English 104 Course Description

EASTERN OREGON UNIVERSITY
School of Arts and Sciences
Course Syllabus
English 104: Introduction to Literature
4 Credit Hours--GE H/AH--UWR
Reference #90514
Spring 2004 MTRF 2-2:50 PM LH 116

Instructor: Nancy Knowles, Loso Hall 146, 962-3795, nknowles@eou.edu
Office Hours: M 3-3:50 PM, TR 12:00 - 12:50 PM and by appointment
Course Home Page: http://www2.eou.edu/~nknowles/spring2004/engl104.html

Prerequisite: College-level reading and writing skills.

Catalog Description: Study of at least two basic forms of literary expression such as fiction, poetry, drama, or film, organized by theme or genre. Emphasis is on careful reading and guided analysis of representative works ranging from classics to contemporary.

Required Texts available through the EOU Bookstore:

Birkerts Literature: The Evolving Canon
Gordimer July's People

General Education Course Information:

ENGL 104: Introduction to Literature meets the mission of General Education by challenging students to become critical, creative thinkers in reading, writing, and speaking.
ENGL 104: Introduction to Literature meets the GE Aesthetics and Humanities component. For outcomes and assessments, see below:

UWR Writing Intensive Outcomes:

Students will produce at least 3,000 words (including drafts, in-class writing, informal papers, and polished papers); 1,000 words of this total should be in polished papers which students have revised after receiving feedback and criticism.
Students will be introduced to the discourse forms appropriate to the discipline the course represents.
Students will write at least one paper integrating information from at least one source, employing the appropriate documentation style for the discipline represented by the course.
Students will draft, revise, and edit their formal written work.

Additional Outcomes:

Read literature critically, particularly literary form, genre, and technique
Understand reading as a kind of translation or performance dependent on context
Recognize, construct, and utilize reading communities
Recognize and apply introductory-level literary theories
Produce introductory-level literary criticism

Means of Assessment and Grading:

Participation in classroom discussions and activities (objectives 1-5)--10%
Quizzes on reading and lectures (objectives 1-5)--10%
Collaborative oral presentations (objectives 1-5)--30%
8-page literary research paper (objectives 1-5)--40%
Evaluation of writing of classmates (objective 5)--5%
Final examination--essay format (objectives 1-5)--5%
Optional attendance at film series demonstrated by 250-word response (objectives 1-5)

Course Requirements:

Reading: Read all assigned texts by the date they appear on the syllabus. Bring assigned readings to class.

Participation: Successful learning in this course depends upon active, thoughtful participation in class discussion. Absence, lack of preparation, and unwillingness to share ideas or to work during class time detract from participation credit. Help me help you to manage absences by contacting me in advance when absence is necessary.

Conferences: I expect each student to meet with me outside class twice during the term, once to discuss the first group presentation at least a week prior to the presentation date and once to discuss the literary research paper at least three weeks prior to the final-draft deadline. Extra conferences or detailed e-mail conferrals regarding the course constitute extra participation credit.

Quizzes: Expect quizzes on the readings and class discussions. Quizzes cannot be made up, but I will eliminate the two lowest quiz grades in calculating final course grades.

Group Presentations: Presentation dates cannot be changed. Groups must meet with me at least one week prior to the first presentation date. All members will receive the same grade unless significant differences in effort or quality of work justify raising or lowering grades of individual members.

Literary Research Paper: Write a minimum 8-page, thesis-driven, analytical paper using at least three scholarly sources, one of which must be a periodical article located through the MLA Bibliography. Drafts, response groups, and copies of secondary material are required. Students who visit the Writing Lab and submit a Writing Lab form will receive extra participation credit.

Final Examination: The final examination is an institutional requirement. Rescheduling the final requires permission from the course instructor and the Dean of Arts & Sciences.

