ENGLISH 4 (003) / Writing in the
Discipline of English
Spring
2006 (second half-semester
course: March 20-April 26)
|
Professor:
Sandra Jamieson
http://www.depts.drew.edu/engl/sjamieso/ Contact:
(email):
sjamieso@drew.edu
(office):
973.408.3499
Class
meetings: Mon
& Wed 11:00-12:15 p.m.
EMB 206 Office:
S.W. Bowne 118, Printable syllabus (.pdf): http://www.users.drew.edu/sjamieso/Engl4/S2006/syllabus.pdf |
NOTE: This course is
linked to one of the four courses in the sequence "Mapping the
Anglo-American
Tradition" (21A, 21B, 20A, 20B) and the suggested research topics are
drawn
from the material in the linked module. For this reason, all students
registered for ENGL 4 must also be co-registered for the relevant
module.
| The
texts you need |
Course
description |
Intellectual
outcomes |
Class
schedule |
| The work & the grades | Writing
assignments |
Resources |
Rules |
Anson,
Chris, Robert Schwegler, and Marcia Muth. The Longman Writer's
Companion.
Longman, 2006
Gibaldi, Joseph.
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th ed).
Modern Language Association of America, 2003
Strunk,
William and E.B. White The Elements of Style.
Allyn & Bacon, 2000
Truss,
Lynne. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to
Punctuation.
Gotham, 2004.
Williams,
Joseph.
Style: The
basics of Clarity and Grace.
Pearson Longman, 2006
ENGL 4 is NOT
more
first year composition! ENGL 4 is designed to introduce students to the
writing
and research skills specific to the discipline of English. The course
is an
introduction to the kinds of writing expected of English majors and
those who
continue the study of literature to graduate school and beyond. Most of
that
writing will involve research, so this course includes an extensive
research
component, but the materials you will consult will be those used
specifically
in the discipline of English: academic journals, books, essays, and
additional
literary works, along with the databases and search strategies used to
find
them. In addition to helping majors and minors strengthen their overall
writing
and research skills, this course will also allow them to extend the
material
covered in the corresponding section of "Mapping the
Anglo-American Tradition."
Because the courses are linked in this way, ENGL 4 will help students
imagine
research topics and the ways they develop from lectures and classroom
discussion and invite them to build on that discussion as they develop
and
execute research plans.
If
you do the work in this class, ENGL 4 will:
1)
Challenge
you to think about stylistic choices and thereby extend the clarity and
accuracy of your writing;
2)
Expand
your library research skills and expertise using the journals,
documents, and
databases central to the discipline of English;
3)
Familiarize
you with, and give you brief opportunities to explore, some of the
different
kinds of projects that literary critics undertake (using biography,
reading
contemporaneous texts and images, using primary documents from the
culture in
relation to a literary text);
4)
Increase
the flexibility and precision of your thoughts about literature by
helping you
to use primary and secondary resources to develop and support theories
about a
work or author;
5)
Build
on your ability to imagine topics and questions for further research as
you
read and consider material is different classes;
6)
Deepen
your knowledge and understanding of a literary topic and author
introduced in
ENGL 20 or 21.
We will measure
these outcomes in your formal and
informal writing, class participation and presentations, and the final
portfolio, and your grade for the course will be based upon them.
You
will write something for every class, but there are two
major papers. The first asks you to compare four guides to writing and
advance
a thesis about the different treatments of style. The second asks you
to use
primary and secondary sources in an exploration of a text, author,
genre, theme,
or issue raised in ENGL 20 or 21. Each assignment includes several
components,
all of which will be handed in together in a portfolio at the end of
the class.
Grade breakdown:
Paper
1 (comparative project):
25% of
the final grade
Paper
2 (research project):
60%
of the final grade
Participation
and presentation:
15% of the final
grade (don't just speak for the sake of it, though)
Like any
community, the
classroom community requires work to create and maintain, and there are
consequences for those who in any way undermine this community or fail
to do
their share of the work necessary to maintain it. These consequences
will be
felt by all because the classroom community will not work if students
do not
make it work. They will also be felt by the individual responsible.
