English 271 Homepage

Literary Analysis

English 271 Schedule

Spring 2009

Please note that this schedule is a flexible instrument, and will be somewhat revised (with notice) as the semester progresses. Be sure to check it a couple times each week; you are responsible for all readings and assignments due on any given day. See our Homepage for policies regarding missed classes and late course work.


Week 1, Mon. Jan. 12  
MEET IN IACC 114

Class Activities

  • Course introduction.
  • Exchange email addresses and phone numbers with 3 people.
  • Getting around Blackboard. We'll be going back and forth FREQUENTLY between "Course Documents" and "Discussion Board."
  • Informal class survey: what kinds of criticism have you studied?
  • Write diagnostic critical essays. Instructions are in our Blackboard Discussion Board. Go to the Forum there titled, "First-Day Diagnostic Essay," and then the Thread titled, "First-Day Diagnostic Essay."
  • Go over diagnostics from previous semester and discuss critical lenses.
  • White Oleander DVD checkout.
  • Early dismissal to begin ample reading due in two weeks.

Week 2,  Jan. 19   Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday

Be working on assignments due by the 26th (see below).

Week 3,  Jan. 26

Before Class

  • Read all of The Great Gatsby.
  • Watch White Oleander. (Use checked-out instructor copy or rent on your own.)
  • Read CTT, Chapter 1, pp. 1-10.
  • Read CTT, Chap. 2, "Psychoanalytic Criticism," pp. 11-49.
  • Read O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge."

In Class

  • Bring your Gatsby text to class.
  • Quiz on all readings and film.
  • Go over quiz questions.
  • General discussion of Gatsby and usefulness in this course.
  • Review critical lenses again and look at student diagnostics.
  • Go over Freudian psycho crit. and PP presentation.
  • Workshopping the theory: in-class activities such as online research, bibliography entries, small group discussion, brief projects. We will often write "micro essays" in class. For an explanation of the micro essay, CLICK HERE. Another possibility: individual freewriting, then large-group analysis of White Oleander and Ai's "The Anniversary," and other.

"they f... you up, your mum and dad" —Philip Larken

 Week 4, Feb. 2

Before Class

In Class

  • Begin work with Lacan.
  • Workshopping the theory or writing to learn.

 

Week 5, Feb. 9    

Before Class

  • Read CTT, Chap. 3, "Marxist Criticism," pp. 53-79.

In Class

  • Finish psycho crit., if necessary.
  • Begin Marxist criticism.
  • Questions in Tyson, p. 68 assigned for viewing Modern Times, 1 hr. 23 min.
  • Responses to questions, time permitting.

Week 6,  Feb. 16    President's Day Holiday

Be working on assignments due by the 23rd (see below), if necessary.

Watch for possible email updates.

Be reading ahead?

Week 7,  Feb. 23

Before Class

  • Complete response to Tyson questions, p. 68, on Chaplin film, if necessary. Post in Blackboard.
  • CTT, Chap. 4, "Feminist Criticism," pp. 83-131.
  • CTT, Chap. 12, "Postcolonial Criticism," pp. 417-448.

In Class

  • Finish work with Marxism.
  • Brief look at feminist crit., then poco.
  • Working with notions of "Other."

Week 8,  March 2

Before Class

  • Review all Tyson readings and Power Point presentations.
  • Study fem and poco crit. chapters for quiz.
  • Formulate 3 good and real questions you have about literary theory generally or any one theory specifically.

In Class

  • Come with your 3 questions—just jot them down in your notebook.
  • Finish work with Power Point projects. These will count for quiz credit.
  • Complete work with poco crit.
  • Mid-semester review and prep. for midterm exam.
  • Explication of exam poems.
  • Practice identifications and summaries.
  • Take-home mid-term exam assigned.

Week 9, March 9

Before Class

  • Complete take-home exam.

In Class

  • Mid-term exam due, hand-in instructions TBA. All materials must be stapled ; they won't be accepted otherwise. No exams accepted once class begins.
  • Go over exam.
  • Boot Camp Power Point presentation.
  • Look at Molly Giles, "The Poet's Husband" (handout).
  • Begin "Boot Camp Worksheet." (Go into BB "Discussion Board.")