Grading information, rules, and guidelines common to all my syllabi

Schedule:

Week 1 text, reader, author, context, community, interpretation, canon, ideology, repertoire, prose poem, generality, specificity, thesis, genre, short story, fiction, narrative, suspension of disbelief, denotation, connotation, close reading, explication, dramatic irony

3/29M 3/30T Online self-inventory, optional film (ZH 142 7 PM) 4/1R Birkerts 1-12, McCormick on Electronic Reserve 4/2F Birkerts 14-21, 277-88 (Gilman)

Week 2 character (rounded, flat), protagonist, antagonist, foil, point of view/narrator (first person, second person, third person), plot (exposition, rising action/conflict, climax, falling action/resolution/denouement), parallel plot, subplot, Freytag's triangle, epiphany, foreshadowing, narrative frame, setting, verisimilitude, theme, ambiguity, juxtaposition, omniscient narrator, interior monologue, stream-of-consciousness, unreliable narrator, irony, situational irony, focalization

4/5M Birkerts 22-55 4/6T Bring MLA print-out, Birkerts 56-70 4/8R Birkerts 71-84 4/9F Birkerts 85-109

Week 3 PRESENTATIONS BEGIN; tone, metafiction, irony, understatement, symbolism, allegory, narrative frame, dramatic irony

4/12M Birkerts 110-39 4/13T Birkerts 110-24 (Baldwin) WARNING: VIOLENT CONTENT; optional film (ZH 142 7 PM) 4/15R Birkerts 381-393 (Kundera), 274-76 (Chopin) 4/16F

Week 4 poetry, oral culture, denotation, connotation, diction, onomatopoeia, stanza, voice, persona, third-person voice, free verse, metric feet, meter, stressed and unstressed syllables, iamb/iambic, troche/trochaic, anapest/anapestic, dactyl/dactylic, pyrrhic, spondee, scantion, monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter/Alexandrine, heptameter, caesura, metaphor, simile, imagery, narrative poems, lyric poems, figurative, synaesthesia, alliteration, euphony, cacophony, assonance, consonance, rhyme, exact rhyme, partial rhyme, internal rhyme, visual/eye rhyme, "masculine"/"feminine" rhyme, "masculine"/"feminine" line ending, dramatic irony, situational irony, verbal irony, end-stopped, enjambed/enjambment, substitution

4/19M Birkerts 534-56 4/20T Birkerts 564-78 4/22R Attend Future of EOU mini-conference during class, Birkerts 590-602 4/23F Birkerts 646-47 (Kenyon), 647-48 (Spires), 648-49 (Lux), 651-52 (Rudman)

Week 5 figures of speech, denotation, connotation, metaphor, simile, apostrophe, hyperbole, understatement, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, oxymoron, paradox, conceit, symbol, allegory, didactic, repetition, allusion, intertextuality

4/26M Birkerts 654-69 4/27T Birkerts 753 (Snyder), 834 (Hopkins), 909-10 (Walcott), 917 (Momaday), 829 (Dickinson), 839 (Yeats), 867-68 (cummings), 916-17 (Lorde); optional film (ZH 142 7 PM) 4/29R NO CLASS 4/30F NO CLASS

Week 6 PAPER CONFERENCES BEGIN: bring generative writing to conference; drama, playwright, dialogue, stage directions, comedy, tragedy, unities, groundlings, gallery, aside, soliloquy, blank verse, allusion, pun, irony, figures of speech, conceit

5/3M Birkerts 140-62, 998-1001, 1082-87
Optional: 140-62 (Fiction), 704-20 (Poetry), or 1569-81 (Plays) 5/4T Birkerts 1193-1211 5/6R Birkerts 1211-26 5/7F Birkerts 1226-37

Week 7 feminist theory, new historicism, postcolonial theory, marxist theory, reader-response theory, deconstruction, psychoanalytic theory

5/10M Birkerts 1237-45 5/11T Birkerts 1245-55
optional film (ZH 142 7 PM) 5/13R Thesis, single-page outline, annotated works cited, and copy of MLA article due, Birkerts 1610-12 5/14F

Week 8 fiction, novel, narrative, in medias res, flashback, plot, narrator, character, setting, symbol, speculative fiction, focalization, dramatic irony

5/17M Gordimer 1-49 5/18T Attend Spring Symposium during class 5/20R Bring three copies of complete paper, revised works cited, copies of secondary material 5/21F Bring three copies of complete paper, revised works cited, copies of secondary material

Week 9

5/24M Gordimer 50-101 5/25T Gordimer 101-60 5/27R Bring paper 5/28F Bring paper

Week 10

5/31M NO CLASS 6/1T Course Evaluation 6/3R NO CLASS 6/4F Paper due with supporting materials

Final: Wednesday, June 9, 10 AM - noon

Week 1 text, reader, author, context, community, interpretation, canon, ideology, repertoire, prose poem, generality, specificity, thesis, genre, short story, fiction, narrative, suspension of disbelief, denotation, connotation, close reading, explication, dramatic irony
3/29M	3/30T Online self-inventory, optional film (ZH 142 7 PM)	4/1R Birkerts 1-12, McCormick on Electronic Reserve	4/2F Birkerts 14-21, 277-88 (Gilman)

