Autumn 2007
ENG 398: Critical Writing
Denney Hall 245
MW 3:30 - 5:18
Instructor:  Dr. David Herman
Office: 409 Denney (office hours MW 2:15 - 3:30, 5:30 - 6:00, and by appointment)
Phone: 292-6123; e-mail: herman.145[at]osu.edu

Web address for this syllabus: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/ENG398-07.html

Online information about the English Major: http://english.osu.edu/students/undergrad/

Introduction to the course

Welcome! English 398 is designed to be a gateway to the English major. We will review the areas you can focus on within current-day English studies, and then turn our attention to one such focus area: namely, writing critically about literature. We will explore the basic literary genres--including poetry, drama, and fictional as well as nonfictional narrative--and also survey major critical approaches to studying literary (and other) texts. In addition, you will get hands-on practice with planning out, researching, and (re)writing intellectually sophisticated essays of the kind that you will be expected to write in upper-level courses within the major.

One of the key emphases of the class is how various critical approaches enable you to ask different kinds of questions about the texts we read--questions concerning the internal logic of literary works; the commonalities and contrasts among poetic, dramatic, and narrative representations of self and other; the role of the reader; and the links between literature and history.

Required texts:
Course Requirements:

Please note that I use a +/- system of grading and a 10-point grading scale.  Your grade for the course will be determined by the following factors:
1. Attendance and active class participation. I expect this class to be a collective endeavor, and your attendance and participation are crucial. You will get more out of each class if you come having done the assigned reading and prepared to discuss it. More than two unexecused absences will lower your participation grade by one whole grade: for example, from a B to a C. Five or more unexcused absences will result in a failing grade for the course. I may also give occasional quizzes and in-class exercises that will also factor into your participation grade.
2. A collaborative oral presentation. Each student will team up with several classmates to present a research report on a topic related to our class discussions. These topics are indicated on the schedule of readings. You will sign up for a group during the second week of the quarter; see the link above for more specific guidelines for the report. Presentations should be about 15 minutes long and should be shared by all of the students in the group.
3. Three papers. A 1,000-word close-reading of a scene from Ibsen's The Doll House, due October 3, and two other critical papers, due October 29 and November 28 (1,250 and 1,500 words, respectively). Specific details about these papers will be discussed in class, but you can find some general guidelines for composing your essays on the following webpage: http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/papertemplate.html. These papers must represent your own work; all cases of suspected plagiarism will be reported, in accordance with university rules, to the Committee on Academic Misconduct. Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses at OSU and will be reported to the appropriate officers of the university. Plagiarism is the representation of another's work or ideas as one's own; it includes unacknowledged quotations as well as paraphrases of someone else's words or ideas. Penalties may range from failure of the particular assignment, to failure of the course, or worse.
4. A final exam. The final, which will be held 3:30-5:18 p.m. on Monday, December 3, in our regular classroom, will be comprehensive and will cover the approaches to critical interpretation and critical writing that we will be focusing on throughout the course.

Grading:

Attendance and participation: 10%
Oral presentation: 10%
First paper: 15%
Second paper: 20%
Third paper: 25%
Final exam: 20%

Completing Assignments:

All assigned readings must be read before the date listed on the syllabus. All out-of-class assignments are due at the beginning of class. If an emergency arises and prevents you from turning in your assignment on time, always call me and leave a message on my voicemail if I am not there. In the absence of any previous consultation with me, work handed in late will be graded down, normally one letter grade for each day that it is late.

Other Policies:

Cellphones:

Please make sure that cellphones, pagers, etc. are turned off before you enter the classroom. 

Special needs:

Anyone who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss your specific needs. Anyone with such needs should also be aware of the the Office for Disability Services in room 150 Pomerene Hall (614-292-3307) which provides services for students with documented disabilities.

The Writing Center:

All members of the OSU community are invited to discuss their writing with a trained consultant at the Writing Center. Go to http://www.cstw.org or call 688-4291 to make an appointment.

Course Schedule:

The following is tentative course schedule. Depending on the actual pace at which we proceed during the quarter, we may have to make adjustments to the syllabus as we go.

SEPTEMBER

W 19  Introduction: An Overview of English Studies. Read Lynn, pp. 3-35. Discussion to be continued during the first part of class on M 24

New Criticism and Close Reading

M 24  Lynn, pp. 37-59; practicing New Criticism/close reading with poetry: Read the poems by Shakespeare, Blake, Tennyson, Browning, Stevens,  Auden, Brooks, and Olds in the "Anthology of Poems" in Landy and Allen, pp. 491-534

W 26  Practicing New Criticism/close reading with narrative fiction: Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants," and Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily" (both in Landy and Allen)

OCTOBER

M 1  Workshop on sample student essays (file versions to be e-mailed to the class). Read Hacker's sections on Clarity, Grammar, Punctuation, Mechanics, and MLA Papers in her Pocket Style Manual and be prepared to use those sections to comment on strengths and weaknesses of the sample essays. Also, access the online peer-review worksheet at http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/herman145/peerform.html and come to class prepared to discuss how you evaluated the sample essays. Mark any surface errors you noticed.

