Required Texts: Norton Anthology of World Literature, 3rd Edition. (Package 2: Volumes D, E, F) New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Course Description: This course presents a global approach to literature by introducing a variety of narrative, lyric, and dramatic forms representative of different cultures and historical periods, from the 17th century to our contemporary time. Discussions involve both close reading of selected texts and comparison of the values the texts promote. Students engage in a variety of communication-intensive activities designed to enhance their appreciation of literature and their awareness of the way it shapes and reflects a multicultural world.
Through these activities, you will develop
- The ability to interpret meaning in literary texts by paying close attention to an author’s choice of detail, vocabulary, and style;
- The ability to discuss the relationship between different genres of literary texts and the multicultural environments from which they sprint;
- 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; and
- Increased ability to write critical essays employing a strong thesis statement, appropriate textual citations, and contextual and inter-textual evidence for your ideas.
Course Requirements:
Participation: This includes active participation in class, as well as any extra assignments given in class as part of our discussion. Please note, having the text every single class is part of your participation grade. If you fail to bring your text to class, you will lose points here.
Reading Quizzes: At the beginning of each class, we will start with a short reading quiz. This quiz serves as a way for me to check your understanding of the text and for us to prepare ourselves for classroom discussion.
Class presentations: Protocols: You will sign up to present on one reading. Presentations serve to help your fellow classmates understand a text and must be thematic. These presentations are NOT summaries of the text. You will be expected to close read a passage or choose to focus on an aspect of the text that you find interesting and elaborate your own reading for the class. These presentations are 7 minutes long. No more; no less.
Essays: Throughout the semester, you will complete two short essays. These are formal, academic essays of literary analysis, where you will develop a strong and coherent argument about the texts in question, developed through a detailed close reading of the language and formal features of the text, using appropriate textual evidence to support your claims.
Paper One: you will receive essay prompts in advance and you are expected to complete this paper and turn in an electronic copy to me by: Due 9/24 at 5 pm.
Midterm: The second larger assignment will be an in class midterm exam which will be a combination of essay questions short and long. Midterm Date: 10/10
Final Project/Paper: This will be the most complex of the three in that you will create your own argument based on the texts we have read in class. Due 12/20 by midnight.
All papers need to be typed, double-spaced, 12 point, standard font, one-inch margins, on 8.5×11 paper.
Response Papers: Throughout the semester you will turn in five, 450-word double spaced response papers. You can consider this an informal free write and a place where you can focus on ideas you have about the text and close read passages. DO NOT SUMMERIZE THE TEXT and always be expected to share these responses with your classmates.
Classroom Policies
Attendance:
- If you have more than 2 absences, your final course grade will be lowered by a half letter for each additional absence (a B+ becomes a B)—and your grade likely will be otherwise affected simply because of the activities and work you’ll miss.
- If you miss class more than 4 times, you must arrange to meet with me privately and, according to Baruch College policy, you will be subject to a WU grade, which counts as an F on your transcript and your GPA.
(From the official Baruch College attendance policy: “If a freshman or sophomore is absent in excess of twice the number of class sessions per week, the instructor must give the student a WU grade, which counts as an F. The instructor may give a junior or senior a WU grade if he/she has excessive absences. Attendance and lateness clearly play a role in class participation. Instructors have the right to weigh attendance, lateness, and class participation in determining grades.”)
- If you must miss class, let me know ahead of time if possible to make sure you stay caught up. If you miss unexpectedly, check the schedule on our course website and make friends with someone in class to see what you missed so you can stay up with your work. If you miss class, please do not email me asking what we did in class, or, worse, if we did anything in class you should know about.
- If an assignment is due on a day that you miss because of an unexcused absence, you are responsible for keeping up with the daily schedule and contacting someone in the class to see what you missed and for turning in your work at the same time it was due for those who were in class [see “Late Work”].
Late Policy
- Because showing up on time and respecting other people are important parts of being a good student (in your case), a good teacher (in my case), and ultimately a good human being, I’ll hold all of us to a standard of being on time to class and staying until class is over. Late arrivals and early departures are disruptive and ultimately disrespectful. Therefore, if you arrive late to class late more than twice it will count as an absence. The same will hold true if you leave class early more than twice. If you do arrive late to class, please check with someone nearby to see what you may have missed.
Technology in the classroom:
Each and every student must have the text in front of them in physical, good old-fashion paper form every single class. You are required to respect the classroom space. Laptops are only permitted when absolutely necessary. This means you should only be working on directly related to the course and classroom discussion while you are present. If this becomes a problem, technology will no longer be an option for use in the classroom.
Cell phones are absolutely not permitted. Should you need to use your cell phone, excuse yourself from the classroom.
Participation and Reading:
Regular attendance and active participation in class discussions and activities are required for success in this class. Preparation includes, finishing all writing assignments prior to the due date, having the text in front of you every single class, and entering the classroom with an open mind. Remember to bring the textbook to every class period. If you do not have the text you will not receive participation points for the class on that day.
Campus Resources
Department of English
7th Floor, Room 240
Vertical Campus
646-312-3910
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/wsas/academics/english/index.htm
The Writing Center
The Writing Center offers free one-to-one (in-person and online) and small-group workshop writing support to all Baruch students. The Center’s professional consultants work collaboratively with you to deepen your writing and English language skills. At any step in the process, they’ll help you become a more independent, confident, and versatile writer. You’re encouraged to schedule your appointment well in advance of when your writing is due. Visit the Writing Center in NVC 8-185 or at the Newman Library Reference Desk, or log on to their website, writingcenter.baruch.cuny.edu, to learn more.
