English 2850 HTRB                                       Professor Jennifer Sylvor

T/Th 9:55-11:35                                             jennifer.sylvor@baruch.cuny.edu

17 Lex 709                                                      Office Hours: Th 12:30 – 1:30

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

 

Class Blog: blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/eng2850htrbsp17

 

 

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

Berggren, et al. Contexts and Comparisons: A Student Guide to the Great Works Courses (C&C). This is an electronic resource, accessible via the website of the Newman Library.  Go to the library’s home page, click on “Digital Collections”, and find the listing for Contexts and Comparisons.  You are welcome to print text from this resource at your convenience.

 

Course Requirements:

• Two formal analytical essays

• Midterm exam

• Final exam

• Participation in both in-class and web-based discussion

• In-class and at-home informal writing

 

 

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 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, 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                                            15%

• Blog Post                                                                                             10%

• Essay #1                                                                                              15%

• Essay #2                                                                                              20%

• Mid-Term Exam                                                                                   20%

• Final Exam                                                                                           20%

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 will be posted each week on our Blackboard site.

 

T   1/31            Introduction to the Course

Th 2/2              Feng Menglong, “Du Tenth Sinks the Jewel Box in Anger”

 

T  2/7              Moliere, Tartuffe

Th 2/9              Moliere, Tartuffe

 

T 2/14            Akinari, “Bewitched” (Link to text will be posted on class blog.)

Th 2/16            Pope, Essay on Man, I

 

T 2/21            Rousseau, from Confessions

Th 2/23            Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (link on course blog)

 

T  2/28            William Blake (selections to be announced)

Th 3/2              William Blake

 

T  3/7              William Wordsworth (selections to be announced)

Th 3/9              Percy Bysshe Shelley (selections to be announced)

Su 3/12            Essay #1 due by 11 p.m. (electronic submission)

 

T 3/14             Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Th 3/16            Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and                                    Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (excerpts)

 

T 3/21            Midterm Exam

Th 3/23            Ibsen, Hedda Gabler

 

T 3/28             Ibsen,  Hedda Gabler

Th 3/30            Tolstoy, “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”

 

T  4/4              Rabindranath Tagore, “Punishment”

Th 4/6              T.S. Eliot “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

 

T  4/11            SPRING BREAK

Th 4/13            SPRING BREAK

 

T 4/18             SPRING BREAK

Th 4/20            NO CLASS – college on Monday schedule

 

T  4/25            Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

Th 4/27            Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

 

 

T 5/2              Lu Xun, “Upstairs in a Wineshop” (link to text on course blog)

Th 5/4             Borowski, “This Way to the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen”

 

T  5/9              Tayeb Salih, “The Doum Tree of Wad Hamid”

Th 5/11            Toni Morrison,  “Recitatif”

 

T  5/16            Isabel Allende, “And of Clay Are We Created”

Th 5/18            TBD (last day of classes)

Su 5/21            Essay #2 Due by 5 p.m. (electronic submission)

 

Th 5/25            FINAL EXAM 10:30am – 12:30pm (tentative)