English 226 Schedule

Spring 2007

Last updated: March 4, 2007

After each date below you'll find a summary of tentative class activities, and possible reading assignments from handouts or the Web.  These assignments should be read and/or printed out for the date after which they appear.  If you miss a meeting, you should 1) get full notes and updates from several classmates; 2) complete any make-up work and hand it in within one week with a full explanatory note attached; and 3) check with 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. See our Homepage for other details regarding these policies.)  Be sure to regularly check your email for instructor messages, and, if you ever have questions, don't hesitate to contact me:  Cindy Nichols. For assigned print-outs: please be conservation-minded by using recycled paper, scratch paper, the "Shrink to fit" feature of IE Print Preview, duplex printing, etc. Another option is to bring a laptop to class with wireless capability so that you can simply view handouts on the screen and avoid printing altogether.
 

Wed. Jan. 10—(Course introduction. Favorite artists and definitions of a "good lyric." On-board perspectives wheel. What constitutes lyrics worth studying? Problems with, and preliminary questions about, the rock lyric. Printing tips.)

Fri. Jan. 12—Early Influences: African-American Roots.

Be sure you've done the following by classtime:

1) Browse through this online schedule to familiarize yourself with it. Be sure to check it frequently hereafter for each day's assignments.

3) Read our Homepage and be sure you understand all course requirements and policies.

4) Print out African-American Roots of Rock. This is also available as a Word document in Blackboard under "Course Documents."

5) Read Follow the Drinking Gourd: Poetry as Code for Escape.

6) Some interesting and moving sites: Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Spirituals,

7) Something fun to look at:  "500 Songs that Shaped Rock" and "What Was the First Rock and Roll Record?"

(Review preliminary questions. Note-taking for Exam. Begin to construct timeline. Development and characteristics of blues lyrics: ring shouts, work songs, spirituals, field hollers, and early blues. ) [Roots of Rock disk is 68 min.]

Mon. Jan. 15— MLK Jr. Holiday.

"Blues are a steal from spirituals. And rock is a steal from the blues..." (Big Bill Broonzy)

Wed. Jan. 17—Print out Contemporary Blues Poems, The Rock Lyric as Formal Craft, and Blues Lyric Assignment.

(Review last Friday's discussion and print-out. Discuss form fundamentals, the blues stanza, and assignment for original blues lyric. Movement from blues to rock. Early Elvis as country-western or rockabilly artist. Two versions of "Hound Dog" in "Roots of Rock" print-out, and white corporate appropriations. Look at women blues artists, also in "Roots of Rock" print-out. Contemporary "blues poetry.")

Fri. Jan. 19 —Early Rock.

Print out:  Chuck Berry   Take a look at (but don't print):  Early Beatles

(Continue to build timeline, adding important cultural events and important social shifts of the 50s. Criticisms of pop art from "high culture" as well as Marxist theorists. Discuss Berry: themes of American rock lyrics; rock and roll's celebration of "low culture." Begin to look at additional poetic devices, elements of form.)

 

Mon. Jan. 22—Blues lyric due by Sun., Jan. 21st, 6 pm: post in Blackboard Discussion Board, under "Student Blues Lyrics."

(Practice exam on preliminary questions, poetry and form, blues and early rock. Examine student blues lyrics.)  


Wed. Jan. 24— The British Invasion. (Finish work with Chuck Berry, if needed. Discuss early 60s backlash and sanitation of rock, recalling Elvis's vs. Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog." Beatles' innovations and Beatlemania. Begin video segments of The Complete Beatles.)

Fri. Jan. 26—(Finish Beatles VHS. Taste of Dylan)   


Mon. Jan. 29—Rock Grows Up: Political and Social Awareness. Print out and read the following for class:

(Continue to build timeline, looking BACKWARDS a bit at folk and revivalist folk. Listen to 2 early Dylan pieces, then begin worksheet; finish at home as needed.)


Wed. Jan. 31—Continue Rock Grows Up: Political and Social Awareness. Print out early-mid Dylan lyrics.

(Continue work with Dylan. Go over completed worksheet and protest/social awareness lyric assignment. Watch Don't Look Back segments as transition to mid-career Dylan.

Fri. Feb. 2—The Mystery Tramp: Incomparable Dylan: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde.

(Timeline hiatus. Continue work with Dylan.)

 

RECOMMENDED: TARANTULA BY BOB DYLAN.

