English 222 Schedule

Fall, 2014

Tentative Overview

After each date below you'll find a reading and possibly a writing assignment due for that day. You may also see a summary of tentative class activities. If you miss a class, please check this schedule, read through any new Power Points in Blackboard, and contact a couple classmates for full notes and instructions. Then see me if you have specific, informed questions.  (You're expected to be prepared for each class meeting, whether you missed the previous one or not.) You may contact me by email, but please clearly identify yourself, and the course and assignment in question:  Cindy Nichols.

Note: this schedule is flexible. You will need to check it regularly for updates and changes. Details are added throughout as we progress through the term.

Tues. Aug. 26

Course introduction. Look over syllabus. Materials and strategies. Encounters and ecologies of the poetic kind.

Thurs. Aug. 28

Before Class

Print out as hardcopy or bookmark on your laptop:

• Contemporary Confessional Sampler. (You don't need to read these pieces in this sampler yet; just have them available.)

Hang on your refrigerator or tape to the lid of your laptop:

“Meeting, Greeting, and Getting to Know a Poem.” You can find this handout at the top of our Bb menu.

Read:

• In Norton: "Western Wind," p. 84.
• William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up," p. 796.
• "The Wife's Lament," pp. 11-12.
• Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus," pp. 1843-1845. You may optionally click here for a variety of views on this poem.

In Class

• Please bring your textbook to this meeting, along with a print-out or laptop copy of our Contemporary Confessional Sampler.
• Finish introductory Power Point and the poetry "ecosystem."
• Personal mode and confessional movement Power Point.
• Discuss "Western Wind," "The Wife's Lament," and possibly Plath.
• Contemplative Practice #1: Following the Breath. (You should complete this practice three times, on different days, by no later than Thurs., Sept. 4^th .)

Thurs. Sept. 4

Before Class

·       Be practicing your Contemplative Journal Assignment 1: Following the Breath

·       Peruse some additional poems in personal-expressive tradition:  

In Norton: W.D. Snodgrass, see all of Heart’s Needle, p. 1731.

In Confessional Poetry Sampler: Greg Orr and Lisa Lewis.

In Class

• Bring your contemplative journal to class.
• Bring your Contemporary Confessional Sampler to class.
• Bring your laptop to class.
• Review course to-date: policies, approach, personal mode, "Western Wind," "Wife's Lament," Hoagland.
• Continue discussion of personal mode. Tony Hoagland, Lisa Lewis.
• Contemplatice practice #1 should be completed by today.
• Contemplative Journal Assignment #2: Mindful Listening. (You should complete this practice three times, on different days, by no later than Thurs., Sept.11^th .

Tues. Sept. 9

Before Class

• If you're interested, this is the New York Times article Greg Orr wrote recently about the shooting death, by a young girl, of her instructor at a shooting range:

  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/31/opinion/sunday/reflections-on-a-shooting-range-death-from-one-who-knows.html?_r=3

• Some additional poems to look through (we won't discuss; you only have to peruse them):
  William Wordsworth, "My Heart Leaps Up," p. 796.
  John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale," p. 935
  John Berryman (persona poems), from Dream Songs, #1, 4, 14, 29, 40, pp. 1548
  Li-Young Lee, "Persimmons," p. 2011

In Class

• Continue work with personal mode: Greg Orr.
• Practice mindful walking.
• Contemplatice practice #2 should be completed by today.
• Contemplative Journal Assignment #3: Mindful Walking. (You should complete this practice three times, on different days, by no later than Thurs., Sept. 18th .)

 

Thurs. Sept. 11

Before Class

• Work on your “moaner” draft. (CLICK HERE for personal mode assignment.)
• Print out 2 copies of peer critique form (this is also in our Class Library in Bb). Bring these to class.

In Class

• Personal poem draft due. BRING A HARDCOPY PRINT-OUT OF YOUR DRAFT TO CLASS. ALSO BRING 2 PRINT-OUTS OF THE CRITIQUE FORM.
• Continue discussion of personal mode, as needed.

Tues. Sept. 16

Before Class

Be working on your personal poem, based on critiques from last week.

In Norton:

• Theodore Roethke, "In a Dark Time," p. 1501
• William Yeats, "The Second Coming," p. 1196
• Philip Levine, "They Feed They Lion," p. 1761
• D.H. Lawrence, "The Ship of Death," p. 1291
• Wallace Stevens, "Of Mere Being," p. 1268 and "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird," p. 1260

In Class

• Discuss need for detail in personal poems.
• Read sample student journal entries and discuss the contemplative assignments.
• Begin work with visionary mode.

Thurs. Sept. 18

Before Class

• Look over and read a good handful of the poems assigned below. PICK 2 POEMS FROM ALL OF THE READINGS (YOUR CHOICE) AND READ THEM EXTRA CAREFULLY. COME TO CLASS PREPARED TO SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THEM.

