Instructor: Paul Schacht | Office: Welles 219B | Phone: 245-5141 | Email: schacht@geneseo.edu | Fall 2008 Office Hours: TR, 1:30-2:30, and by appointment
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:20 a.m. - 12:35 p.m., Welles 119.
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:30 - 2:30, and by appointment.
You may be looking at this course site on the web. Or you may be looking at it inside mycourses.geneseo.edu. I've made it available both ways in order to keep as much of it as possible open to public view. Whether you're inside or outside mycourses, you'll use the navigation links on the right to get to most of the site's content. The Outcomes page, for example, will show you what I'm hoping we'll accomplish together this semester, while the Requirements page will tell you what we'll be reading and the Schedule page will tell you when we'll be discussing it. When inside mycourses, you'll have access to additional content using the tabs at the top of the mycourses window (Tools, Calendar, Communicate, etc.).
Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending on the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress. (Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form)
"[W]hat is the use of a book," thought Alice, "without pictures or conversation?" (Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
In asking what is the use of a book without pictures or conversation, Lewis Carroll's Alice meant more than she said. Books are indeed useless without the conversation through which readers make sense of them. That conversation - a "discussion" that is both "heated" and "interminable" (in the words of Kenneth Burke) - is the practice of criticism.
The point of the conversation is, among other things, to represent or "picture" the meaning of texts. Books are useless without meaning - or, to put it another way, until we make meaning out of them.
Our class will be a "parlor" in which, through conversation, we will make meaning from poetry, drama, fiction, film, and other kinds of text. At times the conversation will be live and literal, but at other times it will take place in the virtual space afforded by the internet. Our conversation will concern not only texts but the practices of literature and criticism themselves. In other words, we will be interested in picturing (representing) all three of the following for a given poem: What does it mean to call this a poem? What does this poem mean? How did I make meaning of this poem?
Substitute "text" for "poem," and you can see that our inquiry will have to extend beyond words. Many written texts come (like Carroll's Alice books) accompanied by pictures; some texts, like George Herbert's "Easter Wings" or Lionel Kearns's "Birth of God/uniVerse" are word-pictures; and if "every picture tells a story," as this one seems to do, then every picture must in some sense be a text itself. Some written texts are accompanied by music or other sounds (Kearns is again instructive, as is Carroll, whose stories about Alice are filled with songs). Epic poetry was originally sung; the terms "lyric" and "verse," as applied to poetry, reference the poetry's musical qualities, while, as applied to popular music, they point the opposite way, referencing the music's words. Films and videos are moving pictures, often combined with sounds, and more often than not conveying words.
So our "texts" this semester will be poems, plays, stories, novels, pictures, films, videos, songs - even (glancingly) games. (I can't tell you why I'm not a gamer, but I'm just not. However, literary texts are certainly games, and most games have a narrative structure and are therefore plainly texts. Witness, yet again, the Alice books, dominated in turn by cards and chess.)
Games bring us back to conversation. "He talks about [our conversation] just as if it was a game!" Alice thinks of Humpty Dumpty. And rightly so. Conversation is a rule-governed collborative activity. Consequenty, our conversation this semester will require collaboration. It will not be a conversation if one person does all the talking. To promote collaboration and the sense of community that comes with it, we will use a variety of tools. You will be expected to participate in group writing at the Geneseo wiki and to maintain a blog. In addition, you're invited (though not required) to join our class Facebook group, "English 170 Fall 2008."
Individual students in English 170 will:
The Engl 170-01 (Fall 2008) community will:
M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 9th ed.
L. Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (e-texts)
M. Cunningham, The Hours
G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, Metaphors We Live By
O. Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (e-text)
V. Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Other electronic texts as indicated on the course schedule.
