Syllabus

Great Works of Literature I (ENG2800-STA #28862)

Baruch College

Meeting Day: Tuesdays 5:40 – 7:20 pm

Room: B – Vert. 7-215

Online: Thursdays 5:40 – 7:20 pm

Instructor: Anke Geertsma

Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Office Hours:  by appointment

Course Site: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/greatworks17/

Course Overview

This course will take you on a journey of discovery. We will travel through history and across cultures through the texts that we read: from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia to Greece and Persia, and from Classical India and China to medieval Italy and finally to England, where we’ll encounter Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who’s often seen as the first man of our modern age. This course does by no means offer a complete history of world literature—that is virtually impossible—but it will be an invigorating journey that hopefully inspires you to continue exploring the world through books for a long time after you’ve left the classroom.

While travelling together, you’ll pick up some key skills as a bonus: you’ll become comfortable reading and responding to texts from distant historical periods and cultures, you’ll gain close reading skills and knowledge of key literary terms, and you’ll learn how to place texts in their historical and cultural contexts and draw connections between them.

This is a communication-intensive course, which means that you’ll improve your speaking and writing skills through continuous practice and plenty of discussion and writing activities. And this is not all: it’s also hybrid course, which means that approximately half of our class will take place online, on our course site and other online spaces. As a result, you’ll learn how to write in an online, public space and use the resources that our online world has to offer to creatively respond to course materials.

This won’t be the kind of journey where you can sit back and relax, but you’ll find that it’s well worth it. After all there’s nothing better than having your horizons expanded, feeling the rush of the unknown and the thrill of discovering something new. Enjoy the ride!

Learning Outcomes

At the end of the course, you will be able to:

  • interpret meaning in literary texts by paying close attention to authors’ choices of detail, vocabulary, and style
  • discuss the relationship between different genres of literary texts and the multicultural environments from which they spring
  • articulate a critical evaluation and appreciation of a literary work’s strengths and limitations
  • present your ideas orally
  • write critical essays employing
    • a strong thesis statement
    • appropriate textual citations
    • contextual and intertextual evidence for your ideas

Course Expectations

Attendance & Classroom Policies

The easiest way to do well in this course is to attend all classes and actively contribute to discussions and in-class activities. Baruch’s attendance policy states that you can miss no more than four classes unless there are extreme extenuating circumstances (in which case you should talk to me as soon as possible). Since this is a hybrid class, you can only miss two regular classes. There are no differences between excused and unexcused absences but if you know you’re going to miss a class because of religious observances or another event of personal importance, let me know as soon as possible. Arriving late or leaving early is very disruptive in a seminar-style class like this, so when you’re more than 10 minutes late or have to leave more than 10 minutes early, I will count half an absence.

I understand that the semester can get hectic. When you feel like you’re reaching a boiling point balancing this course’s workload with other classes and commitments you can request a “System Overload” day.* You can request this three times for the whole semester. Taking an SO day means that you’ll be excused from participating in in-class discussion and other low-stakes activities, or, when it’s for the online section, from completing the weekly writing for that day. If you want to take an SO day, make sure you do the following:

  1. Let me know in advance. Tell me at the start of our regular class or email me before your online work is due. You cannot take an SO day anymore once the class has started.
  2. Make sure you still listen attentively and take notes during class. This is not a regular absence! I want you to still get something out of our class even though you didn’t prepare for it. For the online part, that means that you do have to read your classmates’ contributions and comment on their posts.

Use your absences and System Overload days wisely to balance the stress of the semester!

When you cannot attend class, it is your own responsibility to find out what we did, what the work for the next class is, and if there were any other announcements. Please use the space below to get contact information for two classmates so you can contact them:

Name                                            Email                                                   Phone Number

1.

2.