  • W.S. Merwin, pp. 1743-1745
  • Craig Raine, "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home," pp. 1943-1944
  • A Surrealist Poem Sampler (print out this packet or have it available on a laptop in class)

• Finish up your personal poem.
• Re-read and continue thinking about assignments in the visionary mode.

In Class

• "Moaner" poem due, hardcopy, in class, with critiques attached. Staple all materials.
• Review course policies.
• Please bring your text and Surrealist Sampler to class.
• Discuss your choice of 2 poems from the assigned reading.
• Study surrealist poems and continue discussion of the visionary mode and surrealism. Play The Exquisite Corpse?
• Assignment for Visionary Poem.
• Contemplative Journal Assignment #4: Beholding. (You should complete this practice three times, on different days, by no later than Thurs., Sept. 25th.)

Tues. Sept. 23

• Continue work with visionary mode. Contemplative, non-disursive thinking and the surreal poem: Edson's "A Cottage in the Woods,"
  and Merwin's "For the Anniversary of my Death" and "When You Go Away."
• Draft of poem in Visionary Mode due. Bring 2 copies.
• Peer critiques. (Critique form will be projected on classroom screen.)
  
  

Thurs. Sept. 25

Before Class

Be working on your contemplative practice, as always.

In Class

• Visionary drafts returned with instructor comments.
• Look at samples of completed student moaner poems.
• Raisin craziness.
• Begin work with The Formalist Mode (The Maker).
• Lineation: what determines line length and line breaks in poetry?
• First and oldest kind of lineation: accentual meter.
• Contemplative Journal Assignment #5: Momentous Munching (You should complete this practice three times, on different days, by no later than Thurs., Oct. 2nd.)

Tues. Sept. 30

Before Class

• Skim/explore Form and Poetry. (This is a web-page version of our Form and Poetry Power Point presentation.) Also browse the substantial section on form in your Nortion.
• Skim/explore An Accentual Poem Sampler.
• Browse poems in A Syllabic Poem Sampler.
• Find a percusive instrument to bring to class: big, small, old, new, professional, hand-made--doesn't matter. A percussive instrument.
• Finish up your Visionary poem.

In Class

• Final version of visionary poem due with critiques attached.
• Practice identifying stressed syllables and accentual meter. (We will look at poems which may actually be in accentual-syllabics, but our purpose here is to practice noticing stresses.)
• Practice identifying syllabic meter.

Thurs. Oct. 2

Before Class

• Get Contemplative Journal ready for hand-in.
• Read Robert Frost's poems in Norton, with special attention to "Birches," "After Apple-Picking," "Mending Wall."
• Skim and explore poems in blank verse.

In Class

• Contemplative Journal Due for Scoring. Be sure it is stapled or bound in some way.
• Begin discussion of accentual-syllabic meter, with focus on blank verse. (You will not need to identify anything but blank verse; however, you will be required to recognize when a poem is in a meter other than iambic pentameter. If you have a strong interest in studying meter, please see instructor for project ideas.)

Tues. Oct. 7

Before Class

• Be working on your contemplative practice, as always.

In Class

• Practice reading and scaning: Tennyson and other.
• Sound and rhyme in poetry.
• Blackberry poems.
• Sound poem assignment.

Thurs. Oct. 9

In Class

• Continue work with sound.
• Free verse: what is it? Is it really free? Free verse lineation. Gluck exercize.
• Begin discussion of traditional verse forms.
• Form groups and begin research for group presentation assignment.
• Contemplative Practice #. (You should complete this practice three times, on different days, by no later than

Tues. Oct. 14

Before Class

• Work on sound poem.
• Look at group presentation assignment.
• Each group member should research the following:

• Definition and description of assigned form.
• History of assigned form.
• Prominent examples and/or practitioners of the assigned form.
• Significance of the form to poetry or literature generally.

• Each group member should try to find material that their group mates will not find! Avoid mere "surface web" research; use our library databases and research aides.

In Class

• Bring a hardcopy draft of your sound poem. Click here to review the sound poem assignment. (You don't need to post a copy in Bb.)
• Continue work with sound and rhyme: true or exact rhyme and other. Take a look at Norton site and its many resources.
• Continue discussion of traditional verse forms.
• Groups begin work on outline/script of presentation. Consider selecting a different group member or couple of group members to work on each facet of the script:

• Intro: def. and descrip.
• History
• Prominent Examples and Practitioners
• Significance

Also: Power Point managers/designers; handouts and other discussion aides; "quiz" or Jeopardy-style test for class, etc.

Before Class

• Work on your individual component of group presentation (your portion of the script). Email it no later than this Sunday to the group's point person. (That person will compile all of the segments into a single document, then print the whole script out for class.) Each person should also be thinking about how they'd like their segment to eventually look in the Power Point presentation.
• Explore our Norton web site, looking especially at the section on rhyme: click here.
• Finish your sound poem.

In Class

• Finished version of sound poem due. Bring a hardcopy (no need to post this one in Bb).
• Draft outline/script of group presentations due. Conferences with groups. Continue to develop your master script and begin designing your Power Point presentation.

