Professor L. Amtower
Arts and Letters 259
Office Hours: M 10-12
Office Phone: 594-1517
course webpage: rohan.sdsu.edu/~amtower/introlit.html

ENGL 220: Introduction to Literature
MW 12-12:50

This course satisfies the Foundations requirement in the area of Humanities and Fine Arts. This class is designed to teach you to 1) analyze written, visual, or performed texts in the humanities and fine arts with sensitivity to their diverse cultural contexts and historical moments; 2) describe various aesthetic and other value systems and the ways they are communicated across time and cultures; 3) identify issues in the humanities that have personal and global relevance; 4) demonstrate the ability to approach complex problems and ask complex questions drawing upon knowledge of the humanities.

Books:

Course Pack available from Cal Copies (on College Ave next to Starbucks)
The Oedipus Cycle (Sophocles)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark)
Othello (Shakespeare)
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe)

Course Requirements:

In this course, you can choose the amount of work you want to do for the appropriate grade. Within each grade range, the quality of the work you do will determine whether you get a straight grade (i.e. a “B”) or a plus or a minus (i.e. “B+” or “B-”).

Grade Options:

D-range: Regular class attendance; completion of all reading assignments; 60% of in-class clicker-quizzes; 6 in-class writing assignments with a grade of “pass” or better; midterm and final with grade of “low pass” or better. Please note that you cannot choose this option if you are taking the class credit/no credit.

C-range: Regular class attendance; completion of all reading assignments; 75% of in-class clicker-quizzes; 8 in-class writing assignments with a grade of “pass” or better; midterm and final with grade of “pass” or better

B-range: Everything at the “C” level PLUS: Regular class attendance with no more than 3 absences and active participation in discussion; 85% of in-class clicker-quizzes; 10 in-class writing assignments with a grade of “pass” or higher; midterm and final with grade of “pass” or better

A-range: Everything at the “B” level PLUS: Regular class attendance with no more than 2 absences and active participation in discussion; complete 95% of in-class clicker-quizzes; 12 in-class writing assignments with grade of “pass” or better; midterm and final with grad of “pass” or better; final 6-7 page paper, written at the college level, with a minimum grade of “pass” or better

NOTE on grades: all submitted work must meet my expectation of satisfactory competency at the college level. Sub-par work will be returned ungraded.

In-Class Writing Assignments:

Beginning week 3, in-class writing assignments, based on the assigned reading that week, will be given in every break-out section. The purpose of these writing assignments is to make sure you keep up with the reading and that you engage intellectually with the materials. These are not memorization exercises; rather, we want to hear your own interpretation and thoughts about the works at hand. At the same time, we will be checking to make sure you have read the works assigned. Prompts for the essays will vary depending on which section you are in, and different works may be tested in different classes. Make sure you have read all the materials assigned for the day before arriving for class (i.e. if you are in a Monday section, you should have read everything through that Monday; if you are in a Wednesday section, you should have read everything through that Wednesday). Graded pass, high pass, low pass, no pass.

Midterm and Final Exam:

Procedures: Two exams will be given to test your comprehension of the reading assignments and class lectures. The Final Exam will be cumulative. Please bring an 8x11 inch bluebook to class on days of assigned exams. Bluebooks will be collected from all students and redistributed prior to the exam in order to minimize cheating. Graded pass, high pass, low pass, no pass.

Content: Questions will range from the historical to the literary; you will be expected to know titles, authors, and (approximate) dates of composition, as well as main characters, themes, major issues and concerns. You may be asked to identify important or famous lines from texts and to assess their significance. Be able to address basic plot-points, and be familiar with any terms or background issues provided in the lectures, and read your introductions. Most of this information will be provided in lectures, so listen carefully in class. However, a few questions in each exam will come directly from the texts assigned, so make sure you read everything. Don’t rely on notes alone.

You will find it helpful to bring the readings to class so that you can mark any specific passages I discuss in lecture. For the most part, these are the passages you will find tested on the exams.

Paper:

For those who wish to complete the “A” requirements, a 6-7 page literary analysis will be due in lecture on the final day of class. Topics will be distributed approximately 3-4 weeks before the due date, as will a hand-out clarifying standard expectations for your writing and detailing the criteria that will be used in evaluating your work. Please note that this course uses Turnitin.com. Papers will must be submitted both in hard copy and in electronic form to the Turnitin.com website. Instructions will follow later.

