Literature 5535: American Romanticism University of Houston-Clear Lake

Class Meeting: Tuesdays 4:00-6:50, Bayou 3233 Instructor: Craig White

Office/phone: Bayou 2529-8; 281 283-3380 Office Hours:

Course webpage: http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5535

Caveat: All items on this syllabus are subject to change with minimal notification.

Texts

Baym, Nina, et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 6^th Shorter Edition. NY: W. W. Norton, 1999.

Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. 1826. NY: Penguin Classics, 1986.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. 1974. NY: Perennial Classics, 1998.

Murfin & Ray, Bedford Glossary of Critical & Literary Terms (2nd ed., 2003)

Assignments and grades

Grades and Assignments: Percentages are only approximate, indicating relative weight in considering final grades, which are not computed mathematically but decided subjectively by comparing the quality of a student's thought and writing with that of classmates and wider academic standards.

· Presentations, responses, & webpage summaries (10%)

· take-home midterm (20%; due 30 September)

· research proposal (ungraded; due )

· research project (40%; due 11 November)

· final exam (30%; December)

Issues such as attendance, preparation, and quality of class participation may influence grades beyond the percentages indicated.

Course Objectives:

Objective 1: Literary Categories of Romanticism

Objective 1a: Romantic Genres

To describe & evaluate standard literary genres of Romanticism:

· the romance narrative or novel (quest or journey toward transcendence)

· the gothic novel or style (haunted physical and mental spaces, the shadow of death, dark and light in physical and moral terms; film noir)

· the lyric poem (a moment or impression of complete cognition and feeling; more prominent in European than American Romanticism)

· the essay (esp. for Transcendentalists, a descendent of the Puritan sermon)

Objective 1b. Romantic Spirit or Ideology

· To identify and criticize attitudes traditionally associated with Romanticism, such as idealism, rebellion, the individual in nature or separate from the masses, desire and loss, nostalgia, and "the sublime."

· The Romantic impulse is usually a desire for anything besides “the here and now” (or “reality”); thus the quest or journey of the romance narrative typically requires crossing borders or transgressing physical, social, or psychological boundaries

· A Romantic hero or heroine may appear empty or innocent of all but potential or desire and a willingness to self-invent or transform.

Objective 1c. The Romantic Period

· To note the concentration of Romanticism in the late 18^th and 19^th centuries and the co-emergence of Romanticism with the rise of the middle class, the city, industrial capitalism, consumer culture, and the nation-state.

· To observe predictive elements in “pre-Romantic” writings from earlier periods such as “The Seventeenth Century” and the "Age of Reason."

· To speculate on residual elements in “post-Romantic” writings from later periods such as “Realism and Local Color,” "Modernism," and “Postmodernism.”

Objective 2: Cultural Issues:

America as Romanticism, and vice versa

· To identify the Romantic era in the United States of America as the “American Renaissance”—roughly the generation before the Civil War (c. 1830-1860, one generation after the Romantic era in Europe).

· To acknowledge the co-emergence and shared identity of "America" and "Romanticism." European Romanticism begins near the time of the American Revolution, and Romanticism and American culture develop individualism, nature, rebellion, equality, and desire-and-loss in parallel.

· America as a racially divided but complexly related people develops "Old and New Canons" of Romantic literature, from Emerson’s Transcendentalism and Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age to the Slave Narratives of Douglass and Jacobs, the Harlem Renaissance of Hughes, Hurston, and Cullen, and the American Indian as a conflicted Romantic icon in Cooper and Zitkala-Sa. (Mexican American Literature is not yet incorporated into this course.)

· Similarly, the USA's conflicted identity as an economically liberal but culturally conservative nation creates "Old and New Canons" in terms of gender, in which masculine traditions of freedom and the frontier content with feminine traditions of relations and domesticity. (Also consider “Classical” and “Popular” literature as gendered divisions.)

· American Romanticism exposes competing or complementary dimensions of the American identity: is America a cultural base for sensory and material gratification or moral, spiritual, or idealistic mission?

· Finally, the convergence of "America" and "Romanticism" enables us to investigate to what degree American popular culture and ideology—from Hollywood movies to the ideologies of human rights—represent a popular, vulgar, or diluted form of classical Romanticism.

General Method of Evaluation and Warning about Standards:

Because literature studies qualitative values, this course directs students to think in broadly constructive ways. Only letter grades will be given, and pluses and minuses may appear on component and final grades. The relative weights indicated above may change to significant degrees, positively or negatively, depending on issues such as attendance and quality of participation in class. If a student repeatedly demonstrates lack of preparation for class, as by failing to track discussions, this may detract considerably from a student’s final grade.