..."Like a Rolling Stone" rose through the summer and by the first week of September blasted forth at Number Two, long and loud and hard and cruel, incongruous and marvelous, blessed and beastly, between the confectionary harmonies of the Beatles' "Help" and the Beach Boys' "California Girls." By then the album containing "Like a Rolling Stone" was released as well. For me, Highway 61 Revisited fulfilled the promise of rock 'n roll. It was not only great rock 'n roll, it was a furtherance of rock 'n roll. It was like nothing that had come before. No rock 'n roll had ever been so forceful, so thunderous, so unrelenting, so intense, so driven and so driving, so ferocious of word and sound, so brazen in the magnitude of its electricity. The waves of its noise washed over me like waves of the sea, like sacrament. And in one of its songs, "From a Buick 6," I felt something like a power of poetry for the first time in my life...[This song] remains a power, and I still regard it today as embodying and embracing the precepts common to all great poetry. In fact, I think it remains, with Blonde on Blonde, which followed it, the greatest, maybe the only true, example of rock 'n roll as poetry, poetry as rock 'n roll. It is surely Dylan at the height of his powers...That Dylan uttered the brilliant Veltrine howl of Highway 61 Revisited when he was barely twenty-four is astounding, incredible, uncanny (The Nick Tosches Reader 426).

 

Mon. Feb. 5—(Finish work with Dylan.)

Wed. Feb. 7—The Political Poem and Protest Lyric. Print out The Rolling Stones lyrics and Protest Lyric Assignment.

(Visit by Study Abroad guest. Discuss genres and sub-genres in poetry and rock. Begin work with Stones. Continue discussion of protest genre and social protest/awareness lyric assignment.) OTHER ARTISTS TO CONSIDER FOR SOCIALLY CONSCIOUS OR PROTEST LYRICS: PETE SEEGER, THE BYRDS, SIMON AND GARFUNKEL, PHIL OCHS, BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE, CURTIS MAYFIELD, SAM COOKE, LEONARD COHEN, CROSBY, STILLS, NASH AND YOUNG. ALSO RECOMMENDED: 70S AND 80S POLITICAL PUNK ( DEAD KENNEDYS, B-52s, et al).

(Discuss Stones. Continue examining possibilities for protest/social awareness lyrics.)

Fri. Feb. 9—(Protest/social awareness lyric draft due. Discuss Stones. Critiques.)

Mon. Feb. 12—The Doors of Perception (Psychedelia, Acid Rock, and Influences from the East)

Print out: Lennon-McCartney and Doors for class. Also print out Doors Worksheet.

(Protest lyrics due. Post in Blackboard, under "Discussion Board," by noon Sunday. Values inaugerated with "Tambourine Man," "Ballad of a Thin Man." Timeline updates. Evolution of the Beatles' lyrics. Eastern influences and drug culture. Psychedelia in lyrics and art. Surrealism and parallels to psychedelia in the literary world. What was unprecedented in the psychedelic period and what drew on old traditions? Possibly begin work with Doors worksheet.)

LITERARY PARALLELS: SURREALISM, DEEP IMAGISM.

RECOMMENDED: JIMI HENDRIX, JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, THE GRATEFUL DEAD, DONOVAN, BLACK SABBATH, LED ZEPPLIN II, KING CRIMSON, MOBY GRAPE

Wed. Feb. 14—Read: Assignment for original surrealist lyrics and A Sampling of Surrealist Poetry. (Complete Doors worksheet. Work on surrealist lyric.) RECOMMENDED: JIM MORRISON'S THE LORD AND THE NEW CREATURES.Fri. Feb. 16 —No regular class. Work independently at home: 1) Begin identifying topics for Group Presentations, looking ahead on schedule for ideas. If ready, send out ideas/invitations to classmates by email? 2) Continue working on your own surrealist lyric. 3) Study/review all work to date.

Mon. Feb. 19 —President's Day Holiday.

Wed. Feb. 21—(Surrealist/psychedelic lyric draft due. Look at samples of student protest lyrics, if we don't get to this sooner. Wrap up psychedelia. Discuss drafts of original surrealist lyrics. Discuss surrealist poetry--See Feb. 14th reading.)


Fri. Feb. 23—The Turn to the Personal: Representations of Self.

Print out John Lennon (solo).

