Sp13 ENGL-2200-LO1

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E N G L I S H    2 2 0 0 (BHU)

UNDERSTANDING   LITERATURE

TEXT: Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz, Literature: The Human Experience, Shorter Ninth Edition (New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007) ISBN: 0-312-45281-0 ($36.50 new, $29.05 used at USU bookstore).  Aside from the USU bookstore, you might want to check such online sites as CheapestTextbooks.com, Booksprice.com, Amazon.com, and Aliberis.com. In addition, BookDefy.com purports to identify top deals for buying, selling, swapping, and renting texts. There are also several sites that rent textbooks.  However, use any of these sites with caution--make certain you order the correct version (Shorter Ninth Edition), the correct edition (9th), and ISBN number. Many past students have encountered problems with these sites (wrong volume or edition and especially late delivery, etc.)

COURSE OBJECTIVES:  

At the heart of this course is a belief that literature can have an important impact on reader’s lives, and that this impact can be felt only when they experience the “live sense of literature”–the joy, the sorrow, the comfort, and the wisdom that literature allows.  English 2200 is therefore intended to help you explore the world of the short story, poetry, and the drama.  You will be introduced to the various important elements of these three genres, the many contextual influences on the selections you will read, these features designed to encourage you to invest your emotions and thought processes to build on your knowledge and experience and to think critically–to be involved with the “live sense of literature.”

THEMATIC ARRANGEMENT:

The reading selections you will read for this course are organized around five themes: Innocence and Experience, Conformity and Rebellion, Culture and Identity, Love and Hate, The Presence of Death.  The selections include some of the most well known texts of world literature as they reflect these themes.  These categories embody a diversity of perspectives and techniques that will bring to life a variety of universal human experiences.  All of the selections you will read reflect the various stages of life, but they are also narrate profoundly particular social experiences, different, for example for people of different genders, races, or social classes.  

The themes, of course, overlap.  Life and literature are complex; they are rarely about just one thing.  Some stories explore the relationships between women and men but they also deal with gender issues.  Many of the stories of childhood and adolescence also reflect issues of class and race, as do many of the stories in other assignments. The thematic categories are meant not to limit but to stimulate your thinking about all the issues each story explores.  It is hoped that the variety of stories will consistently engage your interest and more importantly help you understand that literature is about the very things that matter in your own life.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

 To complete this course you are required to read the assigned selections from the main text, Literature: The Human Experience, read the lecture notes, and submit 13 assignments based on your reading of the assigned stories, poetry, and plays.  The assignments on fiction and drama each consist of five topics requiring a paragraph-length response for each topic.  The assignments on poetry require eight shorter responses.  No exams or quizzes are required. The first assignment is due Monday, January 14, the rest due on every Monday of the semester.  You can submit late work but your assignment will be penalized 3 points.

LECTURE NOTES AND ASSIGNMENT TOPICS:

 Each assignment contains lecture notes that take the place of in-class discussions.  These lectures consist essentially of commentaries on each reading selection.  These lecture notes will help you respond more effectively to the assigned response topics–in fact, some of the topics are based on the lecture notes.  Thus make certain you read them before submitting assignments.  Our text for the course also contains short biographies of all the writers (pp. 1138 ff); you should also read these before reading the assigned selections, for they provide useful background contextual information. Again, before you submit the first assignment, read the information in the first unit of "Modules."

You can locate the lecture notes by clicking "Modules" in the left side bar.  This location also contains the assignment topics (as does the bottom of this page).

COURSE GRADING:          

The following represents the traditional grade breakdown (Grades at the higher (7, 8, 9) end  earn a plus; those at the lower end (0, 1, 2) receive a minus; those in the middle a straight grade):

90-100 = A  

80-89   = B  

70-79   = C 

60-69   = D 

To learn your grade for each assignment or the cumulative grade at the end of the course or at any point during the course, divide the points you have earned by the points possible (312 for all 13 assignments).

DISCLAIMER:

 Several of the selections you will read for this course are brutally blunt in their renditions of life.  Several deal quite frankly with subjects that you may find offensive.  Likewise, the language in several stories is blunt, frank, and to some blasphemous (including the infamous “f” word).  Be forewarned.  If you find such subjects and language offensive and therefore feel you are unable to read the story and respond to it, I strongly urge you to reconsider your enrollment in this course.  Of course, you may choose to not respond to the topic for that particular reading assignment, but you would obviously lose whatever points the topic is assigned for choosing not to do so.

 Most literature does not intend to convey a moral or a lesson.  At its best, it reveals as life reveals.  But like life, our reading of fiction evokes our emotions and judgments.  Narrators and literary characters express their beliefs in what they say or do, and as we read, we respond to their words and actions through our own beliefs–comparing their choices with our own, and approving and disapproving as they meet or fail to meet our expectations.  While most good literature does not teach or preach, it does explore and reveal what it means to be human and provides us with substantial opportunity for learning and self-understanding.

Course Summary:

Date Details Due