As in most literature and humanities courses, quality of writing on exams and papers is the most decisive factor in grading. In reading and grading your writing, I cannot separate your ideas from their expression; that is, the quality of your thought is apparent only in the quality of the writing. Grades and criticisms will often concern the style, rhetoric, and organization of your writing as much as its content. This can be intellectually liberating for you, since I read your writing less for "the right answer" than for intelligent deliberation.

Presentation(s) are graded “silently”—that is, no grade is communicated during the semester. However, your presentation grade will be figured in your overall final grade and listed in your Final Grade Report. Judgment of your presentation will be based on the interest of your analysis, the quality of your reading, and the level of discussion.

Email and webpage requirements: Students help develop the course webpage for the following purposes:

· To provide models of completed assignments for students who are unfamiliar with such a course’s expectations and standards.

· To provide a medium in which students can share their work with each other.

· To record the course’s accomplishments and thus to increase the likelihood that future courses may advance them.

· To prepare for a possible online future for the course.

Each student in LITR 5535 2003 must make five contributions to the webpage through the instructor via email or other electronic media. When the course concludes, students may request via email that any or all of their contributions be removed from the webpage. In the future, some student contributions may be deleted as more samples are gathered.

All webpage contributions are posted as submitted. That is, the instructor does not edit them, nor do the instructor’s grades and comments appear on the webpage. However, students are welcome to resubmit revised or edited versions of their assignments at any time during or after the semester.

Required email contributions:

1. presentation summaries, including summary of discussion & response

2. midterm exam

3. research proposals

4. research project

Optional email contribution:

5. final exam

Email address: Send all emails to whitec@uhcl.edu. Note the "c" at the end of "whitec." If you send the email to "white" only, it goes to the wrong faculty member.

Contents and attachments: Try both of the following

· Paste the contents of the appropriate word processing file directly into the email message.

· “Attach” your word processing file to an email message. (My computer and most of its programs work off of Microsoft Word 2000. The only word processing program my computer appears unable to translate is Microsoft Works, though Microsoft Word is fine, as are most others. If in doubt, save your word processing file in "Rich Text Format" or a “text only” format.)

If you cannot reach me by email, save your file to a 3 & ½ “ floppy disk and give it to me. If you put your name on the disk, I’ll eventually return it to you.

Student computer access: Every enrolled student at UHCL is assigned an email account on the university server. For information about receiving your account name and password, call the university help desk at 281 283 2828.

Reassurances: You are not graded on your expertise in electronic media but on your intelligence in reading discussing, and writing about literature. I’ve tried similar email exercises for several semesters; a few students encounter a few problems, but, if we don’t give up, these problems always work out. Your course grade will not suffer for mistakes with email and related issues as long as I see you making a fair effort.

Descriptions of Assignments:

Take-home Midterm Exam (due13-14 June):

Length: 5-7 typed double-spaced pages (equivalent).

Transmission: You must email your exam to me at whitec@uhcl.edu. Your submission will be posted to the webpage.

Topic: An aspect of one of the course objectives. Describe how two or three early American texts (from Columbus, Smith, Bradstreet, Rowlandson, Edwards, Jefferson, Rowson, Irving, Apess, Cherokee Memorials) exemplify the development of an aspect of Romanticism and how their contributions converge in The Last of the Mohicans, making it a classic or normative text of American Romanticism.

The above paragraph is the formal description of the mid-term assignment—that is, you will not be given another description of the assignment, though of course we can discuss it. The most successful versions of this exam tend to focus on a rather specific aspect of Objective 2, such as “the Gothic.” You may even focus more specifically than the objective indicates—that is, you may analyze an aspect of the gothic or a specific feature of the romance or of Romantic spirit, for instance.

You are required to review and make one citation of one of the earlier course midterms posted on the webpage. The only difference will be that LITR 5535 2002, a summer course, did not read The Last of the Mohicans. You are also welcome to cite external sources, though this assignment does not have a research requirement and a Works Cited is not required. It is expected that you will incorporate major ideas from class lecture and discussion, and that a member of this class could recognize your ideas and references as relevant to our course as it has developed thus far.

Research Project

Examples on webpage: Students should review examples of previous student research proposals and projects on the “Model Assignments” page of this course and, especially for journals, other webpages on the instructor’s “coursesite.”

Students have a choice of two options for their research projects.

