NIL 45] Behn, On Her Loving Two Equally [NIL 46] Week Six T 2/14 Review Rhyme [ELT ] Sounds and Sound Patterns [ELT ] Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening [NIL 47] Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock [NIL 48-52] Thomas, Author s Prologue [NIL 53-55; skim; try to identify a rhyme scheme, if any] Shakespeare, Sonnet 116 [NIL 56] Byron, She Walks in Beauty [NIL 57] Brooks, We Real Cool [NIL 58] R 2/16 Poetic Forms [ELT ] Spenser, Sonnet 75 [NIL 35] Shakespeare, Sonnet 129 [NIL 59] Donne, Holy Sonnet 10 [NIL 60] Milton, On the Late Massacre in Piedmont [NIL 61] Graham, 2600 p. 3

4 Week Seven T 2/21 NO CLASS MONDAY CLASSES MEET R 2/23 Poetic Forms [ELT ] Yeats, Leda and the Swan [NIL 62] McKay, The White House [NIL 63] Hopkins, Spring and Fall [NIL 64] Millay, What Lips My Lips Have Kissed [NIL 65] Week Eight T 2/28 R 3/2 Sestina and Villanelle [Canvas] Review Poetic Forms [ELT ] Bishop, Sestina [NIL 66-67] Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night [Canvas] Hughes, Harlem [NIL 68] Cummings, [Buffalo Bill s] [NIL 69] Swenson, How Everything Happens [NIL 70] MIDTERM EXAM ******* SPRING BREAK ******* UNIT III - DRAMA Week Nine T 3/14 Mays, Elements of Drama [NIL 72-84] List of Works Cited [ELT ; skim ] Sophocles, Antigone [NIL ] R 3/16 ESSAY #2 FIRST DRAFT DUE (bring hard copy to class, AND submit to Canvas) Continue Antigone Week Ten T 3/21 Characterization and Roles in the Plot [ELT ] Structure [ELT ] Reread Antigone R 3/23 Week Eleven T 3/28 R 3/30 ESSAY #2 FINAL DRAFT DUE (submit to Canvas by 11:59 pm) Wilson, The Piano Lesson [NIL ] Continue The Piano Lesson NO CLASS Graham, 2600 p. 4

5 Week Twelve T 4/4 UNIT IV - FICTION Review Structure [ELT ]; Review Characterization and Roles in the Plot [ELT ] Danticat, A Wall of Fire Rising R 4/6 Voice and POV [ELT ] Theme and Tone [ELT ] Poe, The Cask of Amontillado [NIL ] Baldwin, Sonny s Blues [NIL ] Week Thirteen T 4/11 Dialogue [ELT ] Setting [ELT ] Alexie, Flight Patterns [NIL ] O Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find [NIL ] R 4/13 Syntax [ELT ] Imagery, Symbolism, Atmosphere [ELT ] Faulkner, A Rose for Emily [NIL ] García Márquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings [NIL ] Week Fourteen T 4/18 Review Voice/POV [ELT ]; Review Setting, Theme, and Tone [ELT ] Mansfield, Her First Ball [NIL ] Kincaid, Girl [NIL ] Bambara, Gorilla, My Love [NIL ] R 4/20 ESSAY #3 FIRST DRAFT DUE (bring hard copy to class, AND submit to Canvas) Review Dialogue [ELT ]; Review Syntax [ELT ] Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies [NIL ] Week Fifteen T 4/25 Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants [NIL ] Tretheway, Pilgrimage [NIL ] Larkin, Church Going [NIL 345] R 4/27 ESSAY #3 FINAL DRAFT DUE (submit to Canvas by 11:59 pm) Exam Review and Conclusion Exam Week T 5/2 FINAL EXAM, 3:30 5:20 Graham, 2600 p. 5

