Missouri Western State
College
Division of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Department of English, Foreign Languages, and Journalism
English 220-01: Introduction to Reading Texts
Dr. Mike Cadden
Spring, 2003
Class
time: 9:30-10:50 T, Th
Class
place: 101 Popplewell Hall
Dr.
Cadden’s Office: 222-F Eder Hall
Office Hours:
11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. T/Th; 1:30 - 3:30 pm W; and by appointment.
Phone: 271-4576
E-mail: cadden@missouriwestern.edu
URL:
http://www.missouriwestern.edu/eflj/faculty/cadden.asp
Course
Description:
The process of reading literary texts involves skills and raises particular
issues specific to the reading process.
Even if we aren’t aware of “how” we are reading, we nonetheless end up
with a “what”--or a response--at the end of the experience, whether that
“effect” is boredom, inspiration, thought, or confusion. It is my goal that through this introduction
to both literature in general (and the major of English in specific) that you
will be more conscious of the approaches we take when reading. We will, in Robert Scholes’ words, learn how
to “read closely and carefully, how to situate a text in relation to other
texts (intertextuality), [and] how to situate a text in relation to culture,
society, [and] the world (extratextuality)” (The Rise and Fall of English 166).
I have three goals for what you’ll know
or be able to do by the end of this introduction to the major of English: you
will be able to identify, take, and defend a critical position in relation to a
text; you will learn how to situate that position in a larger critical
conversation using the tools of the trade; you will learn a bit more about
academic professionalism.
Prerequisite
for ENG 220:
ENG 108 or 112.
Required
Books:
DiYanni,
Robert, ed. Literature. 5th
ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 5th ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1999.
Evaluation:
Participation: 10%
Midterm
Exam: 15%
Final
Exam: 15%
Three
Critical Papers: 60%
Attendance:
The
MWSC Policy Guide states that “each
instructor will determine and make known to the class the requirement for
attendance” (45). If you don’t come to
class you will obviously jeopardize your class participation grade. I will not quantify how much presence equals
what grade. I will be judging your
total participation performance, not just presence. I can also tell you that the exams draw heavily from class work. Also, since you are responsible for all
announcements in class, you run the risk of missing important information
regarding papers; I will not accept absence as an excuse for ignorance. In short, if you’re not here, you’re going
to suffer through other assignments directly and indirectly. I will not formally assign a number of
absences to failure; I’ll allow those things will be related naturally.
Please read the Policy Guide for information for other information about the
College’s policies regarding attendance and absence.
Be on time, please.
Academic Dishonesty: All cases in which students pass off others’
work as their own will be referred to the Dean of Student Affairs. Students also run the risk of failing the
assignment as well as the course, depending on the magnitude and nature of the
offense. If you are unsure about how
you are using sources, please check with me.
Late and Missing Work: I reserve
the right to refuse any late work.
Revision Policy: All written work may be revised any time up
until the revision due date (please see calendar). I require that all revisions be accompanied by the original
graded paper that contains my comments.
Policy on Students with Disabilities: Any student in this course who has a disability which requires different contexts for either evaluation or expression should contact me in the first few weeks of the course so that those needs can be considered.
Calendar: (Subject to Constant, Inexplicable, and Disorienting Change):
1/14:
Introduction to course: discussion of syllabus, assignments, and critical
approaches.
1/16: Critical
approaches continued: Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz.”
1/21: Critical
approaches continued: Potter’s Peter
Rabbit.
1/23:
Approaching various texts variously: group attacks.
1/28: Literary
genre: discussing the leads to chs. 2, 8, and 15; the example of “Red Riding
Hood” and genre.
1/29: Research
discussion—paper #1 choices; chapter 23.
2/4: A visit
with Mr. Mulder: using the library.
2/6: Citation
and incorporating others into your text.
2/11: Short story:
O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” (606); Hemingway’s “Soldier’s Home” (350).
2/13: Short
story: Alexie’s “Indian Education” (482); Atwood’s “Happy Endings (496); Essay #1 Due.
2/18: Short
story: Marquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (324); Kincaid’s “Girl”
(569); Pirandello’s “War” (439).
2/20: Sandra Cisneros (230-51).
2/25:
Sandra Cisneros continued.
2/27:
Transformations: adapting a text--bits from ch. 10 (TBA)
3/4:
Transformations continued.
3/6:
Midterm Exam.
3/18: Drama
transformation from short prose tale: Luke’s “The Prodigal Son” (21) and
Keillor’s Prodigal Son (1886);
Bentley (2141); midterm grades due.