The Counseling Center
The Counseling Center is one of several units within the Division of Student Affairs at Baruch College. We offer individual and group counseling to the Baruch community. Our services are all confidential and free of charge. The Counseling Center is open Monday through Friday from 9 AM – 5 PM. To make an appointment, please call 646-312-2155. You may stop by our office located at 137 East 25th Street, next door to the Library Building, on the 9th Floor. http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/studentaffairs/counselingCenter.htm
Office of Services for Students with Disabilities
The Office of Services for Students with Disabilities exists to provide reasonable accommodations to students with disabilities to ensure they have equal access to the college’s programs and services. Through student intake, faculty consultation, and outreach to the community, students can develop interpersonal, social, vocational and emotional growth.
Room 2-271, Newman Vertical Campus. Tel. 646-312-4590
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/studentaffairs/ossd/disabilityServices.htm
Newman Library
151 East 25th Street
http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/index.php
Online Resources
Oxford English Dictionary
http://www.oed.com
Norton Anthology Online Resource
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nawol3/
Purdue Online Writing Lab Use for MLA citation guide, as well as helpful writing tips.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
Deadlines:
Deadlines are fixed. Barring extenuating circumstances, all work needs to be completed on time. Please always feel free to talk to me about any problems that would prevent you from participating fully in the classroom or completing your coursework.
Expectations for coursework:
Over the course of the semester you will be required to invest a lot of time and energy into the work for this class. It is a four-hour course and the college standard is that students will spend about two hours working for every one hour spent in class. For our class, that amounts to about 8 hours per week outside of class. I don’t imagine you will always spend 8 full hours working outside of the classroom, but I do expect that you set aside this time for readings, rhetorical responses, analyses, writing, and preparation for class.
GRADING:
Late work will not be accepted unless you have made arrangements with me beforehand. If you are absent on the day an essay or assignment is due, email me your assignment by midnight the day it is due. Email it as a MS Word file (.doc or .docx). Make sure I receive it. The responsibility is yours.
Your course grade will be calculated according to the following breakdown:
10% One Page Response Papers (5 total; on the texts of your choice throughout the semester)
10% Participation (attendance, in class activities, and classroom discussion)
5% Reading quizzes
15% Oral Presentations
15% Paper One
20% Midterm
25% Final Paper
It is your responsibility to keep up-to-date with your standing in the course. If you would like to know, make an appointment with me to discuss your grade and progress ahead of time. I will not have any grade discussions via email.
Your grades will be calculated using a 100% grading scale for all individual assignments and the final course grade. Assignments can be rewritten in extenuating circumstances. Please feel free to email or visit my office hours if you ever have any questions regarding a grade you have received. I am always open to discussion.
| B+ 87-89 | C+ 77-79 | D+ 67-69 | |
| A 93-100 | B 83-86 | C 73-76 | D 60-66 |
| A- 90-92 | B- 80-82 | C- 70-72 |
Academic Integrity:
Plagiarism is a serious offense that, if done knowingly and depending on the severity and other factors, can result in a failing grade (or worse) and a mark on your permanent academic record. I’ll expect you to compose your projects ethically, meaning that if you use the work of others you cite that work, and that all work in this course is original, composed for the first time for this course, and is entirely your own, to the degree that anything we write is entirely our own. All students enrolled at Baruch are expected to maintain the highest standards of academic honesty, as defined in the Baruch Student Handbook. Cheating and plagiarism are serious offenses. The following definitions are based on the College’s Academic Honesty website:
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person’s ideas, research or writing as your own, such as:
- Copying another person’s actual words without the use of quotation marks and footnotes (a functional limit is four or more words taken from the work of another)
- Presenting another person’s ideas or theories in your own words without acknowledging them
- Using information that is not considered common knowledge without acknowledging the source
If you ever have any questions or concerns about plagiarism, please ask me. You can also check out the online plagiarism tutorial prepared by members of the Newman Library faculty at http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/help/plagiarism/default.htm and Baruch College’s academic integrity policy at http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/academic/academic_honesty.htm.
CUNY as a Sanctuary Campus
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.
A) I am committed to resisting any and all attacks on immigrants, including threats of deportation, and will urge CUNY to serve as a sanctuary.
B) I am committed to making CUNY a sanctuary campus for undocumented immigrants, not just in word but in deed – through the campus community refusing to allow ICE to enter our campus and refusing to cooperate with and struggling to prevent any government attempts to ascertain the immigration status of members of our community or to detain or deport undocumented immigrants.”
Ethical Participation
I ask that we all be respectful of one another and the wonderfully diverse opinions, ethnic backgrounds, gender expressions and sexual orientations, social classes, religious beliefs, and ethnicities among us. In the same spirit, written work in this course should employ inclusive language, which shows that the writer honors the diversity of the human race by not using language that would universalize one element of humanity to the exclusion of others. For example, use men and women or people instead of the generic man; use they or alternate he and she instead of the generic he.
Furthermore, all students shall be referred to by the names and pronouns that they use (e.g. she, he, they, ze, etc..)
If you have a name that differs from the one that appears on the roster, please inform me before the second class period in any way you feel comfortable so that I can use your correct name and preferred pronoun.