6 Policies and Procedures Canvas: This is a web-enabled course that relies heavily on the program Canvas to distribute course materials, serve as a drop box and grading rubric for assignments, and communicate with students. In particular, I will use the Announcements function to send you important updates, reminders, and information outside of class. You should go to your Canvas settings (log in at canvas.usu.edu using your A number and password) and arrange to have announcements and personal messages from me sent to you by whatever electronic media you use most reliably , text message, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Writing Fellows: We are fortunate to have the services of two trained Writing Fellows: Morgan Bronson and Millie Tullis. For the three major essays you will write in this course, you will write a first draft and meet with your assigned WF to workshop the paper before submitting the final version to Canvas. The peer review process is crucial to any good writing, and the WF program gives you the invaluable opportunity to gain a third party s feedback on your ideas. Therefore, I will not accept submission of your essays until you have met with your WF, received her feedback, and incorporated her suggestions into your paper where appropriate. One criterion for judging the success of your papers will be how thoughtfully and effectively you followed the suggestions of the WFs on your first drafts. Writing Fellows are trained to help you with the rhetoric and structure of your papers, the logical strength of your thesis, and the soundness of the evidence in support of your argument. You should not expect them to serve as copy editors or proofreaders. Attendance: Class discussion is a crucial part of this course, and attendance is required and recorded. To allow for illness, family emergency, and other legitimate circumstances, you are allowed to miss two class meetings with no questions asked. Barring documentation of exceptional circumstances, missing further classes will lower your participation grade by 15 points for each additional absence. Given enough absences, this penalty will result in a negative participation grade that will thereby jeopardize your grade in other areas. Coming into class more than ten minutes late, or leaving early, or coming to class unprepared or without the assigned text in hand, will cause you to be counted as absent (again, barring exceptional circumstances or prior arrangement with me). It is your responsibility to find out from your classmates what has happened in classes you have missed I cannot repeat every lesson for every student who misses a class. If you are absent on the day something is due, you are still responsible for submitting that assignment via Canvas. Electronic Devices: You may use a laptop computer, netbook, tablet, e-reader, or smart phone to take notes, read PDFs, or look up facts directly and immediately related to our discussion. Other uses (e.g., Facebook or Instagram, texting, shopping, playing games) are disrespectful and distracting to your classmates, and risk irritating your professor and jeopardizing your participation grade. If you wish to create a video or audio recording of any lecture, discussion, or activity, you must obtain my written permission (by ) in advance. You are on your honor not to abuse these basic rules of etiquette. Written Assignments: You should submit your first drafts of the major essays to Canvas before class on the due date, and bring a hard copy to class. Final drafts must be submitted to Canvas by 11:59 p.m. on the due date. Late papers may not be accepted, or they may have points deducted, at my discretion. Papers will lose points for each page they fall short of the minimum limit, and late papers will have 5 points deducted for every 24 hours they are submitted past the deadline. If there are extenuating circumstances, please notify me immediately and before the due date. Failure to submit all required written assignments may result in a failing grade in the course. You must produce any sources used in any paper upon request. Exams: The exams cannot be taken at any other time, except in the case of a documented medical emergency, or if you have three or more assigned on a given day. Look ahead at the exam dates now and mark them in your calendar. Graham, 2600 p. 6

