ENG 1009

Syllabus:

We will study short stories, poems, and plays, spending roughly equal time on each genre. There will be no final exam because this course is writing intensive: there will be three 3-4 page papers as well as many briefer writing exercises and a 5 page final paper. The syllabus for this course remains to a certain extent dynamic, responding to the students= growth or need for further practice.

Detailed assignments for weekly reading and writing will be posted on Blackboard. Almost all readings come from the basic text, The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature, ed. Michael Meyer; the others may be found on ERes.

to increase your awareness of the characteristics of three major literary genres (fiction, drama, poetry)

to improve your ability to articulate why a piece of literature is or is not well written and why you like or dislike it

Reading for Class:

1 Introduction to the Course, "The Janitor"

2 Diagnostic essay: "The Parable of the Prodigal Son"

3 "Girl"; Meyer, pp. 16-20

4 "The Story of an Hour”

5 "A Jury of Her Peers"

6 "A Sorrowful Woman"

7 "Hills Like White Elephants," Meyer, Chapter 46

8 "Barn Burning," Meyer, Chapter 13 (short paper)

9 "Battle Royal," "Mr. Z," Meyer 173-78, 211-14,

10 "Lust," "An Ounce of Cure," Meyer 259-63

11 midterm

12 Discuss midterm, "Young Man on Sixth Avenue," "The Hand"

13 Introduction to poems, "Sir Patrick Spens," "A Major Work"

14 "My Last Duchess,"

15 "The Flea," "next to of course god"

16 "We Real Cool," "she being Brand," "An Essay on Criticism" (selection)

17 "To His Coy Mistress," "A Fine, a Private Place"

18 "Sex Without Love" (working paper)

19 "Dulce et Decorum," "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," "Naming of Parts"

20 Meyer, Chapter 27

21 Introduction to Drama; "Sure Thing," "Andre's Mother"

22 Meyer, Chapter 37

23 Meyer, Chapter 39

24 Meyer, Chapter 43, pp.1200-1204

25 Critical Approaches: Meyer, Chapter 45

26 "Happy Endings," Meyer, pp. 584, 935-39

27 final in-class essay due, course evaluation

28 final exam

ASSIGNMENTS: If you have misplaced your syllabus, you can find a copy of it on Blackboard, under Course Information. Read the assigned work before class, and take time to reflect upon it. On the night before each class, early enough to leave time for writing a brief preparation exercise, check Blackboard=s Assignment section to be sure you know what work is due. If you have missed class or a class has to be cancelled, you will find information there about any adjustments to the syllabus. Absence is no excuse for not knowing the assignment. Please observe the deadlines for electronic submissions carefully: I often shape class according to what I see on the preparation exercises. Late contributions to the Discussion Board are no more helpful to your learning than are hasty, thoughtless ones.

WRITTEN WORK: Numerous one page-focusing essays will be written on each of the major genres we study: fiction, poetry, and drama. There will be no final exam; instead, you will write out-of-class 3-4 page papers showing your ability to do close analytical reading, then to evaluate and discuss literature using various critical approaches.

ATTENDANCE: Come to class. Arriving ten minutes late to two classes will count as one absence. More than three unexcused absences per semester will lower the semester grade.

STANDARDS: What I’ll be looking for, in class discussion and on your paprs, is evidence that you have thought about as well as read the material: that you go beyond plot summary and description into analysis to show understanding of the different aspects of the writer’s art and the critic=s ways of looking at literature.

GRADING: Here is how your work will be weighed in figuring your grade for the semester:

OFFICE HOURS: I will be in my office, Dammann 4, on Tuesday from 11:00 to 12:00, and from 1:45 to 2:45; on Thursday from 4:30 to 5:30, and on Friday from 11:00 to 12:00, from 1:45 to 2:45, and (by appointment) from 3:00 to 4:00. During advising and registration periods I will post added hours.

If you need to call me at home, my number there is 914-694-5787. My office number extension 5106 (if you are calling from inside the college), 914-323-5106 (if you are calling from outside the college). If you change your phone number or e-mail address during the semester, please let me know how to reach you.

Feel free to come talk to me about this course, the English major, or any of your other concerns and interests. I enjoy talking to students!

There is an art of reading as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing. (Isaac Disraeli)

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. (Ezra Pound)

The art of writing is the gift of making people real to themselves with words. (Logan Pearsall Smith)

A writer's problem does not change. He himself changes and the world he lives in changes but his problem remains the same. It is always how to write truly and, having found what is true, to project it in such a way that it becomes part of the experience of the person who reads it. (Ernest Hemingway)

Education] has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading, an easy prey to sensation and cheap thrills. (G.M. Treveylan)

It seems that analysis of character is the highest human entertainment. . (Isaac Bashevis Singer)

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation to the criticized thing and to make it one's own. (Henry James)

What we should read is not the words but the man we feel to be behind the words. (Samuel Butler)

Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. (Henry David Thoreau)