March 16-20    SPRING BREAK

Week 10, March 23  NO CLASS DUE TO FLOOD EFFORTS; SCHEDULE UPDATE COMING SOON

Before Class

  • Carefully study: Elements of Poetry, Elements of Fiction, and Critical Approaches (a summary).
  • Read CTT, "New Criticism," pp. 135-164.
  • Finish and post "Boot Camp Worksheet."

    Note: I do NOT think that the Bedford St. Martin definition of "theme" (at the Elements of Fiction link above) is a very good one. Please see our PowerPoint presentation titled "Literature Bootcamp" in Blackboard "Course Documents" for an alternate definition. Much of the Bedford St. Martin material, however, is very good. Please study it carefully.)

In Class

  • Go over midterm exam.
  • Midterm course evaluation.
  • Correct "Skinny" Power Points.
  • View PP "Boot Camp Worksheet Follow-Up."
  • Complete "Boot Camp Worksheet II" and discuss. Bedford-St. Martin's poetry exercises: click here.
  • Identifying elements in selected passages from literary works.
  • Discuss formalism/New Crit.
  • Look at key Oleander segments.
  • New Critical reading of "The Poet's Husband"
  • Alternate readings of Chaplin, Hawthorne, et al.

Week 11, March 30

Before Class

  • Read CTT, Chap. 7 ("Structuralist Criticism") and Chap. 8 ("Deconstructive Criticism,") pp. 209-279. Pay attention especially to deconstruction chapter.

No Class Meeting: Flood

  • Finish work with New Crit.
  • Structuralism-deconstruction presentation.
  • Groups apply deconstruction to one or more course readings.

 

April 6    Welcome back! Thank you sandbaggers!

Before Class

  • Try to have all reading assignments to date completed (see above: Bedford-St. Martins site on literary elements; Tyson chapters on New Crit, Structuralism, Deconstruction)

If you are having special difficulty still with flood-related issues, keep me informed.

In Class

  • Review semester to date.
  • Go over mid-term exam.
  • Intensive lecture-presentations on Bootcamp, New Crit, Decon. The flood crisis forces us to cover this material very superficially. You don't have to consider yourself short-changed, however; it just means that you can focus better on other material. Everything's a trade-off :)
  • Examine sample essays and/apply practice applying theories to Giles, Hawthorne, Chaplin, O'
  • Research.
  • Write history of class session.

April 13   Class WILL meet today!

Before Class

  • Read CTT, Chap. 9, "New Historical and Cultural Criticism," pp. 281-312.
  • Read Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find."
  • Start reading Fight Club, if you like.

In Class

  • Examine class histories. Perspectives wheel.
  • New Hist/Cult. crit. PP presentation.
  • Springsteen songs.
  • O'Connor story from new hist/cult perspective.
  • Working with the notion of "discourse."
  • Begin discussion of essay assignment and strategies.

Week 14, April 20

Before Class

  • Complete possible assigned work on culturalist crit., TBA.
  • Be reviewing all theories.
  • Click here for excellent review material.
  • Work on draft of major essay.
  • Finish all of Fight Club.

In Class

  • Finish work with culturalist theory.
  • Open discussion of novel.
  • Intensive theory review. Apply multiple lenses to novel.
  • Draft #1 due. Bring 2 copies.
  • Take-home final exam assigned.

Week 15, April 27

Before Class

  • Complete take-home exam.

In Class

  • Exams collected at beginning of period. No exams accepted after this point.
  • Go over exams.

Week 15, May 4

Before Class

  • Work on draft of major essay.
  • Work on take-home exam.

In Class

  • Completed exams are due in instructor's hands at our classroom door at the beginning of class. All materials must be stapled ; they won't be accepted otherwise.
  • Go over exam answers.
  • Basic conventions in critical writing. Plagiarism and documentation review.
  • Draft #2 due; bring 2 copies.
  • Course evaluation.
  • Final extra credit opportunity. (You must be present in class to receive this credit.)
  • Conferences.

Mon., May 11

Completed essays due in Blackboard "Discussion Board," Forum titled, "FINISHED ESSAYS."

No coursework accepted after midnight on this date, except with documented evidence of serious hardship or illness

Early hand-ins welcome.

 

 

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