Participation and Attendance:

Attendance and participation in both lecture and weekly sections is calculated as part of your overall course grade. Excessive absences from sections will affect your final grade. Attendance and participation are calculated through Clickers, available at the Aztec bookstore. A passing grade of “pass” will constitute responding to 70% of all Clicker questions (these are not graded). Expect a minimum of five Clicker questions per lecture. Please note that the instructors cannot be responsible for faulty batteries or connections.

Policies and Procedures:

Classroom etiquette:

• please turn off your cell phones during class time
• laptops are allowed in the back row of the classroom only in order to minimize the distraction to others

Blackboard: Any documents not found in the textbooks will be posted on Blackboard. Please check the site regularly to get specific assignments, study guides, or any other updates that might be available. You can also keep track of your grades there.

Exams: All students will be expected to take exams on the dates noted in the schedule. Special testing accommodations will be made only for students with disabilities--NO EXCEPTIONS. Exams may not be taken on dates other than those assigned except in case of medical or family emergency (documentation required). In such cases an alternate exam may be issued to minimize opportunities for cheating. Please check the schedule NOW to make sure you will not have any conflicts. Otherwise you will have to find another 220-course to satisfy your requirements.

Late Policy: You may turn in one late writing assignment. All other assignments must be turned in on time; no exceptions.

Cheating/Plagiarism: The punishment for cheating or plagiarism in this class is immediate failure of the course and disciplinary action by the Office of Judicial Affairs. All papers will be checked by Turnitin.com. Any uncited material lifted from books, online sources, or other students, no matter how brief, constitutes plagiarism and will be treated accordingly. Please note that courses for which you have been documented for cheating may not be taken for Course Forgiveness.

What counts as plagiarism? Any time you use another person’s words or ideas and pass them off as your own. If you are going to paraphrase another person’s work, you must change every major word—every adjective, noun, and verb must be different. If you use ANY word from the original, it must be quoted. This includes words from websites and other students’ papers as well as words from published articles or books.

Schedule:

Week One: Introduction

Week Two:

M: Oedipus Rex
W: Classical Literature: Oedipus Rex

Week Three:

M: Introducing Poetry: Anglo-Saxon poems and selections by Ashbery, Lewis Carroll, Robert Frost, Marianne Moore (pp. 4, 113, 148-150, 122)
W: The Middle Ages: Chaucer, “The Miller’s Tale” (pp. 5ff)

Week Four:

M: The Middle Ages: Chaucer, “The Franklin’s Tale” (pp. 13ff)
W: The Early Modern Period: poetry by Wyatt, Shakespeare, John Donne (pp. 23-32)

Week Five:

M: The Early Modern Period: Shakespeare, Othello, Acts I-II
W: The Early Modern Period: Shakespeare, Othello, Acts III-IV

Week Six:

M: The Early Modern Period: Othello, Act V.
W: The Enlightenment: Poetry by Milton, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope (pp. 30-32); other examples to be introduced in class

Week Seven:

M: Midterm
W: Romanticism: Poetry by Blake, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge (33-37; 57)

Week Eight:

M: The Nineteenth Century: Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “Cask of Amontillado” (pp. 68ff, 71ff)
W: Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (pp. 37-55)

Week Nine:

M: The Nineteenth Century: Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown”; poetry by Emily Dickinson (pp. 59ff; 105-197)
W: The Nineteenth Century: Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener” (pp. 76-100)

Week Ten:

M: The Nineteenth Century: Browning, “My Last Duchess,” “Porphyria’s Lover” (pp. 101-103)
W: Modernism: Katherine Mansfield, “Miss Brill”; Kate Chopin, “Story of an Hour” (pp. 107-113)

Week Eleven:

M: Modernism: T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”; W. H. Auden, “Musee des Beaux Arts”; poetry by William Carlos Williams, ee cummings, Carl Sandburg (pp. 115ff; 121, 131, 144, 150)
W: Modernism: William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”; (pp. 124ff.)

Week Twelve:

M: The Twentieth Century: Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
W: The Twentieth Century: Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; poems by Yeats (p. 114)

Week 13:

M: Postmodernism: Vladimir Nabokov, “The Vane Sisters”; poetry by Langston Hughes (pp. 135ff; 146ff)
W: Postmodernism: Kafka’s Parables; poetry by Sylvia Plath; John Ashbery (pp. 132-134, 151-154, 165)

Week 14:

M: Postmodernism: Borges, “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (pp. 154ff)
W: The Twentieth Century: Things Fall Apart

Week 15:

M: The Twentieth Century: Things Fall Apart
W: Optional Papers due

Final Exam Wednesday December 17, 10:30-12:30