Students
must attend class, be prepared for class, be willing to share their
ideas, and
be respectful of the ideas of others. Lack of respect for classmates
will not
be tolerated in this class.
The
larger academic community depends on the generation of and willingness
to share
and discuss ideas in dialog and in written texts. For this reason,
plagiarism
will not be tolerated in those seeking to remain in the academic
community. (Please see Drew's "Academic
Integrity Policy" if you are unsure what it means to use sources
correctly, and The Writer's Companion
or the MLA Handbook
to correctly create works cited lists.)
This
is college, so I should not have to post classroom management rules you
should
have learned in elementary school. If you are unsure how we expect
college
students to behave, it is your responsibility to ask. If I find I have
accidentally strayed into an elementary class, I will be happy to post
the most
draconian of rules. Don't make me do that!
There are many
resources
you can use as you work on the papers for this class. The following are
recommended:
* General
resources for
Writers: http://www.users.drew.edu/sjamieso/Webresources.html
* For papers
that use
comparison: http://www.users.drew.edu/sjamieso/resources/Comparison.html
* For
research
proposals: http://www.users.drew.edu/sjamieso/research_proposal.html
* For
annotated
bibliographies: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_annotatedbib.html
* For
revision and
editing: http://www.users.drew.edu/sjamieso/12stepediting.htm
* The writing
center for
personalized guidance in your writing: http://www.therichco.com/wconline/drew/schedule/
* More
information for
English majors and minors: http://www.depts.drew.edu/engl/test/majors.html
In this
assignment you will
explore an issue, topic, text, or author presented in ENGL 20A, conduct
initial
research and develop a research proposal, conduct more research and
write an
annotated bibliography, and then write up the paper.
Due Dates:
In this paper
you will
compare the way style and advice about how to write effective prose are
presented in The Elements of Style,
by William Strunk and E.B. White; Style: The basics of Clarity and
Grace,
by Joseph Williams; and The Longman Writer's Companion,
by Chris Anson, Robert Schwegler, and Marcia Muth, with added support
from Eats,
Shoots and Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
and the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research
Papers by Joseph
Gibaldi. The
objective of each of these three texts is to help readers become more
effective
writers, but each seems to develop from a very different definition of
"effective," and each adopts a very different tone. While some topics
are
covered in all three texts, most are not and those that are receive
different
attention and space. Each text emphasizes different aspects of writing
while
appearing to have the same goal.
Your task in this paper is to explore the differences and
similarities
between these texts and write a comparison that helps us to make sense
of those
differences and similarities.
Begin this comparison by browsing through the table of contents, layout, and chapters before you read the preface and introduction. You may want to consider whether the front matter adequately and accurately represents and introduces the text in question.
To help you get
started,
consider the following questions:
-
How
does each text define style?
-
What
assumptions drive the notion of style presented in each text?
-
What
assumptions does each book seem to make about our reasons for writing?
-
What
assumptions does each book seem to make about our reasons for
consulting a book
on style?
-
What
tone do the authors of each text adopt?
-
What
attitudes do they seem to have about their readers?
-
Who
seems to be the audience for each book?
-
What
do we learn about style from this discussion?
-
Which
book seems to speak to you (i.e. seems to match your assumptions,
purposes,
etc.?)
-
What
examples can you give of differences between the three texts?
-
What
examples of similarities can you give?
-
What
is the biggest different?
-
What
is the most obvious similarity?
-
How
does each text make you feel as a writer?
Once you have
answered
these questions and any others that occur to you as you read, draw some
larger
conclusions about the differences between these three texts and develop
a
thesis from that.
Due Dates:
The
last piece of writing you will do for this course functions as a
preface to your work, and invites you to
practice the writing skills you have used in the course for a very
different purpose. In this assignment YOU become the text, and your
purpose is to provide a lens through which others can view your work in
this course.
