English 2850 HWA                                                            Professor Jennifer Sylvor

W 9:55 – 11:35                                                            jennifer.sylvor@baruch.cuny.edu

VC 11-165                                                                        Office Hours: W 2:15 – 4:00

Office: VC 7-290 – cubicle “O”                                    and by appointment

 

Class Blog: blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2850f16

 

 

Great Works of Literature II

 

Learning Goals:

• Increased ability to interpret meaning in literary texts by paying close attention to an author’s choices of detail, vocabulary, and style
• Ability to discuss the relationship between different genres of literary texts and the multicultural environments from which they spring
• Increased confidence in offering a critical evaluation and appreciation of a literary work’s strengths and limitations
• Increased confidence in the oral presentation of ideas
• Increased ability to write a critical essay employing a strong thesis statement, appropriate textual citations, and contextual and intertextual evidence for your ideas

 

 

Required Texts:

            Puchner, et al. The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Package II, volumes D,E,F. THIRD EDITION

 

Links to other required texts will be provided on the class blog.

 

 

Course Requirements:

This is a hybrid course. This means that we will be meeting face to face (f2f) only once each week on Wednesdays.   The other half of the course will take place asynchronously, through reading, writing, discussion, and other assignments that will be posted each week.

 

• Two formal analytical essays

• Final exam
• Blog Posts
• Participation in both in-class and web-based discussion
• Weekly web-based assignments

 

This is a Communication Intensive Course (CIC), which means that in addition to written work, you will be expected to be an active participant in classroom and online discussions.

 

Policies and Procedures:

 

• Attendance: Every absence beyond three will lower your course grade by one half step (an A- becomes a B+, a B+ becomes a B, etc…).
• Lateness: Three late arrivals will be treated as an absence.
• Preparedness: It is your responsibility to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings. Please come to each class session with the appropriate text (hard copies only), lined paper, and a writing implement.
• Electronics: The use of laptops, ipads, and other handheld devices will be permitted at the discretion of the instructor for note-taking purposes only. Students using electronics in the classroom for any purpose other than note-taking will be asked to leave and will be marked absent.       Cell phones are to remain out of sight during class sessions.
• Essays: Essays for this class will be submitted electronically via turnitin.com (details to follow). Grades will be reduced at a rate of one half grade a day for each day an assignment is late. Formal essays must be typewritten in 12 pt. type and double-spaced.
• Academic Integrity: Plagiarism and cheating are serious academic offenses and will not be tolerated. Plagiarism means presenting another author’s words or ideas without crediting them to their source. When you include another author’s words in your work, whether taken from a printed source, from the internet, or from a live presentation, those words must appear in quotation marks and be properly cited. When you include another person’s ideas in your work, you must indicate where you found those ideas, even if you are paraphrasing rather than quoting them. If you have any questions at all about what constitutes plagiarism, please consult me.       Any work submitted for this course that has been plagiarized will receive a failing grade and be reported to the Dean of Students. For more information on Baruch College’s policy, see http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/academic/academic_honesty.htm

 

Accommodations Policy: Baruch College is committed to making individuals with disabilities full participants in its programs, services, and activities through compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990. It is the policy of Baruch College that no otherwise qualified individual with a disability shall be denied access to or participation in any program, service, or activity offered by the university. Individuals with disabilities have a right to request accommodations. If you require any special assistance or accommodation, please let me know as soon as you can, ideally during the first three weeks of the semester.

 

Grading:

Your grade will be calculated as follows:

• Participation in class and on-line discussion                                                10%
• Weekly Web-Based Assignments                                                            20%
• Essay #1                                                                                                20%
• Essay #2                                                                                                25%
• Final Exam                                                                                                25%

 

 

 

 

 

Tentative Reading Schedule

 

What follows is a tentative schedule. Expect that we will be making adjustments as the semester progresses. More specific reading assignments will be announced in class and discussion questions and electronic assignments will be posted each week on our class blog. For convenience, I’ve listed Mondays and Wednesdays below, though our face to face meetings are on Wednesdays only. Unless specified otherwise, electronic assignments must be completed and submitted by 5 pm on Mondays.

 

W 8/31                        Introduction: Why Great Works?

 

M 9/5                        Labor Day – College Closed

W 9/7                        Feng Menglong, “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger”

 

M 9/12                        Moliere, Tartuffe (see course blog for assignment)

W 9/14             Moliere, Tartuffe

 

M 9/19                        Akinari, “Bewitched” (See course blog for link to text and assignment.)

W 9/21                        Pope, “Essay on Man”

 

M 9/26            French Revolution: Rousseau, Confessions and Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (excerpts)

W 9/28                        Rousseau and Wollstonecraft

 

M 10/3                        College Closed

W 10/5                        William Blake

 

M 10/10            Columbus Day – College Closed

W 10/12            Yom Kippur – College Closed

 

M 10/17            Wordsworth and Shelley (See blog for assignments)

W 10/19            Wordsworth and Shelley

 

M 10/24            Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

W 10/26             Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

 

M 10/31            Essay #1 Due – electronic submission via turnitin.com

W 11/2            Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”

 

M 11/7            Ibsen, Hedda Gabler (See blog for assignment)

W 11/9            Ibsen, Hedda Gabler

 

M 11/14            Rabindranath Tagore, “Punishment”            and Lu Xun, “Upstairs in a Wineshop” (Link to text will be posted on course blog)

W 11/16            Tagore and Lu Xun

 

M 11/21            Modernism – T.S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

W 11/23            T.S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

 

M 11/28            Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

W 11/30            Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

 

M 12/5                        Borowski, “This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen”

W 12/7                        Toni Morrison, “Recitatif” and Junot Diaz, “Drown”

 

M 12/12            tbd (last day of classes)

W 12/14            Essay #2 Due by 5 p.m. (electronic submission)

 

M 12/19            FINAL EXAM 10:30-12:30 (tentative)