· Option 1 is a traditional 12-15 page analytic / research essay relevant to the course.

· Option 2 is a 15-20 page journal of research and reflections concerning a variety of materials relevant to the course.

Weight: approximately 40% of final grade

Due dates:

· proposal due week of 14 October

· project due within 72 hours of 18 November

Research proposal: Due via email during the week of 14 October.

Write at least two paragraphs containing the following information:

· Indicate which option—Option 1 (essay) or Option 2 (journal)—your research project will take. (If you are trying to choose between the two options, start your email by explaining the situation. If you are trying to choose between different subjects, do the same--explain and explore the situation.)

· If Option 1, list the primary text(s) you intend to work with. Explain the source of your interest, why the topic is significant, and what you hope to find out through your research. Describe any reading or research you have already done and how useful it has been.

· If Option 2, mention your possible choices of topics and areas of research for categories listed in Option 2 (journal) requirements.

· Explain the source of your interest, why the topic is significant, and what you want to learn about this topic.

· Mention the likely types of research you will do, e. g., Background research (encyclopedias, handbooks, critical digests, etc.), Secondary research (advanced scholarly articles or books exploring a particular question, or reviews of scholarly books)

· For either option, conclude by asking the instructor at least one question about your topic, possible sources for research, or the writing of your research project.

· Email or otherwise transmit an electronic version of your proposal to me at whitec@uhcl.edu.

· Research report proposals will be posted on the course webpage.

· If you want to confer about your possible topic before submitting a proposal, feel free to confer with me in person, by phone, or by email.

Response to Paper Proposal

· The instructor will email you a reaction okaying the proposal and / or making any necessary suggestions.

· You are welcome to continue going back and forth with the instructor on email until you are satisfied with your direction.

· Student does not receive a letter grade for the proposal, only a “yes” or instructions for receiving a yes. Students will not lose credit for problems in reaching a topic as long as they are working to resolve these problems.

· The only way you can start getting into trouble over the proposal is if you simply don’t offer very much to work with, especially after prompts from instructor. An example of a really bad proposal is one sentence starting with “I’m thinking about” and ending with “doing something about Poe,” then asking, “What do you think?” In these cases, a bad grade won’t be recorded, but the deep hole the student has dug will be remembered. Notes regarding the paper proposal may appear on the Final Grade Report.

Research Project (due 18 November):

Description of Research Options:

Option 1 (analytic / research essay) requirements

· This option involves a more or less familiar "Graduate Literature Paper" in which the student analyzes a literary text or texts relevant to American Romanticism.

· The topic is open to any type of literary analysis, but it must have some relevance to the course. That is, a member of the class reading your essay would be able to recognize the relevance of the text(s) and / or major themes.

· Possible topics: tracing in one text, or comparing and contrasting in more than one text the development of a theme, image, symbol, usage of language, character type, plot pattern, genre or aesthetic style, or conflict.

· In terms of primary texts, you may choose a text from beyond this course, but if you use more than one primary text, one should probably be from the course readings.

· In terms of research, you must incorporate references to at least three secondary and background sources--that is, your research sources must include both secondary and background types of research; the distinction will be explained.

· Follow MLA style for documentation and mechanics.

· Length: 12-15 pages + Works Cited

· Research Requirements: One or two primary sources; at least 3 secondary and background sources (distinction explained below). At least one source should be "print"--i. e., not from the internet.

Option 2 (journal) requirements

Purpose: Students will extend their range of knowledge or familiarity with American Romanticism, its authors, and / or its constituent styles or genres. In brief, the journal might answer the question, "What do I want to know about this field of study, and in what types of sources or references do I find this knowledge most accessible?" For your reader, the journal will demonstrated “What I (you) have learned, and how I found it out.”

Length: Approximately 15-20 pages.

Quality & Coherence of journal submissions:

If you choose the journal option, you are not choosing an option that involves less work than the traditional research paper option. You are expected to do just as much work and your writing will be judged by similar standards. A journal provides opportunities for variety in learning, but rather than regarding the journal as a “data dump,” students should look for opportunities to organize their diverse findings into larger themes.

The final grade will be determined largely on the “whole reading experience” of your journal for the instructor, who is reading your journal not as a reference work but from beginning to end. Therefore you as the author need to emphasize continuity or transitions between parts, sharing a larger insight or convergence of knowledge with your reader. The introduction and conclusion provide the primary foci at which you should generalize on your learning, but connections, comparisons, and contrasts between the parts of your journal are also expected.