At the end of the course you will be asked to gather together all of
your work for the class (see below) and think about it. This is an
important class: now that you have completed it you have started your
journey as an English major. ENGL 9 taught you how to read and think
like a major, and ENGL 20 and 21 are teaching you the broad base of
knowledge that majors need, but this class is designed to teach you to
walk the walk and talk the talk of a major. With the completion
of
your final portfolio you have entered the conversation of the
discipline. How does that feel? Do you feel more a part of the
discipline of English now? How? What do you still need to learn? Where
do you go from here? Your final piece of writing is a reflection on
what you have learned in this class and what you still have to learn.
Instead of analyzing a text, this assignment invites you to analyze
yourself, using your work to support the claims you make about it (you
may quote yourself, refer to assignments and moments in the course,
and/or provide links). This assignment also invites you to compare your
work and your sense of yourself as a writer to earlier moments in your
writing life--to your work and attitude six weeks ago, or in high
school, kindergarten, or at some other point. In other words, in this
assignment you are thinking about thinking and writing about writing.
Your final work for the course will be
shared in two ways.
A
PRINT PORTFOLIO:
You will hand in a portfolio containing your final copies of the two
papers and all of the work that you have printed out and generated on
paper as part of this course (notes, diagrams, drafts, papers with my
comments, writing center notes, things you downloaded from the web,
photocopies--everything ALREADY printed). This material should be
gathered in a manila folder and handed to me. At the front of the
portfolio you should place your meta-analytical preface. You may also
include a title page, an acknowledgment page, a table of contents, and
anything else that seems appropriate;
An
ELECTRONIC PORTFOLIO (ePortfolio):
You will gather together your final copies of both papers along with
everything else that you have saved electronically as part of this
course (including things you also hand in in print form). This material
will be saved in a folder in the k:drive (or on your f:drive) and
linked to an electronic portfolio so that it is available on the web.
You may use one of the templates I will provide to set up this
portfolio, or you may design your own. You may use your preface as the
base and provide links to other work, or you may provide links to
several things including the preface. We will discuss these options as
you work on the final portfolio.
| Drew Composition Program ePortfolio project |
Papers focusing on the exploration of a genre
Poetry of the
period (specific
poets, poems, styles, movements, reception, etc.)
1.
Consider
the World War One poets. What common modes and
techniques do we see in their work? What is their significance as poets? You should plan to include both your
own close reading of some poems and the analysis and interpretations
offered by
other scholars in support of your own argument.
2. British poets of the 1930s can be
said to have been reacting to modernism, the 1920s, or their political
context.
Explore one or all of these possibilities in specific poets and poems.
You should plan to include both your own close reading of
some poems and the analysis and interpretations offered by other
scholars in
support of your own argument.
3. American poetry
exhibits the formal tension so predominant in the 20th century.
Consider either
late century language poetry or experimental poetry from early in the
century,
and explore what challenges it poses to more formal, realist poetry.
You should
plan to include both your own close reading of some poems and the
analysis and
interpretations offered by other scholars in support of your own
argument.
Drama of the
period (specific
playwrights, plays, styles, movements, reception, etc.)
4. ENGL 20A does not look at the dramatists
Eugene O'Neill, Edward Albee,
Tennessee Williams, or David Mamet. How do they fit together with
Miller's
project? You should plan to include both your own reading of selected
plays and
the analysis and interpretations offered by other scholars in support
of your
own argument.
5. In
1959, Lorraine Hansberry became the first African American woman to
have a play
produced on Broadway, with "A Raisin in the Sun." Since then, many
plays by African American artists have articulated experiences in the
struggle
against racial discrimination. Explore a play or playwright in this
context.
You should plan to include both your own reading of selected plays and
the
analysis and interpretations offered by other scholars in support of
your own
argument.
6. John Osborne's
1956 play "Look Back in Anger" is often said to mark a change in
British drama,
beginning the genre of the "angry young man" a category that referred
to
working class writers outside of the traditional literary
establishment.
Playwright Harold Pinter was initially placed in this category as well.
For
this assignment you may either explore the Òangry young
manÓ phenomena of 1950s
British drama, or explore the work and legacy of Harold Pinter, the
2005 Nobel
Prize recipient. You should plan to include both your own reading of
selected
plays and the analysis and interpretations offered by other scholars in
support
of your own argument.