3/20: Drama:
Synge’s Riders to the Sea (1770);
Aristotle (2114); Miller (2134); Ibsen (2123).; Essay #2 Due.
3/25: Drama: Wasserstein’s Tender Offer (1970)
3/27: Drama: Glaspell’s Trifles (1615); Glaspell’s “A Jury of
Her Peers” (handout).
3/28 is the last day to drop classes.
4/1: Drama: Trifles continued—context across dramatic
traditions (leads to chs. 18-22).
4/3:
No class (I’ll be at an academic conference).
4/8:
Poetry: Voice and Diction (686-702).
4/10:
Poetry: Imagery and Figures of Speech (703-14).
4/15:
Poetry: Symbolism, Allegory, and Syntax (715-28); Essay #3 Due.
4/17:
Poetry: Sound, Rhythm, and Meter (728-44).
4/22:
Robert Frost (868-900).
4/24:
Robert Frost continued.
4/29:
Discussion of Final Exam; Course evaluations; all Revisions Due.
ENG 220-01 Assignments
Dr. Cadden
Spring, 2003
Exercises/Homework/Participation
(10%)
We will be engaging in various in-class
exercises, remarking on out-of-class work, and participating in class
discussions. Perfect attendance,
preparedness, and a willingness to be involved in discussion and activities
should help ensure that this grade will be high.
Short Papers on
Critical Approaches (60%)
You
will write three short papers this term.
We have (or will have) pointed out
three general categories for critical response: subtext, text, and,
context. You will focus on each of the
three approaches in respective papers. The structure will look like this:
1.
Brief summary of the work discussed
(perhaps a paragraph at most),
2. Identification of the critical approach (generally & specifically: “I am taking a textual approach; more specifically, I will examine the relationship of rhyme and mood.”),
3.
Statement of thesis (“The use of rhyme lightens the mood of the poem.”),
4.
Explanation of the assertion (support), and
5.
Comment on significance to the reader.
In other words, who cares and why?
Each
paper should be roughly two-three
pages, single-spaced.
Each
paper will treat a text to be found in DiYanni’s book.
I
recommend that you not try to approach a work we’ve discussed in class unless
you are clearly tackling it from a different critical perspective.
These
entries are open to revision—as often as you wish. All revisions are due by
4/30.
Each paper must employ the help of at least one source beyond the primary text(s) you’re studying. I expect you to own and consult your copy of the MLA Handbook as you complete your essays. I will require that you use interior and works cited citation with competence.
Consider that there is a whole section at the back of the book devoted to small excerpts of critical essays (chapter twenty-five). It is very likely that one of those authors is saying something that would either help you come up with a topic and/or be useful in your analysis. We will be going over to the library to discuss research tools and strategies. In any case, I encourage you to browse through those discussions already in our book.
For essay ideas, see the ends of chapters six (short story), thirteen (poetry), and both twenty-two and twenty-three (drama). Also, many times parallels are offered to other texts at the end of a selection. See also the “Suggestions for writing” sections in the three “Writing About” chapters (four, eleven, and seventeen). Lastly (or at the very start), you are invited to come by my office to discuss paper topics, theses, focus woes, and other matters of concern. I will be happy to do that, as it often saves both of us time in the long run.
Midterm and Final
Exams (15% each)
Since an exam needs to be relevant to
what has happened in class (not to what I plan or hope will happen before the
term begins) I can’t tell you much about them.
We’ll talk about the form and content of each exam as it nears, however.
Grading Criteria for Writing in Dr. Cadden’s
English Courses:
“A”:
General
Qualitative Description:
Excellent, Superior, Outstanding.
Conception: Your idea should contain some new, perhaps surprising, element, some angle that is uncommonly thoughtful and insightful. You are not rehearsing other people's ideas, and you are going beyond an average reading. You expose and challenge the explicit and implicit assumptions of the text. If you are incorporating research, you will have WORKED your sources--using what supports your argument, and acknowledging and dealing with what challenges it.
Organization: Your organization should be flawless
and should match your content. You should anticipate, address, and work through
opposition to your argument and build a strong case for your own. You should employ evidence with regularity
and in appropriate circumstances. If you are incorporating research, you will
spend some time positioning your argument in the context of the larger
conversation.
Style: Your presentation should be artful. You
have obviously paid attention to the way your language sounds as well as what
it says. You have found a way to make
your presentation style match the content of your paper (other than a groovy
font style!), perhaps through a sustained metaphor, or a particularly apt
example that you carry through and refer to in the entire paper.
Grammar and
Mechanics: Your paper
should be absolutely clean and free of grammatical and mechanical errors of a
rudimentary nature, though you may have a few problems with complex functions
of grammar. You should never avoid
complex language in order to avoid errors, in other words.