I may not be able to emphasize enough the importance of writing your journal as a readable, focused, organized, coherent text. Journal-writing students who have been displeased with their grades have often reacted, “I didn’t know that you would grade so strongly on the connections between parts.” To gain a better sense of expectations regarding your journal, review some of the journals posted online. Most of them are successful samples, so you should be able to observe the efforts by their authors to organize the diverse parts into a cogent whole.

Then what’s the difference between the essay (option 1) and journal (option 2)?

· An essay emphasizes your insights and opinions about a text or set of texts, or your application of a “reading or interpretive methodology” to a text or texts.

· A journal emphasizes knowledge you have gathered. Often, instead of being focused on a text, this knowledge concerns a movement or figure or genre in literary history.

· Both the essay and the journal are read as unified explorations of a subject.

Possible Topics:

Elements from the course objectives should be your first consideration:

Literary or stylistic subjects: romance, gothic, sublime, Romantic lyric poetry, Romantic nature

Historical or cultural subjects: When was Romanticism? Abolition, Romantic feminism, slave narratives, the Harlem Renaissance

Author studies: If you go this route, try to have a particular focus or sub-topic of interest rather than an “all-about” approach.

Research Journal--suggested contents: (page suggestions are for double-spaced print)

(Aside from the introduction and conclusion, all the numbers and items below are variable according to your interests and findings.)

· Introduction (required): rationale: what you wanted to learn and how; preview contents, general themes, choices (1-1 & 1/2 pages)

Optional elements:

· Overview of subject digested from several sources. (2-5 pages)

· Review of two student papers from previous course on webpage. (2-3 paragraphs each)

· 1-3 reviews of scholarly books or articles on your subject (2-3 paragraphs each)

· Review of 2-3 websites (1-2 paragraphs on each site?)

· You may suggest other possible items for inclusion in your journal.

· Conclusion (required): In terms either of variety, priority, or unity, what have you learned from the gathering of your journal? Where might this knowledge take your studies or your teaching? What new issues have been introduced that you might like to study next? (2-3 pages)

Explanation of Research Terms

Primary texts. In research writing for literature, primary texts are usually works of fiction, poetry, or drama, though other genres may be similarly analyzed. Background and secondary research. You are required to refer directly to at least three background and secondary sources, though your mix of these three may vary, and of course you may refer to more than three.

Background sources refer to handbooks, encyclopedias, and companions to literature that provide basic generic, biographical, or historical information. For purposes of Literature, these books are generally shelved in the PR and PS sections of the Reference section of the library.

Secondary sources refer to critical articles about particular authors or texts. (When you write your analytic / research paper, you are creating a secondary source.) These may take the form of articles or books. Articles may be found in journals or in bound collections of essays. Secondary books may be found on the regular shelves of the library. To find secondary sources, perform a database search on the MLA directory in the Reference section of the library--the reference librarians will help you.

Documentation style: MLA style (parenthetical documentation + Works Cited page, as described in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 4^th or 5^th edition.

Other mechanical issues: A cover sheet is not necessary.

Email copy of paper to instructor at whitec@uhcl.edu. You are welcome to give me a hard copy on or around the due date, but before the semester is over you are required to provide an electronic copy.

Final exam (Tuesday 9 December, 4-6:50pm):

Content: two hour-plus essays from a choice of four questions. The content will concentrate on materials since the midterm, but some of the question options will allow you to include texts from before the midterm.

Open-book, open-notebook.

Format: either in-class or email.

· If you take the exam in class, just show up with paper, pen, books, and notebooks. Exam questions will be handed out at 4pm. You will be expected to finish writing by 6:50pm.

· If you take the exam by email, you will be emailed the exam questions just before 4pm, when the questions will also be posted to the course webpage. Like the in-class students, you are expected to spend no more than three hours on the exam, so please keep a log indicating when you stop and start. You are expected to email your answers to the instructor by 8pm. (Flexible time takes into account the possible interruptions when working off-campus.)

Class Presentation-discussions & responses

Each student will lead one or more presentation-discussions and act as a "discussion recorder" for one or more of these readings during the semester. Student presenters will compose summaries of these presentations and email them to the instructor, who will post them to the course webpage.

These presentations will take one of two forms and, in either form, should run approximately five to ten minutes (not including discussion, which is sometimes extended). Assignments will be determined in advance by random drawings, though you may indicate if you prefer reading or responding at a certain point in the schedule, or if a certain date is undesirable.