Participation & Reading

Active participation is of key importance in this class. We’ll be travelling together, but I’m not a tour guide who’s going to tell you everything. Consider yourself an explorer and your classmates your travel companions: we all contribute to finding out more about the texts, the cultures they spring from, and the ways in which they connect to other readings and our own contemporary world. This type of travel only works (and is way more fun) if you do the readings before class, take notes and prepare questions. I will count you as absent if you didn’t prepare (and didn’t take an SO day). Always let me know if you fall behind on the readings or encounter any other difficulties that might harm your participation in class.

Encountering texts and cultures so distant and different from ours can be quite scary, but don’t be anxious. I want you to feel comfortable expressing your thoughts and sharing your insights, even if you’re not at all sure of them. That’s okay! I want us to be respectful of each other’s contributions and embrace a spirit of collaboration and experimentation. There’s so much we don’t know, and learning (and life in general) is a story of trial and error. In this class, I ask you to embrace this philosophy both for yourself and your classmates.

No phones. Food and drink is fine as long as it doesn’t make the entire classroom smell, and make sure you visit the restroom before or after class (but this should speak for itself).                                                                             

Academic Accommodations & Accessibility

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 the right to request accommodations.

For more information and services, please visit Student Disability Services:

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/studentaffairs/ossd/disabilityServices.htm or call 646-312-4590

If you require any special assistance or accommodation, please let me know as soon as possible.

On Supporting Undocumented Students

As an educator, I fully support the rights of undocumented students to an education and to live free from the fear of deportation. If you have any concerns in that regard, feel free to discuss them with me, and I will respect your wishes concerning confidentiality. Below are links to the primary resources for CUNY students:

CUNY Citizenship Now (http://www1.cuny.edu/sites/citizenship-now/) provides free, high-quality, and confidential law services to help individuals and families on their path to U.S. citizenship. Their attorneys and paralegals offer one-on-one consultations to assess participants’ eligibility for legal benefits and assist them in applying when qualified.

CUNY CLEAR (Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility) (http://www.law.cuny.edu/academics/clinics/immigration/clear.html) primarily aims to address the unmet legal needs of Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and other communities in the NYC area that are particularly affected by national security and counter-terrorism policies and practices. Their services are free of charge.

Academic Integrity

The department of English fully supports Baruch College’s policy on Academic Honesty, which states, in part: “Academic dishonesty is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Cheating, forgery, plagiarism, and collusion in dishonest acts undermine the college’s educational mission and the students’ personal and intellectual growth. Baruch students are expected to bear individual responsibility for their work and to uphold the ideal of academic integrity. Any student who attempts to compromise or devalue the academic process will be sanctioned.” Additional information can be found at: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/academic/academic_honesty.html

It is expected that all students know, understand, and adhere to Baruch’s policies of academic integrity. Plagiarism, cheating, forgery, and other violations of academic integrity will be taken seriously and will not be tolerated. My policy is to give an F on any assignment that has been plagiarized. Repeated and serious cases may also result in an F for the course. All instances of plagiarism will be reported to the Dean of Students and become a permanent part of your student records.

Other Resources

You are not on your own! When you’re stuck or need extra help, reach out to your instructors, to friends and classmates, and make sure to use the many resources the college offers, such as the Writing Center and Newman Library.

The Writing Center offers tutoring and writing consultation: http://writingcenter.baruch.cuny.edu. Appointments can be made online or by calling 646-312-4012. It is also possible to request an ESL specialist if you require such assistance. I might ask you to visit the writing center for longer writing assignments if necessary.

Reference Librarians are available at the Library to assist with your research. They love it when students ask them for assistance: http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/

Technology

Since this is a hybrid course, you must have access to a computer or tablet with a reliable Internet connection. If you don’t have this at home, you will need to plan on regularly working in the library or somewhere else where you can access the Internet.

At some point in this course you WILL have a problem with technology: your computer crashes, your flash drive gets lost, the printers in the library aren’t working, your Wi-Fi is down. These are everyday realities of twenty-first century life, not emergencies. Make sure you’re prepared for when this happens. Start your assignments early, save often, and keep a backup of your work in a secure place.

