Fall 2024 Log into Canvas
This is a "real time" syllabus that, unlike a print syllabus, will always be up to date and reflect our progress throughout the semester. You can easily check it from a mobile device or from any computer.
The syllabus consists of the Reading Schedule and Course Policies. You are responsible for understanding and following the schedule and the course policies, which are in effect beginning the first day of class. Please read them carefully (more than once and review throughout the semester). See me if you have any questions about them.
Think of the syllabus as a flexible guide. It will structure our semester, but we will adjust it as needed to fit our needs as the semester progresses. Not all assignments (e.g., quizzes) are listed at the beginning of the semester; some will be added throughout the semester. It may also be necessary to finish some readings the following class periods, in which case I will update the syllabus after each class. Again, be sure to check the syllabus regularly.
You do not need to print this syllabus, but if you decide to, be sure to check the online syllabus regularly for new information, added assignments, or reading schedule changes. The print icon above is for print copies.
Our main vehicle this semester for course content will be the Course Website, but it is linked to the course Canvas site, which we will use for some things, such as discussion posts or for accessing video. We will not use the Canvas Gradebook; instead, the Grade Sheet on our Course Notes page (on the course website) will help you track assignments and grades.
All readings are from the Norton Anthology= NA. You can find works
in the table of contents or index. Also, the appendices have helpful
information, including a glossary of literary terms. Helpful
information and context for readings that are on the Course Notes page
(Course Website) will be noted on the syllabus, e.g., "Songs of Innocence
and Experience" (Course Notes). This means you should read the Course
Notes along with the assigned text. You may find it helpful to preview
the Course Notes material first, then read it again after you read the
story. (Be careful of any spoiler info.)
"Quick read poems" are poems we will not formally study; we will read together once in class to experience additional works of literature. While they will not be on the quizzes or exams, they will help your understanding of the literature and periods we study. And you can briefly reference them on quizzes or exams if you think they will help you support a response. Be sure to read the biographical introductions for each author we study.
Readings should be finished for the day assigned. For example, the introduction to the Romantic Period should be read (completed) by Sept 9.
| September | |
|---|---|
| Monday | Wednesday |
| 02 Labor Day |
04 Course Introduction E. Brontë - "I'm happiest when most away" (NA, Vol E, p 457) Review Course Website/Canvas site |
| 09 Review Course Website/Canvas Site NA: Intro - Romantic Period, Vol D (2-32) **Bring your main point(s)/theme(s) from our discussion of the E. Brontë poem
|
11 Final Thoughts - Romantic Period Intro Barbauld - "The Rights of Woman" (Course Notes) Cowper - "The Negro's Complaint" (540-41; Bkgrd: 543; 532-34) Smith - "Written in Middlesex . . . in Sussex" |
| 16 Final Thoughts - Barbauld, Cowper,
Smith ---------------------------------- Blake - Songs of Innocence and Experience (4 poems total) **Blake's concept of Contraries (see Course Notes) 1.) "The Lamb"/"The Tyger" 2.) "The Chimney Sweeper" (Inn & Exp poems) |
18 Blake - Songs of Innocence and Experience
(4 poems total) **Blake's concept of Contraries (Course Notes) 1.) "The Lamb"/"The Tyger" 2.) "The Chimney Sweeper" (Inn & Exp poems) |
| 23 Quick read: Wordsworth - "Lines Written in
Early Spring" & Expostulation and Reply" (Not on midterm exam) Wordsworth - Preface to Lyrical Ballads (Course Notes) Quiz 1: Intro to the Romantic Period; "The Negro's Complaint"; Blake's Songs (four poems) |
25 Finish Preface Wordsworth - "Michael" (see Course Notes) |
| 30 Finish "Michael" (Course Notes) ------------------------------------------------ Quick read: Coleridge - "Frost at Midnight"/ Byron - from Canto I, Fragment, Stzs 1-7 (pp 691-92) (These are not on midterm exam) ------------------------------------------------ Shelley - "To a Sky-Lark" (see Course Notes - Study Questions) (Course Notes - Study Questions: Write out answers in your notebook) A Defense of Poetry [1.) Intro. 867-69; 2.) 872-73; 3.) 874 - middle paragraph (pleasure/pain); 4.) 876 - creation as "fading coal"] |