Week 2 character (rounded, flat), protagonist, antagonist, foil, point of view/narrator (first person, second person, third person), plot (exposition, rising action/conflict, climax, falling action/resolution/denouement), parallel plot, subplot, Freytag's triangle, epiphany, foreshadowing, narrative frame, setting, verisimilitude, theme, ambiguity, juxtaposition, omniscient narrator, interior monologue, stream-of-consciousness, unreliable narrator, irony, situational irony, focalization
4/5M Birkerts 22-55	4/6T Bring MLA print-out, Birkerts 56-70	4/8R Birkerts 71-84	4/9F Birkerts 85-109

Week 3 PRESENTATIONS BEGIN; tone, metafiction, irony, understatement, symbolism, allegory, narrative frame, dramatic irony
4/12M Birkerts 110-39	4/13T Birkerts 110-24 (Baldwin) WARNING: VIOLENT CONTENT; optional film (ZH 142 7 PM)	4/15R Birkerts 381-393 (Kundera), 274-76 (Chopin)	4/16F

Week 4 poetry, oral culture, denotation, connotation, diction, onomatopoeia, stanza, voice, persona, third-person voice, free verse, metric feet, meter, stressed and unstressed syllables, iamb/iambic, troche/trochaic, anapest/anapestic, dactyl/dactylic, pyrrhic, spondee, scantion, monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter/Alexandrine, heptameter, caesura, metaphor, simile, imagery, narrative poems, lyric poems, figurative, synaesthesia, alliteration, euphony, cacophony, assonance, consonance, rhyme, exact rhyme, partial rhyme, internal rhyme, visual/eye rhyme, "masculine"/"feminine" rhyme, "masculine"/"feminine" line ending, dramatic irony, situational irony, verbal irony, end-stopped, enjambed/enjambment, substitution
4/19M Birkerts 534-56	4/20T Birkerts 564-78	4/22R Attend Future of EOU mini-conference during class, Birkerts 590-602	4/23F Birkerts 646-47 (Kenyon), 647-48 (Spires), 648-49 (Lux), 651-52 (Rudman)

Week 5 figures of speech, denotation, connotation, metaphor, simile, apostrophe, hyperbole, understatement, metonymy, synecdoche, personification, oxymoron, paradox, conceit, symbol, allegory, didactic, repetition, allusion, intertextuality
4/26M Birkerts 654-69	4/27T Birkerts 753 (Snyder), 834 (Hopkins), 909-10 (Walcott), 917 (Momaday), 829 (Dickinson), 839 (Yeats), 867-68 (cummings), 916-17 (Lorde); optional film (ZH 142 7 PM)	4/29R NO CLASS	4/30F NO CLASS

Week 6 PAPER CONFERENCES BEGIN: bring generative writing to conference; drama, playwright, dialogue, stage directions, comedy, tragedy, unities, groundlings, gallery, aside, soliloquy, blank verse, allusion, pun, irony, figures of speech, conceit
5/3M Birkerts 140-62, 998-1001, 1082-87 Optional: 140-62 (Fiction), 704-20 (Poetry), or 1569-81 (Plays)	5/4T Birkerts 1193-1211	5/6R Birkerts 1211-26	5/7F Birkerts 1226-37

Week 7 feminist theory, new historicism, postcolonial theory, marxist theory, reader-response theory, deconstruction, psychoanalytic theory
5/10M Birkerts 1237-45	5/11T Birkerts 1245-55 optional film (ZH 142 7 PM)	5/13R Thesis, single-page outline, annotated works cited, and copy of MLA article due, Birkerts 1610-12	5/14F

Week 8 fiction, novel, narrative, in medias res, flashback, plot, narrator, character, setting, symbol, speculative fiction, focalization, dramatic irony
5/17M Gordimer 1-49	5/18T Attend Spring Symposium during class	5/20R Bring three copies of complete paper, revised works cited, copies of secondary material	5/21F Bring three copies of complete paper, revised works cited, copies of secondary material

Week 9
5/24M Gordimer 50-101	5/25T Gordimer 101-60	5/27R Bring paper	5/28F Bring paper

Week 10
5/31M NO CLASS	6/1T Course Evaluation	6/3R NO CLASS	6/4F Paper due with supporting materials
Final: Wednesday, June 9, 10 AM - noon