ENGLISH 3015: SURVEY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE II
TUESDAY 11:00AM – 1:41PM
MARY McGLYNN
OFFICE: VC 7-280
SUMMER 2024 OFFICE HOURS: TUES 2-3:30 & by appt.
COURSE STRUCTURE:
In making a survey of the last 300 years of British literature, this class will pay particular attention to the representations of work and leisure and how wealth and deprivation are depicted. Throughout the term, we will explore constructions of urban and rural, of rich and poor, of artist and worker, with special focus on enslaved and precarious labor, domestic workers, and snobbery.
KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS TO BE ACQUIRED BY STUDENTS:
- Increased understanding of the literary movements of the 18th-20th centuries on the British Isles and how texts shape and are shaped by cultural and historical events
- Increased ability to interpret meaning in literary texts by paying close attention to an author’s choice of detail, vocabulary, and style
- Increased confidence in the oral presentation of ideas
- Increased ability to write critical essays employing a strong thesis statement, appropriate textual citations, and contextual and intertextual evidence for their ideas
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
- Attendance is mandatory for all 5 in-person sessions. See policy below.
- You should come to class with your text, having read all assigned material carefully, which is not possible if you read on a phone! Discussion is a crucial aspect of the course. I recommend reading all assignments with a pencil in hand.
- Two papers will be assigned. Additionally, an oral presentation, 15 days of annotations, and two 2-page responses will be required. All writing should be original work, typed, double-spaced, proofread. Please include your name, the course and section, my name, and submission date.
GRADING:
Points will be awarded for each assignment as well as for class participation:
Response #1: 40 points
Response #2: 50 points
Essay #1: 150 points
Essay/project #2: 200 points
Annotations: 200 points (40 points/week)
Oral Presentation 100 points
Engagement: 60 points
(10 points/session + 1 office meeting)
TOTAL: 800 points
ASSIGNMENTS:
- Annotations will offer you an opportunity to engage with one another outside of class time, interpreting what we read, offering glosses on unfamiliar material, and adding comments that provide context, connections to other artistic works, and feedback on each other’s posts.
- Oral Presentations will take place each Tuesday in class and offer you a chance to talk about a scholarly article about one of the texts we’ve read in the previous week.
- Responses will be short, low-stakes guided prompts
- Essays and projects will be more substantial works of 5-6 pages (or the equivalent in a creative format for essay #2). A rewrite is allowed on essay #1.
- Engagement includes being present in class as well as participating verbally and remaining focused. We will discuss what constitutes good engagement in the first class session.
ABSENCES, LATENESS, AND CLASS ETIQUETTE:
I want to work with you to help you succeed in ENG 3015!
- Although most of the course will be run “asynchronously,” there will be one in-person meeting weekly (on Tuesdays, VC 11-140). Students are expected to attend every in-person class meeting. We will meet for the full session but will have one 15-minute break.
- Our asynchronous work will take place largely through submission of short response papers and discussions on the annotations platform hypothes.is.
- While the sessions are long, please plan ahead so you can be on time and expect to remain focused on our class. Please come to class having read all materials in advance and prepared to engage in discussion.
- You will need to be able to log on to your baruchmail, to Blogs@Baruch, and to Brightspace in order to complete all activities in this class. We will submit assignments via Brightspace and do annotations through the blog, using the Hypothes.is platform.
- Please use a professional tone and format when emailing me. I will try to respond to all email within 24 hours, weekends excepted. I will return all graded work within two weeks, with a goal of one week.
- Late work will be accepted for one week after the scheduled due date, except annotations.
- Please communicate with me if there are obstacles to your success in class—I don’t need to know exactly what’s going on, but I can work with you better if I know when there’s an issue. I want to help you pass this class!
CLASSROOM CULTURE AND ACCOMMODATIONS:
I very much want to recognize that students bring a wide variety of experiences, cultures, abilities, skills, and personalities to our class. I view these as assets and want our class to be space where you feel seen, acknowledged, and supported. Should your circumstances mean that you are entitled to accommodation, it works best for you to inform me early. Baruch has a continuing commitment to providing reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities. Students with disabilities who may need some accommodation in order to fully participate in this class should contact Student Disability Services as soon as possible at [email protected].
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY:
I value your intelligence and integrity and am committed to a class that is equitable and fair. Scholastic dishonesty is at odds with these values. Plagiarism and other forms of cheating will not be tolerated. You are responsible for knowing what constitutes academic dishonesty and for avoiding any instance of it. Failure to do so will result in failure of the course and in being reported to the dean of students. Please read the college policy on academic honesty on the website at http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/academic/academic_honesty.html.
I want to speak directly to the use and limitations of artificial intelligence (AI) in a class like this. The various AI programs available to assist writers might complement but cannot replace the sorts of human creativity, originality, and critical thinking that constitute college-level educational development. Writing is a craft that takes time and is most useful when you learn various ways to shape and use your own individual voice. In my experience, AI text generation tends to be useful for structure and grammar, not ideas or originality or even accuracy. I am confident that your own writing outstrips what I see from AI, which relies on generic phrasing, skates across the surface, makes mistakes, and describes without analyzing. However, within limited circumstances, and with proper attribution, AI programs may be used as one tool among many in the writing process. Please consult with me if you have questions about when and how AI can be employed, and please understand that using AI without attribution will be considered a form of academic dishonesty.
COURSE TEXTS:
Many materials for this class will be provided electronically, at no cost via pdfs[1] on the course blog; I require hard copies of the novels below. They are listed in the order that we’ll use them. They have been ordered at the Baruch bookstore and are viewable in C1. You may of course obtain them elsewhere (thriftbooks is my go-to), but please allow time for delivery of items. You should plan to have each novel in hand a week before we begin discussing it. I recommend the editions here; otherwise you’ll need to figure out pagination to keep up with class discussion as well as cite your edition in any written work you submit.
Electronic versions of the novels are not allowed!!!
Please understand that you MUST read and access all texts for class discussions on a screen bigger than a phone.
- Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Longman, 2002. 978-0321105073
- Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. Any edition is acceptable; here’s an online version
- Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway. Harcourt, 1981. (1925) 978-0156628709
- Ishiguro, Kazuo. Remains of the Day. Vintage, 1990. 9780679731726
COURSE BLOG: https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/summer3015/
Please refer to the blog for all readings, weekly participation, extra credit, updates to the syllabus, supplementary materials, &c. While the class does have a Brightspace site, it is mainly for submission of assignments.
[1] Many of my pdfs are generated from the The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol D, E, & F. ISBN 9780393450514, so feel free to order this edition if you’d like. It is not, however, required.