The purposes of these presentations are to develop the class’s seminar style and to give students practice in high-level presentations. The purpose is not to relieve the professor of his assigned work; the easiest class is one in which I just show up and talk for three hours.

“Silent Grade” for presentation, responses, etc.

You are graded for the quality of your work in presentations, responses, and general class participation, but this grade is not announced until the end of the semester, when it is recorded in your “Final Grade Report” (see below). The reason for this “silent grade” is to avoid unproductive behavior from students in relation to the presentations, such as second-guessing, comparing grades, competing to each other’s detriment, or performing to the teacher. Altogether the presentations are a cooperative exercise on the part of the class, so it’s better to keep grading out of sight; however, since some students would work less otherwise, the leverage of a grade is necessary.

Your roles as recorders are not a major feature of your grade unless you simply shirk and draw attention to yourself for lack of cooperation or effort. You are expected to help your presenter in the same spirit that you would like to be helped.

Presentation Option: “selection reader”: Choose one or two passages from the assigned readings and interpret in light of the course objectives, though other interpretations relevant to American Romanticism are also welcome. Call me or my voice mail (281 283 3380) or email me (whitec@uhcl.edu) by 3pm the day of the class meeting to inform me which pages and points you will feature (so that I can avoid overlapping and otherwise arrange the class agenda in relation to your content).

Procedures for student selection reading:

1. Call or email the instructor by 3pm on the day of the class meeting to tell what pages of the text will be read, what objective is under consideration, and what question you will ask. Messages can be left on my voice-mail (281 283-3380) or email whitec@uhcl.edu.

2. Limit five to ten minutes, except for continuing discussion.

3. Your presentation should prominently feature an overall point relating to a course objective (or to another point the course has developed). Announce this point (or objective) in your introductory remarks and reinforce it in your closing remarks.

4. After or before introducing your presentation, announce the page(s) to which the class should turn and locate the passage. You may read 2-3 short passages instead of one long passage.

5. After reading the passage, emphasize the aspects relating to your objective or point and offer any further relevant remarks.

6. To conclude your formal presentation and initiate the class discussion, ask a question regarding the passage and point.

7. At some point during the presentation or discussion, the reader is required to make reference to the Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms.

8. Recorder takes notes of discussion.

9. Presentation wraps up with instructor asking reader, “What have we learned about American Romanticism?”

10. Email instructor summary of presentation & discussion. For posting to the webpage, the presenter emails to the instructor a 2-3 paragraph summary of the presentation plus 2-3 paragraphs reviewing the highlights of the discussion, prepared with the help of the recorder. The presenter is welcome to consult with the recorder and with other discussion participants as much as is helpful in preparing the summary.

Main mistake or misconception to avoid: This may be your big moment leading the class, but you must avoid the temptation to use it as a do-or-die opportunity to deliver a lecture or demonstrate your mastery of the course’s subject matter. Your purpose is above all to start and lead a discussion. As a veteran teacher, I can swear that you never finish saying all you could say, and no one ever wishes that you could!

Having instructed this course several times, I’ve consistently found that in the best presentations the presenter speaks well but briefly, rarely more than 2-3 minutes at a time, and interspersing insights into the comments before and after the reading and into the discussion.

Email / webpage summary: Within 48 hours after class, the presenter should submit a prose summary of the presentation and discussion (including respondent's contribution) to the instructor via email. Identify respondent by name, and other attributions of comments are welcome. This submission will subsequently be posted to the course webpage.

Presentation Option: “Poetry Reading”

The student reads a short, contemporary poem from the Norton Anthology, then interprets the poem’s romantic (or non-romantic) qualities and invites comments from other students.

Good poems give rise to many potential insights, but the overriding purpose of this presentation is to relate the poem to the course content of American Romanticism. Therefore the reader’s introduction and interpretation to the poem should emphasize how the content and/or style of the poem conforms to or resists a Romantic interpretation. Discussion may inevitably raise issues apart from Romanticism, but it is the presenter’s duty to return the discussion and summary to Romantic themes.

Procedures for student presentation, option 2 (poetry):

1. Announce author, title, and location of poem in anthology.

2. Limit reading and analysis to five to ten minutes (some may come before reading, some after reading), except for continuing discussion.

3. To introduce the poem, suggest objectives relevantto which it relates; otherwise, read the poem as soon as possible.

4. Limit any biographical information on poet to material directly relevant to subject of American Romanticism. By no means should you simply review the life of the poet. Rather, touch on a couple of relevant highlights or ignore this aspect altogether, and get to the poem as directly as possible.