(Discuss confessional lyrics. Surrealist/psychedelic lyric due.) LITERARY PARALLEL: CONFESSIONAL POETRY, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, W.D. Snodgrass, Lisa Lewis, Louise Gluck, Greg Orr)


Mon. Feb. 26—(Print out Joni Mitchell. Also print out Questions. Where have the women been???? Gender issues Power Point presentation. Begin discussion of Mitchell.) RECOMMENDED: LAURA NYRO, GRACE SLICK, JANIS JOPLIN, CHRISSY HYNDE, PATTI SMITH, PHOEBE SNOW, EMYLOU HARRIS, ARETHA FRANKLIN, ANI DIFRANCO, SUZANNE VEGA, NELLIE MCKAY, PATRICIA BARBER, LIZ PHAIR. Wed. Feb. 28—(Continue work with Mitchell.)

Fri. March 2 —Class Cancelled.

Mon. March 5—(Finish Mitchell. Print out Jackson Brown and Bruce Springsteen lyrics. Additional "confessionals" and/or personae poets: Laura Nyro, Neil Young. Brown and 70s angst. Springstein's stories. Assignment for original confessional or narrative poem.)

Wed. March 7—(Finish Springsteen.)

 

Fri. March 9—Confessional or narrative poem due in Blackboard by midnight. Open office hours to discuss peer teaching choices. Print out assignment for Peer Teaching Project.  Be reading through this project assignment, thinking about what you'd like to do.)

Mon. March 12-16—Spring Break

Mon. March 19—The Noise The World Makes: PUNK. (Begin discussion of punk.)

Wed. March 21—Performance Art/Postmodern Rock. Print out lyrics for Talking Heads.

(Review semester work to date. View segments from Stop Making Sense.) LITERARY PARALLELS: PERFORMANCE POETRY, POSTMODERN POETRY, NEW MEDIA POETRY. STRONGLY RECOMMENDED: B-52s, DEAD KENNEDYS

Fri. March 23—(Laurie Anderson, TBA. Finish Heads.)

Mon. March 26—The Spoken Tradition: Rap and Hip Hop. Read Why Rap is AMAZING (Share results in class and complete group worksheet on rap. (Continue work with rap lyrics. Discuss form in poetry and oral form. Message rap; gangsta rap. Public Enemy, Iced T, Roxanne Shante, Queen Latifa, Salt-N- Peppa. Assignment for original rap lyrics. )

Rap is "black America's CNN" (Chuck D, qtd. by Adler xviii)

LITERARY CONNECTIONS: THE BEATS (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti) and later SLAM AND SPOKEN WORD POETRY.

Wed. March 28—(Print out Ginsberg's Howl and Ferlinghetti selections. From Beat to rap to spoken word poetry and slams. Listen to CD selections of Beats and slam artists. What makes a good performance poem?)

Fri. March 30—(Semester review and Exam preparation. Rap lyrics due.)

Mon. April 2—Exam.

Rap music eats up lyrics at a rate of about four times what the usual pop song requires— which suits most rappers just fine. A perusal of the lyrics ...demonstrates a sheer love of language unlike anything else you'll find in contemporary pop. It is a jailbreak, it is a dam busting, it is beautiful and it is profane, it is poetry and it is journalism. And it is also deeply unsettling to the powers that be. (Adler, xvii).

Wed. April 4 —(Exams returned. Begin preparation for group presentations.)

Fri. April 6 & Mon. April 9 —Holiday Recess.

Wed. April 11—Peer teaching preparation: work on outline argument and presentations details.

. Fri. April 13—Peer teaching preparation: detailed outlines due.

. Mon. April 16—Peer teaching preparation: secure equipment or rooms.

Wed. April 18— Peer teaching preparation.

Fri. April 20—Peer teaching. Mon. April 23—Peer teaching. Wed. April 25—Peer teaching. Fri. April 27—Peer teaching. Mon. April 30—Peer teaching.
Wed. May 2 —Peer teaching.

Fri. May 4—(Draft of essay or chapbook due. Peer critiques of chapbook and essay drafts. Final day of classes. Extra credit poetry exit survey. Course evaluation.)

 

Mon. May 7—Essays and Chapbooks due no later than 5pm in my SE mailbox or labeled box on floor just outside of SE English Annex, #318. If you want your work returned, you must enclose it in a self-addressed and self-stamped envelope. All other work will be discarded after finals week.

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Cynthia Nichols
Dept. of English
NDSU, Fargo, N.D.
NDSU Webmaster
Last modified March 4, 2007

Red lips are stolen from my friend Caity Birmingham.