7 Grading: I read each paper and exam carefully, thoroughly evaluating how well it has met the grading criteria before assigning it a grade, and offering constructive criticism to improve your writing in future assignments. I reserve the right to take up to two weeks from the due date to give you comments and a grade on any given assignment. Despite the care I take in grading your work, if you nevertheless feel your grade on any given assignment is unjust in any way, you have the right to request a re-grade. Be advised, however, that while such a re-grade will be fair, it will also be exacting and meticulous, and therefore as likely to see your grade lowered as it is to be raised. Incompletes: I grant a grade of I only in exceptional circumstances involving illness or family emergency. To be eligible for an Incomplete, you must have completed all assignments for the course before the date of the final exam, except for the final essay or the exam itself. In other words, you cannot use an Incomplete to make up more than one assignment after the semester ends. The English department has a form you should fill out and bring to me for a signature; that form requires you to set a specific date by which you will finish the incomplete work. Failure to meet this deadline will result in the grade reverting to an F. Academic Integrity and Plagiarism: The department is committed to the highest standards of ethical conduct and academic excellence. Any student found guilty of plagiarism, fabrication, cheating on exams, or purchasing of papers or other assignments will receive a failing grade in the course. Plagiarism includes knowingly representing, by paraphrase or direct quotation, the published or unpublished work of another person as one s own in any academic exercise or activity without full and clear acknowledgement. It also includes the unacknowledged use of materials prepared by another person or agency engaged in the selling of term papers or other academic materials (Code of Policies and Procedures for Students, Article V, Section 3A.1). The penalties for plagiarism are severe. They include #1) warning or reprimand and #2) grade adjustment (Article VI, Section 1A). Other penalties may also be imposed at the Dean s discretion. These include probation, suspension, expulsion, withholding of transcripts, denial or revocation of degrees. All papers you submit via Canvas for this course will be analyzed for originality by TurnItIn.com. Each student has the right and duty to pursue his or her academic experience free of dishonesty. The Honor System is designed to establish the higher level of conduct expected and required of all Utah State University students. Students who violate university rules on academic integrity are subject to disciplinary penalties. Academic dishonesty/misconduct shall include, but not be limited to, disruption of classes, threatening the instructor or a fellow student in an academic setting, giving or receiving of unauthorized aid on examinations or in the preparation of reports, notebooks or other assignments, knowingly misrepresenting the source of any academic work and/or plagiarizing of another s work, or otherwise acting dishonestly for the purpose of obtaining/changing grades. For more detailed information on academic honesty policies, please see STC s Ethical Principles for Technical Communicators at and the USU policy on plagiarism and its consequences on page 20 of the undergraduate catalog. Academic Freedom: The USU Policy Manual s Statement on Academic Freedom and Professional Responsibility (available at defines Academic Freedom as the right to teach, study, discuss, investigate, discover, create, and publish freely. Academic freedom protects the rights of faculty members in teaching and of students in learning.... The faculty member is entitled to full freedom in teaching, research, and creative activities, subject to the limitations imposed by professional responsibility. The policy continues, The University recognizes that students sincerely held core beliefs may make it difficult for students to fulfill some requirements of some courses or majors. The University assumes no obligation to ensure that all students will be able to complete any Graham, 2600 p. 7

8 course or major. According to this policy, it is the student s responsibility to determine before the final drop date whether he or she will find any course material objectionable, and thus be unable to complete the course requirements. My own view is that the study of literature, film, and culture is a vital part of the Humanities, in which we contemplate expressions of the human condition in all its beauty, ugliness, and complexity. The classroom will be a neutral space for discussion and debate a laboratory, if you will in which no idea, word, thing, or image will be off limits to study and discussion (so long as it is not completely gratuitous, given the context of the course s larger themes and fields of inquiry). At various times, depending on the subject matter, you may be required to read, view, or consider: violence; vulgar or sexually explicit language; nudity, and/or depictions of sexual activity; neutral or favorable depictions of religious beliefs other than Christianity, of political ideologies other than capitalism, and of sexualities other than heterosexuality; and other ideas or subject matters that some students may find objectionable. Because class discussions of shared experiences of works of art are a significant component of the coursework, no substitutions to the required texts or films will be allowed. If you feel you will be unable to participate fully in the class, you should ask yourself seriously whether this is the course for you. Writing Center: The USU Writing Center, located in Ray B. West 104, offers face-to-face and online tutoring sessions. On-site hours are: Mon Fri 8:30 AM 3:30 PM and Mon Thurs 7:00 9:00 PM. Online appointments must be scheduled two days in advance at writing.usu.edu. Disabilities: Students with ADA-documented impairments may be eligible for reasonable accommodations. Veterans may also be eligible for services. Accommodations are coordinated through DRC in Room 101 of the University Inn, voice, TTY, or toll free at Please contact DRC as early as possible. Alternate format materials (Braille, large print or digital) are available with advance notice. Sexual Harassment: Sexual harassment is defined by the Affirmative Action/Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as any unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. If you feel you are a victim of sexual harassment, you may talk to or file a complaint with the Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Office, located in Old Main, Room 161, or call the office at Get Out of Jail Free: Stuff happens. To accommodate this stuff, every student is allowed one get out of jail free pass. This will allow you to miss a third class without penalty, or to turn in a paper 48 hours late without penalty, or to revise a paper for a higher grade after meeting with the professor, or to otherwise bend the rules laid out in the above policies, as negotiated with the professor. To redeem your pass, simply me a brief explanation of the grave crime you would like leniency for no groveling necessary. Each student gets only one pardon per semester, so use it wisely! [Note: the GOOJF card cannot be used as extensions on the first draft of an essay; those must be turned in on time to enable the meetings with the Writing Fellows.] Graham, 2600 p. 8