W 3  Practicing New Criticism/close reading: Read Ibsen, A Doll's House, in Landy and Allen, pp. 819-878 (also read pp. 537-540) Paper #1 due: choose a scene from Ibsen's play that you find particularly significant (for example, because of its content, themes, imagery, symbolism, etc.) and write a 1,000-word close reading of the scene and its significance in the context of the play. Please double-space your essay and use your computer's word-count function to check the exact number of words. List the number of words at the end of your essay, making sure that it is within 50 words of the target length (900-1,100 words).

Reader-Response Criticism

M 8  Lynn, pp. 61-95; also read O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," Browning, "My Last Duchess," and Havel, Protest (all in Landy and Allen)

Feminist and Gender-oriented Criticism (and Pop Culture Studies)

W 10  Lynn, pp. 211-243; also read Gilman, "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and Tillie Olsen, "I Stand Here Ironing" (both in Landy and Allen) 

M 15  Bechdel, Fun Home; group presentation #1: do some research on 3-4 writers or texts alluded to by Bechdel (Joyce's Ulysses, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde and his play The Importance of Being Earnest, etc.) and discuss how these authors and/or works are relevant to the unfolding narrative

W 17 Part I: Fun Home continued; also read Ritivoi, "Identity and Narrative" (e-reserve)

Deconstructive Criticism

W 17 Part II:  read Lynn, pp. 97-131 and Derrida, "Structure, Sign and Play" (e-reserve); also read, in Landy and Allen, Lawrence, "The Rocking-Horse Winner"

M 22  Read, in Landy and Allen, Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" and all the Emily Dickinson poems (pp. 341, 342, 344, 413, 414); also read Kate Chopin's "Desiree's Baby" at http://www.pbs.org/katechopin/library/desireesbaby.html

W 24  Writing Workshop: Draft of paper #2. Focusing on Adrienne Rich's "Diving into the Wreck" (available online at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15228), write a 1,250-word essay that is informed by reader-response criticism, deconstructive criticism, or feminist/gender-oriented criticism. You may also compare and contrast how two of these approaches might be used to generate interesting interpretations of Rich's poem. While brainstorming for your essay, you should pay attention to the questions suggested by Lynn himself in his chapters on these three approaches, although you may want to consider other questions instead; in any case, you should view the questions as prompts for your own thinking, not as organizing points for your essay. Again, please use the word-count function in your word-processing program to make sure that your essay conforms to the "+/- 10% rule," coming in somewhere between 1,125 - 1,375 words

Psychological Criticism (plus, Issues of Narrative Adaptation)

M 29  Paper #2 due. Read Lynn, pp. 183-209; also, in Landy and Allen, review Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper" and read Porter's "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" ; also read James Joyce, "The Dead" (available online at http://www.classicreader.com/read.php/sid.6/bookid.356/ or http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2814)

W 31  Joyce, "The Dead," continued; also read Herman, "Cognition, Emotion, and Consciousness," and Jakob Lothe, "James Joyce's 'The Dead' and John Huston's The Dead" (both on e-reserve)

NOVEMBER

M 5  Screening of John Huston's The Dead

Historical, Biographical, Postcolonial, and Cultural Criticism

W 7  Part I: Discussion of Huston's adaptation of "The Dead"; Part II: Lynn, pp. 133-181; Wolfe, "The Colored Museum" and Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues" (in Landy and Allen); group presentation #2 on sources/issues relevant for interpreting Wolfe and/or Baldwin

M 12 No class: Veteran's Day

W 14  Wright, "The Man Who Was Almost a Man," Eudora Welty, "A Worn Path,"  Silko, "The Storyteller's Escape," and Momaday, "The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee" (all in Landy and Allen); group presentation #3 on sources/issues relevant for interpreting Wright, Welty, Silko, or Momaday

Martin Amis's Time's Arrow as Final Case Study (with a Special Focus on Narrative Theory)

M 19  Time's Arrow; group presentation #4 on sources/issues relevant for interpreting Amis's novel

W 21  Time's Arrow; also read, Ryan, "Narrative," and Prince, "Narratology" (on e-reserve)

M 26  Time's Arrow; also read H. Porter Abbott, "Story, Plot, and Narration," and Monika Fludernik, "Identity/Alterity" (both on e-reserve)

W 28  Paper #3 due (1,350 - 1,650 words); review for exam

DECEMBER

M 3  Final exam 3:30 - 5:18