02 October - See Below |
| October | |
| Monday | Wednesday |
| 30 September - See Above |
02 Finish Shelley - "To a Sky-Lark" (see Course Notes - Study Questions) (Course Notes - Study Questions:Write out answers in your notebook A Defense of Poetry [1.) Intro. 867-69; 2.) 872-73; 3.) 874 - middle paragraph (pleasure/pain); 4.) 876 - creation as "fading coal"] -------------------------------------------------------------- Keats - "Ode to a Nightingale" (see Course Notes) |
| 07 Finish Keats "Ode to a Nightingale
(See Course Notes) Final Thoughts - Romanticism |
09 Bring NA, Vols
D & E Final Thoughts - Romanticism Quick read: Byron - "She Walks in Beauty" (Not on midterm exam) -------------------------------------- Introduction to the Victorian Age, NA, Vol E (2-27) Watch segments of Queen Victoria's Empire video, Part I Available on Canvas (Watch segments: Industrial Revolution 0:00-9:00 & 10:09-13:15; the Great Exhibition: 45:30-53:20) Quiz 2: Wordsworth (Preface, "Michael"); Shelley ("To a Sky-Lark," Defense) |
| 14
Victorian Age
Intro (NA, Vol E) Mill - from On Liberty (145-57). (See study questions--Course Notes: Write out answers in your notebook) In-class group work (5pts) | 16
Discuss On Liberty (grp work from Monday--cards) ------------------------------------------ Tennyson - "Ulysses" Midterm review as time allows (bring NA, Vols D & E, quiz 1) |
| 21 Midterm Examination (Please - No Early Exams) |
23
Final Thoughts - "Ulysses" NA: Victorian Age Intro E. B. Browning - "The Cry of the Children" (Bkgrd: 9; 309-10; 314-16) |
| 28 Finish
E. B. Browning - "The Cry
of the Children" (Bkgrd: 9; 309-10; 314-16) ------------------------------------------------ NA: Victorian Age Intro Robert Browning - "Porphyria's Lover" (Course Notes--dramatic monologue. Also, literary handbook in back of NA and the general intro--pp. 23-24. The dramatic monologue applies to "Ulysses" too) |
30
Finish Robert
Browning - "Porphyria's Lover" (Course Notes--dramatic monologue) --------------------------------- Dickens - from Hard Times, Chpts 1 & 2 (handout) NA: Biography - pp 346-48 Brief history of Victorian education |
| November | |
| Monday | Wednesday |
| 04 Finish Hard Times
NA: Biography - pp 346-48 ----------------------------------------- Conan Doyle - "The Speckled Band" Movie Clip: A Study in Pink (BBC - Benedict Cumberbatch) Read the story in NA, then look at the story in The Strand magazine (link below) as Victorian readers would have experienced it. The Strand includes the Sidney Paget illustrations https://archive.org/details/ TheStrandMagazineAnIllustratedMonthly/ TheStrandMagazine1892aVol.IiiJan-jun/page/n153/mode/2up) You can also use this link: The Speckled Band |
06 Finish "The Speckled Band" **See The Strand magazine illustrations ------------------------------------ Olive Schreiner - from "Stray Thoughts on South Africa" (focus on these: pp 69-70; 844-47). But you might also see pp 76-77 |
| 11Final Thoughts - Victorianism
(Bring Vols E & F) Introduction to the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries, NA, Vol F |
13 Introduction: Twentieth and Twenty-First
Centuries Hardy - "The Darkling Thrush"; "Hap" Housman - "To an Athlete Dying Young" |
| 18 Finish Hardy & Housman (see 11/13): Themes
Introduction: Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries Voices from WWI (Bkgrd: 142-44) Quick read: Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" (Not on final exam) Sassoon - "The Rear-Guard"; "Glory of Women"; "They"; "Everyone Sang" (See study questions--Course Notes) Video Clip: All Quiet on the Western Front (Erich Maria Remarque) Paintings C3: The Merry-Go-Round |
20 Finish Sassoon, "The Glory of Women" Introduction: Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries ------------------------------ Yeats - "Easter, 1916" In-class group work (5pts) |
| 25 Finish Yeats (in-class cards) -------------------------------------------- Rhys - "The Day They Burned the Books" Quiz 3: "The Cry of the Children," Hard Times, "The Speckled Band," Sassoon poems |
27 Thanksgiving Break - No Class
Meeting |
| December | |