 

Thurs. Oct. 16

Before Class

• Group members should make revisions to their segments as suggested on Tues., then again send them to their point person, who will compile them once again into a master script.
• Review the presentation evalution rubric.

In Class

• Continue working independently on presentations. It's important to get as much done today as you can.
• SEE POWER POINT PRESENTATION WHICH INCLUDES UPDATED INFO ON DOCUMENTATION, TEACHING TECHNIQUES, AND DESIGN: "The Formalist Mode Pt. 3: Traditional Verse Forms."

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Tues. Oct. 21

Before Class

• Work on presentations!

In Class

• Power Point draft of presentations due. Please have your presentation available either on a laptop or our computer classroom.
• Instructor conferences with groups.
• Determine the order of group presentations for Thurs.

 

Thurs. Oct. 23

Before Class

• Work on presentations!
• Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.
• Test your .ppt document on our classroom computer BEFORE class.
• Consider emailing the class some handouts ahead of time. Remember to divide up group tasks as evenly as possible.
• Review the presentation assignment.

In Class

• Work on presentations.

Tues. Oct. 28

Before Class

Work on presentations.

In Class

• Begin group presentations.
• Anonymous peer evaluations (hardcopy) of group members are due at the end of each presentation. Click here for the evaluation form.

Thurs. Oct. 30

Before Class

• Work on presentations.

In Class

• Complete group presentations.
• Anonymous peer evaluations (hardcopy) of group members are due at the end of each presentation. Click here for the evaluation form.

Tues. Nov. 4

Before Class

• Begin reviewing all Power Points for exam. Most exam questions will come directly from the Power Points.

In Class

• Final mode: Spoken-Word and community poetry. Assignment for spoken-word poem.
• Slam samples.

Thurs. Nov. 6

Before Class

• Read any and all work by James Wright in our Norton.
• Also take a look at his work in this handout: James Wright. Focus especially on:
• "To a Blossoming Pear Tree"
• "A Blessing"
• "Northern Pike"
• "Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota"
• "Outside Fargo, North Dakota"
• View/browse power point show titled, Bringing It All Together: Semester Review.

In Class

• Bringing it all together: how to read a poem?
• Three poets: Wright, Howe, and Whitman (we'll focus on Wright).

Tues. Nov. 11

In Class

• Continue work with three poets.
• Semester review.
• Advance look at essay assignment?
• Exam sent out immediately after class.

Thurs. Nov. 13

No regular class meeting. WORK ON TAKE-HOME EXAM.

Tues. Nov. 18

No regular class meeting. WORK ON TAKE-HOME EXAM.

Thurs. Nov. 20

Before Class

• Work on take-home exam.

In Class

• Take-home exam due at 11:00 sharp. Materials must be hardcopy and stapled, with your name on each page. Exams which are not stapled, do not include your name on each page, and/or do not arrive by 11:00 will not be accepted.
• Possibly go over exam.
• Begin class work with essays.
• Research and note-taking review.
• Assignment for spoken-word poem.

Tues. Nov. 25

Before Class

• Work on essay and performed poem.

In Class

• Go over exam, if we don't do this on the 21st.
• Zero drafts of essay due (have a topic, focus, and thesis).
• Continue to work with essay assignment and review organizational strategies, conventions, mechanics.

Thurs. Nov. 27: Holiday

Practice spoken-word performance for your relatives  ;)

Work on English 222 essay.

Eat.

Tues. Dec. 2

Before Class

• Continue work on your spoken-word poem. Aim for about 2-5 minutes.
• Complete a good, full draft of your essay, at least 3 full pages, double-spaced.
• View/read over Fundamentals of Writing Review Power Point.

In Class

• Draft of ESSAY due in class, hardcopy. Bring TWO hardcopies of your work. You will need a minimum of 3 full pages, double-spaced, and stapled. THE MORE YOU HAVE, THE BETTER.
• Peer critiques.
• MLA review: using and documenting sources. For help with MLA documentation, CLICK HERE. For help with MLA manuscript format, CLICK HERE. For help with conventions in writing about literature, CLICK HERE.
• Review spoken-word mode and criteria for performances. Read assignment here.
• Contemplative Practice #13: _______ (You should complete this practice three times, on different days, by no later than Tues. Dec. 9^th .) 

Thurs. Dec. 4

Before Class

• Practice spoken-word performance. Practice, practice, practice.
• Work on essay.

In Class

• Drafts returned with instructor comments.
• Discuss essay issues, as-needed.
• Brief conferences. 

Tues. Dec. 9

Before Class

• Work on essay and practice spoken-word performance. Review assignment here.

In Class

• Begin spoken-word performances. About 2-5 minutes for each.
• Contemplative Journal Wrap-Up Reflection.

Thurs. Dec. 11

• Finish performances, if necessary. Performances completed near end will be held to a higher standard (since those students will have had more time to work on their poems).

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