Two 4-5 page papers, (35% each)
Final Exam (15%)
Blog (5%)
Wiki (10%)
For this course, you must maintain a weblog. The purpose of your blog will be to record thoughts and experiences related to the material of the course. For this purpose, please do not use a blog that you already maintain; instead, start a new one devoted exclusively to this class. You may keep your blog on your own website, on the Geneseo wiki, or on a hosted site such as Blogger. I will post your blog address on our course website so that others may visit it. (See "Blogs" in the navigation menu at right.) Your blog is worth 5% of your final grade. You must post to your blog at least once a week.
Finally, you must participate in collaborative writing at the Collaborative Writing Project. At a minimum, you must contribute three definitions or examples to the CWP's dictionary of literary terms. Definitions must be written in students' own words, sources for definitions must be provided in each article, and examples may not be drawn from Abrams.
You must complete all assignments to receive a passing grade in this course.
You may permit 50% of your final exam grade (i.e., 10% of your course grade) to be determined by an optional project that explores, examines, or illuminates one or more of the semester's texts using means other than the conventional literary essay. Examples of such a project might be:
This is not an exhaustive list; you are welcome to propose other kinds of unconventional project. However, bear in mind the following constraints:
SUNY Geneseo will make reasonable accommodations for persons with documented physical, emotional or learning disabilities. Contact Tabitha Buggie-Hunt, Director of Disability Services to discuss needed accommodations as early as possible in the semester.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:20 a.m. - 12:35 p.m., Welles 119.
Aug. 26 - Hardware
Aug. 28 - Software
Sep. 2 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Abrams: Criticism
Sep. 4 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Barbara Hardy, "Towards a Poetics of Fiction" (myCourses login required)
Sep. 9 - Through the Looking-Glass
Sep. 11 - Through the Looking-Glass; Abrams: Deconstruction, Dialogic Criticism
Sep. 16 - Rizzuto (myCourses login required), Chasin, Wayman, Reed, MacLeish (manuscript here), Kearns, Howe/Karpinska; Abrams: New Criticism
Sep. 18 - Metaphors We Live By (1-76); poetry by Dickinson (listen as well as read, if you can), Blake, Angelou (see video here as well), Hughes, Waber and Pimble; Abrams: Figurative Language, Symbol
Sep. 23 - Metaphors (77-125); poetry by Tennyson, Keats, Owen, Hopkins (here and here); Abrams: Meter, Rhyme
Sep. 25 - Metaphors (126-155); poetry by Piercy (here and here), Shakespeare (here and here), Auden
Sep. 30 - poetry by Donne, McKay, Frost (here, here, and here), Shelley, Chasin (see video here as well); Abrams: Sonnet, Convention
Oct. 2 - poetry by Keats, Browning, Eliot; Abrams: Dramatic Monologue
Oct. 7 - The Importance of Being Earnest; Abrams: Comedy, Tragedy
Oct. 9 - No Class
Oct. 14 - Fall Break
Oct. 16 - The Importance of Being Earnest; Abrams: Queer Theory
Oct. 21 - Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado". Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"; Louis Mink, "History and Fiction as Modes of Comprehension" (myCourses login required); Alasdair MacIntyre, "The Virtues, the Unity of a Human Life and the Concept of a Tradition" (myCourses login required)
Oct. 23 - Tolstoy, "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", Pullinger and others, Inanimate Alice, Episodes 1-4; Flight Paths: A Networked Novel (just browse); Abrams: Narrative and Narratology
Oct. 28 - Mrs. Dalloway
Oct. 30 - Mrs. Dalloway
Nov. 4 - Mrs. Dalloway
Nov. 6 - Mrs. Dalloway
Nov. 11 - The Hours - novel
Nov. 13 - The Hours - novel
Nov. 18 - The Hours - film
Nov. 20 - The Hours - film
Nov. 25 - The Hours - film
Nov. 26-30 - Thanksgiving Break
Dec. 2 - Lessig, Free Culture (download pdf), "Preface"; Free Culture flash presentation; Helprin,"A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn't its Copyright?", etc.; "Nineteenth-Century British and American Copyright Law"
Dec. 4 - What have we learned?
Tuesday, December 16, 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.