7. British
playwrights Carol Churchill and David Hare both address contemporary
political
issues in their drama. For this assignment, you may either consider how
their
work differs from that of Tom Stoppard, or you may consider their work
in the
context of contemporary British political drama in general. You should
plan to
include both your own reading of selected plays and the analysis and
interpretations offered by other scholars in support of your own
argument.
Fiction of the
period (specific
authors, novels or short stories, styles, movements, reception, etc.)
8.
How do Claude McKay and Countee Cullen
fit into our understanding of the Harlem Renaissance? You should plan
to
include both your own reading of selected novels and the analysis and
interpretations offered by other scholars in support of your own
argument.
9.
How does Ernest Hemmingway fit into our
understanding of the Lost Generation? You should plan to include both
your own
reading of selected novels and the
analysis and interpretations offered by other
scholars in support of your own argument.
10.
Select the work of one novelist featured in ENGL 20A and explore it in
relation
to one or more of the themes of the course. You should plan to include
both your
own reading of selected novels and the analysis and interpretations
offered by
other scholars in support of your own argument.
Exploring
the cultural context of the period
11. How do we
speak to a coherent American Literature and at the same time
account for Asian American, Latino, and Native American literatures the
gain
recognition in the second half of the century? You should plan to
include both
your own reading of selected literature and
the analysis and interpretations offered by other scholars in support
of your
own argument.
12. Explore the
rise of one twentieth century American ethnic literature. How do we
determine
which literature is classified into the group? What similarities of
theme or
content do scholars trace in this literature? What differences? You
should plan
to include both your own reading of selected literature and
the
analysis and interpretations offered by other scholars in support of
your own
argument.
13.
One feature of postcolonial Anglophone
writing is the tradition of "writing back" to the Empire,
foregrounding old tensions and rewriting old narratives with an
emphasis on
difference from the values and expectations of the imperial center. Consider the genre of postcolonial
Anglophone literature as a response to empire, using specific texts to
support
your argument along with the analysis and interpretations offered by
other
scholars.
14. Explore the
C20th literature written by immigrants to Britain or America, focusing
on
themes, traditions, and tensions. You should plan to include both your
own
reading of selected literature and
the analysis and interpretations offered by other scholars
in support of your own argument.
15. Explore the
category of C20th literature known as "regional literature." This
includes
American literature from the South, the South West, and the Mid West,
and
British literature from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales.
Select one region, and consider how its literature is
defined and how the literature itself shapes that definition. You may
focus on
several authors, or discuss how one author fits--or does not fit--the
regional
category to which scholars assign it. You should plan to include both
your own
reading of selected literature and
the analysis and interpretations offered by other
scholars in support of your own argument.
16.
The Twentieth century saw a radical change in the
position and representation of women in Britain and America. Select one
woman
author and trace the influence of feminism (or womanism) on her work
and/or the
influence of her work on the feminist/womanist movement. You
should
plan to include both your own reading of selected literature and the
analysis and interpretations offered by other
scholars in support of your own argument.
Exploring
themes, images, and representations
17. How does a
literary sense of alienation vary between literatures studied in ENGL
20A over
the course of the century? You should plan to include both your own
reading of
selected literature and
the analysis and interpretations offered by other
scholars in support of your own argument.
18.
Explore the image of the city in twentieth century literature. You may
trace how
the image of the city in either British or American literature changes
over the
course of the century, or you may compare images of the city in British
and
American literature. You should plan to include both your own reading
of
selected literature and the analysis and interpretations offered by
other
scholars in support of your own argument.
19.
ENGL 20A does not focus on mass culture, yet clearly there are overlaps
in
themes and concerns between the literature studied in the class and
that
classified as mass market literature (science fiction, detective
fiction,
graphic novel). For this assignment you are invited to select
literature from
one category of mass market literature and trace one of the themes of
the
course in that literature. Alternately, you may consider the dialogue
between
mass market literature and "high culture" literature (looking at how
contemporary American fiction uses the structure of the detective to
undermine
the possibility of actually finding a solution or solving a crime, for
example).
| Drew
Composition Program ePortfolio project |