Catalog Description:  Major literary works of the modern world drawn from western and non-western literature and comprising such authors as Wordsworth, Dickinson, Yeats, Faulkner, Woolf, Rushdie, Joyce, Morrison, and O’Neill.  A close reading of texts organized around the evolution of the classic genres, including epic narrative, tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, and romance.

Course Objectives:  Through reading and discussion of a variety of texts, students will learn the basics of literary analysis and how to use these skills in their academic writing. Students will examine how modern authors have implemented and altered the various classical genres, and will become adept at identifying and describing the hallmarks of these genres.  Students will become more proficient writers and speakers by working on several different writing projects and by organizing class presentations.

Required Texts:  These texts are on order in the Iona College Bookstore.  If you intend to purchase your books from the bookstore, please do so promptly—the bookstore tends to return unpurchased books at the end of September, so if you wait, you might not find what you need.  Most of these texts, however, are readily available in libraries and other bookstores.

Doctorow, E.L. Ragtime. New York: Plume
Fugard, Athol.  Master Harold and the Boys.  New York: Viking
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter.  New York: New American Library
Ibsen, Henrik.  A Doll’s House.
Selected readings to be distributed in class

Course Requirements:
Participation: Participation is a significant element of your final grade.  Participation means being actively engaged in the class by asking questions, doing the reading and thinking about what you’ve read, being on time, listening attentively to your classmates’ questions and ideas about the reading, taking notes, and so on.

Writing:  In this course you will be asked to do several different kinds of writing, which are explained briefly below.  I will discuss these assignments in more detail during the semester. Please note that unless otherwise noted, all assignments must be typed, double-spaced, with 1” margins, and adhere to the MLA citation format. (MLA online: http://www.mla.org).  Some of these assignments will be turned in electronically; it is expected that you all know how to email, read, open, and print document attachments.  If you are not sure how to do this, please check with the Iona ITRC office, located in the basement of McSpedon Hall.

Response writing: Several short papers (typed, 2-3 pages) that will address an aspect of the text currently being discussed in class.  Sometimes I will assign a specific question for you to write about and sometimes I will ask you to write about a topic of your own devising.  These response writing will help you to keep track of what you are reading and may be developed into your final essay for the class.

Formal essay or hyper-text project: The formal essay is an analytic literary essay (5-7 pages) that focuses on one or two texts from the course.  No secondary research is required.  The hyper-text project analyzes a particular section of text by creating interpretative, contextual, and biographical links to that passage.  Both of these projects will be explained in further detail later in the semester.  For examples of student hyper-texts, see http://www.iona.edu/faculty/dwilliams

Class Presentations: Singly or in groups, students will lead brief (10-minute) class discussions about some aspect of a particular text, or about the cultural, social, or political background of a particular text.  These will be counted as a response writing assignment

Exams and Quizzes:  There will be one mid-term exam and one final exam.  There will be a number of pop quizzes on the reading, although the number of these quizzes can be reduced if there is strong and consistent evidence that people are doing the reading.  The quizzes will not be announced beforehand and will always be given at the beginning of class.  If you miss a quiz and do not have an excused absence from class that day, the quiz cannot be made up: you will get a zero for that quiz score.

Attendance:  I take attendance at each class; chronic lateness and/or absence will severely affect your final grade for the course.  Be on time and be prepared for class.  It is college policy that a student who misses 20% of the classes may be assigned an FA (failure on account of absence).

Grading:  The grading percentages are approximately as follows:
Participation (including pop quiz average): 40%
Paper/Hyper-text project: 20%
Midterm Exam: 20%
Final Exam: 20%

Plagiarism policy: Claiming credit for work that you did not do is plagiarism.  Make sure to cite the sources for research and if you have any questions, please ask me.  Plagiarism can result in failing the assignment, failing the course, or worse.
 
 

January 23 Introduction and openers

January 24 “Strawberry Spring” (xerox)

January 28 “The Tell-tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado” (xerox)

January 30 “Good Country People” & “The Misfit” (xerox) – Flannery O’Connor

January 31 O’Connor, continued

February 4 “Young Goodman Brown” (xerox) – Nathaniel Hawthorne

February 6 “Where are you going, where have you been” (xerox) – Joyce Carol Oates

February 7  Hawthorne and Oates, continued

February 11 “Sweat” – Zora Neale Hurston & “City of Refuge” – Rudolph Fisher

February 13 Fisher and Hurston, continued
Response writing #1 due

February 14 “The Catbird Seat” – James Thurber & “The Whore of Mensa” – Woody Allen

February 18  No Class – President’s Day

February 20 Master Harold and the Boys  - Athol Fugard

February 21 Fugard

February 25 Fugard

February 27 Fugard / Review for midterm

February 28 Midterm Exam

March 4 Whitman, excerpts from “Song of Myself”  (xerox): sections 1-7, 10, 16-17, and preface; answer reading questions

March 6 Whitman

March 7 Whitman

March 11 Sonnets (xerox)

March 13 Sonnets (xerox)

March 14 Sonnets (xerox)

March 18 No Class – St. Patrick’s Day

March 20 Sonnets - Answer reading questions for all the poems except "Ozymandias," "My Papa's Waltz," and "Putting in the Seed"

March 21 Sonnets
Response writing #2 due (sonnets)
Your assignment is to write a sonnet that follows the conventions and form of either a Shakespearean or a Petrarchan sonnet.  Make sure that your sonnet follows the regular rhyme scheme and line rhythms.  You may write your sonnet about any topic that seizes your imagination.  Please email me the sonnet.  Finished sonnets will be posted to the class website.

March 25 – April 1 No class – Spring Break

April 3 Ragtime to Chapter 12 / Explanation of Ragtime writing assignment //Explanation of final project

April 4 Ragtime

April 8 Ragtime to Chapter 22

April 10 Ragtime

April 11 Ragtime

April 15 Ragtime - writing assignment due

April 17 The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne - answer reading questions

April 18 – Founders’ Day – no afternoon classes
Last day to turn in final project drafts

April 22 SL - "Custom House" through Chapter 4

April 24 SL Chapter 5-12

April 25 SL  Chapters 13-16

April 29 SL to end

May 1 A Doll’s House - Ibsen

May 2 Ibsen
Final papers/hyper-texts due

May 6 Ibsen

May 8 Last day of classes
Exam date TBA

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