| Monday | Wednesday |
| 02
Finish "The Day They Burned the Books" Head - "Looking for a Rain God" |
04
Final Thoughts - "Looking for a Rain God" - Environmentalism Marson - "Ni--er" (pp 716-18) Quiz 4: "The Darkling Thrush"; "The Day They Burned the Books"; "Looking for a Rain God" |
| 09 Rushdie - "The Prophet's
Hair" |
11 Final Thoughts - Twentieth and
Twenty-First Centuries Final Exam Review as time allows **Bring midterms Course Wrap Up **Semester Review Discussion Post (10pts)--see Canvas for info. Due Wed, Dec 18, by 11:59pm (See below) |
Final Exam Week: Dec 16 - 20
Office hours finals week: See website home page
Final Exam: Dec 17, Tues, 12:30-2:30pm, in our usual classroom (No early exams,
please)
Semester Review Discussion Post (on Canvas): Wed, Dec 18, by 11:59pm
Course Grades Available on Access Point (not Canvas):
TBA
The General Education Program Learning Outcomes for Humanities (Human Cultures and Sciences Level) are as follows:
-
Read closely, think critically, and write effectively about texts or
cultural artifacts that reflect on
perennial questions concerning the human condition (such as the search
for truth and meaning, the
confrontation with suffering and mortality, or the struggle for justice,
equality, and human dignity.
- Investigate and thoughtfully respond to a variety of ideas, beliefs or values held by persons in situations other than one's own.
This section not only prepares you for and supports your specific
major and career, but also provides you with the knowledge and awareness to be an
informed and thoughtful individual as well as citizen. English 212 will give you the opportunity to read and think
critically, to understand human nature, to consider the society you belong
to, and to write effectively. In addition, the course gives you experience
speaking in front of others and writing about literature as well as some
experience collaborating with your peers. Finally, the course will give you
knowledge of British literature that will help you enjoy reading
literature in the future.
In this course we will read and discuss mainly poetry but also prose,
fiction, and drama from the British Romantic, Victorian, and Modern periods,
including such writers as Barbauld, Wordsworth, Dickens, Tennyson, Yeats,
Rhys, and Stoppard. In addition to thinking about each work's artistic value,
we will also read to understand the social, historical, and political
contexts that define these works and the periods in which they were written.
During the semester, we will work to (these Learning Outcomes link to the
General Education Learning Outcomes above)
- Analyze British literature during class discussions and through writing to demonstrate knowledge of literary genres and of the conventions and language of literature. (LO #1)
- Demonstrate reading strategies for interpreting literature through speaking and writing by using personal experiences, in-class discussion and collaboration, and quizzes/exams in order to read carefully, speak clearly, think critically, and write persuasively. (LOs # 1 & 2)
- Identify the reciprocal relationship between the historical, social, and political contexts of British Romantic, Victorian, and Modern literature and nineteenth- and twentieth-century British culture. (LO #1)
- Investigate literature as an imaginative expression of the human condition, considering both personal experience and values and beliefs not your own. (LOs #2)
TEXTS
Text Rental
Greenblatt, Stephen,, gen. ed., et al.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 11th ed.
Vols. D, E, F
This is a reading-intensive course. Success in the course will require that you establish set (and consistent) reading times outside of class when reading and thinking can occur. Our class discussions will focus on the assigned readings, but we cannot read every work line by line. In keeping with the course learning outcomes, you will be able to use our class discussions to help you study sections of works we do not have time to cover fully in class. It is useful to mark key passages that point to central concerns or ideas in works that are read and to write down questions you have. The purpose of class discussion is not to give you answers; instead, class discussions will help you develop reading strategies, understand background/contexts, and raise questions that you will think about and answer.