Your success in college (and beyond) depends on being able to develop work habits that take these unfortunate occurrences into account. For this reason I will NOT grant extensions for problems relating to technology. Also, I will send announcements about the course to your Baruch email address, so be sure to check this regularly.

Resources:

  • The BCTC Helpdesk offers support for Baruch email, Blackboard, Wi-Fi, CUNYfirst, and printing.
    • You can visit BCTC on the 6th floor of the Library and Technology Building, 151 E 25th Bring your student ID.
    • You can call BCTC at 646-312-1010
    • Or email them at [email protected]. Send your mail from your Baruch email account
  • For help with Blogs@Baruch: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/contact

Grading & Assignments

Grading Rubric

Participation and in-class activities: 10%

Weekly writing online: 20%

Close reading 1: 10%

Close reading II: 10%

Final Project (making a scholarly edition): 50 %, of which:

  •  Organization and Planning (group): 5%
  • Intro (group): 5%
  • Annotations (group): 15%
  • Essay / Commentary (individual): 15%
  • Final Product (group): 10%

Participation and in-class activities:

I will regularly collect in-class activities and take note of your participation in group activities and class discussion. Active class participation can contribute to 10% of your final grade in a relatively stress-free way. All it requires is for you to come prepared and make a lively contribution to class. You cannot make up any in-class assignments or activities.

Weekly Writing Online:

We will do a variety of activities online: from writing short, personal responses to the weekly readings, to “remixing” texts or translating them into different media (such as photo or video), to gathering contextual and historical information, to writing photo or video captions or other analyses.

There will also be a strong emphasis on annotation and close reading. Most of our readings will be online, on the course site, and Hypothes.is enabled. Hypothes.is is an online social annotation tool that allows you to annotate online texts and read others’ annotations. It is a great way to share your responses with your classmates as you’re reading, to ask questions, and to start our discussion early. We’ll take plenty of time to discuss how to annotate and practice working with Hypothes.is and we’ll do various types of annotation exercises. During this class, I expect you to get in the habit of annotating all readings (even when it’s not an explicit part of that day’s activity) with Hypothes.is and to make use of the tool’s advantages. The course’s final project will also heavily draw on your use of this tool.

You’re expected to complete the weekly writing or other online activity every week and post it before midnight on Thursday night. You will only be excused from the weekly activity if you take an SO day. Also, make sure to check back a few times before our Tuesday class to read your classmates’ contributions and comment on their work (this also counts as participation).

You should schedule and average of 100 minutes every week to complete the online assignments. I will hand out rubrics on the point system I use to assess this work.

Close Reading:

We will do two short close reading exercises early in the semester. These will prepare you to respond to readings critically and with eye for detail and help you find the right “reading mode” for the rest of the course. I will hand out more detailed assignments a week before these essays are due.

Final Project (making a scholarly edition):

You will spend the last weeks of the semester working on a scholarly edition of one of the longer texts we’re going to read for the course. We will discuss what exactly a scholarly edition is, but expect to work in a small group to write an intro to a text (with information on the author and historical background) and an expansive set of annotations (again, using Hypothes.is) that explain, contextualize, and comment on the source text. These first two components will be group work, but your final contribution is a short essay or commentary on one key theme or other aspect of the text. When we bring your intro, annotations, and critical essays together, your group will have created its own scholarly edition of the work. All of this will be done and published online.

Late submission:

I will drop your grade by one third of a point for every day you submit an assignment late (so an A- will become a B+) and will not accept assignments more than three days late. This only counts for the longer assignments (the close reading essays and final project). Everything else (so in-class work and the weekly writing online) cannot be late (if you worry you cannot complete the weekly assignment, take your SO day).

* I borrow this concept of taking “system overload” days from Professor Ryan Cordell, who used it in his Fall 2014 Technologies of Text course at Northeastern University. He uses the term “information overload” day.