For general policies on papers and exams, see The Fine Print.
The final exam for English 170 will be held on Tuesday, December 16, from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.. in our regular classroom.
A make-up exam will be administered for medical reasons only. You must supply documentation of all illnesses and accidents. (A note indicating merely that you were seen at the infirmary won't suffice.) Please do not request special arrangements to alleviate any of the following: a crowded exam schedule; a heavy workload; conflicts with employment, extra-curricular responsibilities, or job-hunting; familial celebrations (e.g., weddings or graduations); crises in other people's lives (e.g., severe depression of best friend's roommate); crises in your own life that are a normal and inevitable part of the collegiate experience (e.g., demise of relationship with boyfriend or girlfriend.) Fairness dictates that such accommodations cannot be made for one without being offered to all.
The "due-date" for each of the papers in this class is not a single date but a one-week range during which you may submit your finished work. I grade and return papers in the order in which I receive them, so the earlier you submit, the sooner your work will be returned. The Online Writing Guide offers help on a wide range of essay-writing matters, including proper conventions for citation. In both papers for this class, you must follow MLA format for citations.
Due September 25 - October 2 (no later than 11:59 p.m. on October 2)
Information about the first paper will appear in this place when it is available.
Due December 3 - December 8 (no later than 11:59 p.m. on December 8)
Information about the second paper will appear in this place when it is available.
The two papers for this class must be submitted electronically by 11:59 p.m. of the last date in the due-date range. Submit your papers using the drop box in myCourses. (Look for the Drop Boxes under the "Tools" tab.) Late papers lose one-half grade per day.
Be sure to keep a copy of your work.
If you need help with this electronic submission procedure, contact the CIT HelpDesk. If they can't assist you, contact me.
I will return work electronically, in the order in which it was received, with corrections and comments included in the returned file. Please do not expect work submitted close to the deadline to be returned in less than 2-3 weeks.
I encourage you to use the internet resources below, as well as other sites on the web, to learn more about the topics covered in this class.
However, please keep in mind a few general principles about the use of internet resources for this or any other college course:
If you come across any interesting sites not listed here, please let me know about them!
Your blog is an important part of this course - not just for you, but for all of us. To write well you must write often; to learn from your classmates you must know their minds; to blog is to share your mind through frequent writing.
If you keep a website and wish to set aside space on it for your Engl 170 weblog, that's fine. Most students will probably find it easier to use their personal space in the Geneseo wiki or a free blogging service such as Blogger. If you already maintain a blog on Blogspot or elsewhere, please set up a separate blog for this course. Use your Engl 170 blog to share thoughts and experiences related to the material of the course. Bear in mind that although your blog will probably have a very small audience, it will be visible to anyone in the world with internet access; it should not be used to record opinions or revelations of a private or confidential nature.
When blogging, you needn't adhere to the standards of formal, Standard English. Blogging should be fun and relatively free-form. Although IM jargon (lol, etc.) and emoticons don't belong in the essays you'll turn in for this class, you shouldn't hesitate to use them (in moderation) on your blog.
In addition to posting at least once a week to your own blog, consider posting an occasional comment to a classmate's blog.
During office hours I am available to talk with you about anything related to this class or to your studies at Geneseo. No need to make an appointment for an office hour; just drop in. I encourage you to come. I get to know you; you learn more from me. If you cannot make it to any of the scheduled office hours, we can set up a time to meet. During office hours, I am also available to chat online. Ask me for my AIM username. However, live visitors take precedence over those online.
From time to time I will need to communicate with the class as a whole or with you individually by means of email. When communicating with the class as a whole, I will use the class listserv address. Since emails sent to this address will come to students' Geneseo email accounts, it is absolutely imperative that you either regularly check your Geneseo email or have it automatically forwarded to the account you prefer to use. To set up automatic forwarding, go to http://webmail.geneseo.edu from any internet-connected computer, on campus or off. Log in with your Geneseo username and email password. In the left-navigation bar, click "forward account" and carefully follow instructions.