There will be weekly quizzes (mostly announced but possbily unannounced) and two examinations (a midterm and a final). The course grade will be determined mathematically using the percentages below. Please remember that your course grade will be based on the work that you complete, not simply the effort you make or my subjective opinion.
| Course Grade | % |
|---|---|
| Assignments/Quizzes** | 20% |
| Midterm | 40% |
| Final | 40% |
| ** Will be determined by point values: 10pt
Assigns: A=10-9; B=8; C=7; D=6; F=5-0/5pts Assigns: A=5; B=4; C=3.5; D=3;
F=2.5-0 Exams will receive letter grades. See Course Grade Sheet for information about calculating grades. |
|
All work must be completed on time. It is your responsibility to keep copies of all of your essays and assignments. Some assignments maybe submitted via email, and email communication will be required throughout the semester.
Late Assignments: An assignment that is finished but not printed and ready to hand in is late. Late assignments will be accepted one day after the original due date, but will lose one letter grade or the point equivalent. After that, no credit will be given. (Assignments due on Friday that are late must be turned in by 5pm.) Assignments due electronically must be received by the day and time specified. Late email assignments will be accepted 24hrs from the original due date. For any special circumstances, please contact me ahead of time. No incompletes will given in the course. There are no extra credit assignments.
For any special circumstances or problems, please contact me ahead of time. Also, no incompletes for the course will be given.
AttendanceRegular attendance is your responsibility and is essential for success in the course. As stated in the online UWSP Course Catalog (UWSP Course Catalog pgs 25-26), you cannot "cut" classes.
There are no excused or unexcused absences in this course. The only relevant factor is your number of absences. However, you have personal days to use and manage as needed: For three-days-a-week classes: 5. For two-days-a-week classes: 3. Use personal days for family situations or sickness. Be careful not to squander them.
If you miss a total of two weeks of class (six class meetings for classes meeting three times a week; four class meetings for classes meeting twice a week), you may fail the course. If you are on a sports team, absences for games still count as personal days. However, we will adjust your absence limit if absences because of games exceed the absence limit. The attendance policy begins with the second class meeting.
It may be possible to make up missed assignments/quizzes
with my approval; therefore, it is your responsibility to
contact me to determine work that needs to be completed and to follow up with all logistical requirements.
However, it may not be possible to make up some assignments
or quizzes.
If you are absent
and have not exceeded your absence limit, you do not need to email me to explain your absence. If you would like to find out about missed information
or assignments, it is best to stop by during office hours or make an appointment to see me. You can
also email me, but I may not be able to respond before our next class meeting.
However, you should email about an absence ahead of the due date if an assignment is due.
For an extended absence, do the following: Follow the syllabus and keep up with readings/assignments; Stay in contact with me for information/resources/help; Look into getting notes from classmates (I can help with this); See me during office hours when you return to class.
Classroom EtiquitteDuring class meetings, we will discuss and debate issues about writing and literature. It is fine to express your views passionately and debate others in class, but do so in a civil, constructive manner. Please do not use phones and mobile devices during class, even if you believe you are doing so quietly. Not only is this rude, but also it distracts other students as well as your ablity to focus on and follow class instruction and discussion. Also, please do not wear headphones. It is English Department policy that students cannot and should not record class lectures and discussion without permission from the intstructor. Also, please get drinks of water or use the washroom before or after class, not during class, so that our classroom does not become a bus station. Please see me if you need special accomodations.
Plagiarism (from the Latin "to Kidnap")You will be expected to do your own work throughout the course. Intentionally or unintentionally passing off the ideas, words, or sentences of others (e.g., published authors, website authors, other students) as your own is plagiarism, which will result in failing the plagiarized assignment and possibly the course. Please review the University policy regarding plagiarism. Also, using AI to generate assignments that you turn in as substitute for your own work is cheating and will be treated as a form of plagiarism.