“B”:
General
Qualitative Description: Above average, Good, Commendable.
Conception: Your idea will be better than average,
but you may have overlooked or not
acknowledged
or interrogated the assumptions that inform it. The claim/idea is ambitious and, for that reason, may have gotten
away from you. You will be rewarded for
being ambitious even if you fall a bit short.
Organization: Your organization will be strong, but
the signaling might still be a bit
Awkward; you may
find yourself using a lot of directional phrases because your argument doesn't
flow naturally. (Ex. "As I said earlier..." "Firstly, secondly,
thirdly...") Here too the organization
will match the content rather than being formulaic.
Style: It's clean, readable, there's a
consistent sense of voice, and there aren't any places
where a reader
has to go back and reread a sentence just to understand its structure.
Grammar/Mechanics: Very few (almost no) errors of a
rudimentary nature.
“
C”:
General
Qualitative Description: Competent, Average, Fine.
Conception: Your idea for your paper should reflect
that you have read, thought about, and paid attention to the way we have talked
in class about similar issues. Your main point should be clearly stated and
defended with appropriate evidence. You should remain focused on your topic
throughout your paper, and you should have thoroughly examined the aspects of
your topic from your perspective. Your ideas should be internally
consistent. There won’t be anything
terribly surprising, daring, or unusual here.
Organization: Your paper should have a logical,
clearly identifiable organization. Each
paragraph should
address only one aspect of your topic, and when you change aspects, you start a
new paragraph. Transitions between
paragraphs should be competently handled. Your strategy, that is, how you
manage the interweaving of your idea and your organization, should be standard
and straightforward. For instance, if
you follow a traditional pattern of an introduction that includes a flagged
thesis statement ("in this paper I will..."), then proceed with
evidence and close with a restatement of the initial problem. That's a
standard, straightforward organization--a C strategy.
Style: Your style should be clear and
readable.
Grammar and
Mechanics: Your paper
should not contain many distracting errors in grammar or mechanics. Minimally, you should have run a spell-check
program, and you should know the difference between a complete sentence, a
fragment, and a run-on.
“D”:
General
Qualitative Description: Incompetent, Inadequate, Below Average.
Conception:
Your idea will be immediately obvious to a casual reader--a no-brainer—yet it
will be presented as news. It will
likely also be not quite clear what it is that you are really saying. Split focus on more than one thesis or issue
is likely.
Organization: Perhaps you split your focus (which
means you start out talking about one thing and shift to another) which means
that you are covering several or many issues in short paragraphs. You jump from one idea to the next with no
logical strategy or transitions. If there is no plan, or if you don't stick to
the plan, this is faulty organization.
It may be evident that there wasn’t ever really a structural strategy at
all.
Style: Unclear language, usually. This may also be a matter of using the wrong
words for your ideas. Simply put, the
language is in bad shape.
Grammar/Mechanics: Consistent problems in sentence
structure with little sign of proof-reading.
“F”:
General
Qualitative Description:
Unacceptable.
(The most common
cause of an F is a failure to adequately address the assignment. For instance,
if I specify that this assignment is to be researched, or if it is to address a
certain topic in a certain way, you have to at least complete the assignment.)
Conception: No clear idea governs the words on the
page.
Organization: No plan is evident, much less achieved.
Style: Incomprehensible most or all of the
time.
Grammar/Mechanics: Consistent problems with rudimentary
mechanical matters.
*******************
The four major
areas of concern discussed above (conception, organization, style, and mechanics)
will be considered separately, when that is possible. I may find that it is difficult or even impossible to assess
conception if the style and mechanics are at the “F” or “D” levels. It may well be the case that your
organization is a real problem while conception, style, and mechanics are all
quite good. The ultimate assessment,
then, will be the combined consideration of all four areas. Any challenges to my assessments need to
employ the above issues in those challenges.
I cannot assess
effort. Note that I do not say that I will
not assess effort; nobody can assess
effort unless, perhaps, he or she is there watching you work. I assume that you all work very hard on your writing. I can only assess the final product.
I do not give
grades based on your perceived needs.
If you need a “B” in the course to keep your GPA up for a scholarship,
loans, or admittance into a program, then be sure you perform at a “B”
level.
I do not give
grades on the basis of your sense of identity or personal academic
history. I assess each piece of work on
its own merits. Just because you
consider yourself an “A” student does not mean that you will do “A” work each
time; just because you consider yourself a “C” student doesn’t mean that you
won’t do “A” work. Try to separate your
performance from your identity.