All members of the class are welcome to use the listserv address to communicate with the class as a whole on any matter related to the class. (Do not use the listserv to advertise parties, cars for sale, etc.)
Please feel free to email me at schacht@geneseo.edu on any matter related to the class or to academics generally. I will reply to whatever email address you send from; if the email comes back to me as undeliverable, I will reply to your Geneseo address.
Attendance is your responsibility. Please do not phone or email just to explain why you weren't in or won't be in class on a particular day. On the other hand, if sickness or genuine crisis keeps you from the classroom for any length of time, of course I want to know. Conflicts with other classes or your personal life (weddings, friends who've just broken up with boyfriends/girlfrieds, etc.) must be resolved by you. I regret that I cannot make special arrangements to accommodate them.
As a courtesy to your classmates, be sure that your cellphone is off or set to "silent" or "vibrate" before class begins. In general, it is prohibited to take phone calls during class. However, if you know before class begins that you must be prepared to take an important call, you may sit near the door and take the call outside the classroom when it comes. If you have a laptop computer, I encourage you to bring it to class in order to take notes or consult appropriate knowledge sources online. However, there may be times when I ask all laptop users to close their screens in order to promote maximum concentration on live discussion.
Be sure to proofread your paper closely for faulty grammar or usage, spelling errors, and typos; you are being graded partly on your ability to produce presentable work, an ability that matters both in the classroom and in the world beyond it.
All papers and drafts for this class must be submitted electronically by 8:00 a.m. of the due date. Late papers lose one-half grade per day. Late drafts receive no credit.
During the first week of class, I will email you instructions for submitting your papers and drafts. Be sure to save these instructions and to follow them carefully each time you submit work.
If you need help with the electronic submission procedure, contact the CIT HelpDesk. If they can't assist you, contact me.
I will return your electronically submitted work by email.
Though committed with alarming frequency and dispiriting casualness by people in high places, plagiarism is still a serious academic offense. You are committing plagiarism any time you
If it is discovered that you have plagiarized on an assignment for this class, you will certainly fail the assignment and probably fail the class. In addition, the Dean of the College will be notified that you have committed an act of academic dishonesty, and you may face disciplinary measures from the administration. No excuses. No second chances. Not even for graduating seniors.
Examples of plagiarism:
Since other students' papers and Cliff's or Sparks Notes are not appropriate sources for a college essay, you should avoid them altogether.
There is no such thing as accidental plagiarism. If you are unsure of the proper conventions for documentation, see me and I will tell you how to find the information you need. Better yet, consult the reference librarian at Milne.
If you think for yourself and use sources properly, you will not run into trouble. But remember, in questionable cases you are unlikely to receive the benefit of the doubt. If you err, be sure it is on the side of caution.
You must supply your own blue books for all exams.
Make-up exams will be administered for medical reasons only. You must supply documentation of all illnesses and accidents. (A note indicating merely that you were seen at the infirmary won't suffice.) Please do not request special arrangements to alleviate any of the following: a crowded exam schedule; a heavy workload; conflicts with employment, extra-curricular responsibilities, or job-hunting; familial celebrations (e.g., weddings); crises in other people's lives (e.g., severe depression of best friend's roommate); crises in your own life that are a normal and inevitable part of the collegiate experience (e.g., demise of relationship with boyfriend or girlfriend.) Fairness dictates that such accommodations cannot be made for one without being offered to all.
Your grade reflects my honest and considered evaluation of your work. You have the right to question it. I have the right to stick by it, and that is what I invariably do (with certain obvious exceptions, such as miscalculation of an exam score). Total objectivity is no more possible in grading writing than in making any other judgment of value, but I do my best to maintain consistency and adhere to clearly defined standards. I base my grade on my opinion of your work, not on my opinion of you. If you have a question about your grade on an assignment, I encourage you to see me during office hours or schedule an appointment. I welcome the opportunity to explain to you why you got what you did.
In grading papers and exams, my reference point is the "B."