5. Read aloud the poem or passages from the poem. You should look up and practice pronunciations of any unusual or foreign words before you read aloud. It’s not good form to interrupt the poem and ask the instructor if you’re pronouncing a word correctly—ask before class!

6. After reading the poem, review its Romantic elements or patterns and also the aspects that negate or resist Romanticism.

7. Conclude with a question about the poem to invite discussion.

8. If the poem was presented in an earlier semester, the presenter should review at least one insight from the presentation or discussion at some point in the introduction, analysis, discussion, or conclusion.

9. At some point during the presentation or discussion, the reader is required to make reference to the Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms.

10. Recorder takes notes of discussion.

11. Presentation wraps up with instructor asking reader something like, “What does the poem demonstrate about American Romanticism?”

12. Email instructor summary of presentation & discussion. For posting to the webpage, the presenter emails to the instructor a 2-3 paragraph summary of the presentation plus 2-3 paragraphs reviewing the highlights of the discussion.

Discussion Recorder: An assigned student will take notes of the discussion, writing down highlights of student responses and connecting them, if possible, to names. Instructor will help with names. The recorder need not include instructor comments except as helpful in relation to student comments. The discussion recorder will share the notes with the reader and consult as far as desirable in helping with the email / webpage summary (see below). The reader and note taker may share and consult in person, by phone, or by email.

Email / webpage summary: Within 48 hours after class, the presenter should submit a prose summary of the presentation and discussion to the instructor via email. This submission will subsequently be posted to the course webpage.

Models of poetry presentation summaries: Click on the “Model Assignments” tab on the course webpage.

Main mistake or misconception to avoid: This may be your big moment leading the class, but you must avoid the temptation to use it as a do-or-die opportunity to deliver a lecture or demonstrate your mastery of the poem or of the course’s larger subject matter. Your purpose is above all to start and lead a discussion. As a veteran teacher, I can swear that you never finish saying all you could say, and no one ever wishes that you could!

Final Grade Report

I will turn in final grades to the registrar during the week following your exam according to the usual procedures. Students may check their final grades by calling the university’s EASE line. Additionally, however, I will email each student a final grade report or tally. Though this message should be accurate, it will be “unofficial” in that none of its information is recorded or supported by the university registrar. The message will appear thus:

STUDENT NAME

Contact information

Absences:

Presentation grade(s):

Midterm grade:

Research proposal:

Research Project:

Final exam grade:

Course grade:

Class participation: Students’ participation is judged less on quantity than on appropriateness to the topic under discussion and the point being pursued. When you are called upon to speak, you should try to make one point per turn. Avoid having a list of remarks on several topics—that tends to confuse your instructor’s or your classmates’ response. Choose the most important thing to say at the given moment.

If occasionally I don’t follow up your individual comments, this does not represent a negative reaction. I used to try to follow up every student’s comment, but it became clear to me that the class had trouble discerning when I really had something to say from when I was simply talking out of politeness! I now think that, unless I have something potentially valuable to add, it may be better to let a student’s comment “speak for itself” rather than forcing further comment when none may be necessary.

Your reading for the course is partly tested by your participation in class discussions of reading assignments led by the selection readers and instructor. If you do not participate in these discussions, the instructor will assume that you have not prepared for class, and your participation & overall grade will suffer.

· At least occasionally each student should participate in discussion by specifically referring to contents or specific pages of the reading assignment.

· Students should also give visible evidence of reading by “tracking” the discussion. If students appear unusually bored or clueless, they’re typically willing to blame it on the content, but it’s usually a fair sign that they haven’t done their reading and so are incapable of following the discussion.

COURSE POLICIES

Attendance policy: You are expected to attend every scheduled class meeting but are permitted one free cut without comment or penalty. Attendance may not be taken systematically, but if you miss more than one meeting (including the first), you begin to jeopardize your status in the course. If you continue to cut or miss (especially early classes), you should drop the course. Even with medical or other emergency excuses, a high number of absences or partial absences result in a lower or failing grade.

Academic Honesty Policy: Please refer to the catalog for the Academic Honesty Policy (2002-2003 Catalog, pp. 76-78). Plagiarism—that is, using research without citations or copying someone else’s work as your own—will result in a grade penalty or failure of the course. Refer to the UHCL catalogue for further details regarding expectations and potential penalties.

Disabilities: If you have a disability and need a special accommodation, consult first with the Health Center and then discuss the accommodation with me.

Incompletes: A grade of "I" is given only in cases of documented emergency late in the semester. An Incomplete Grade Contract must be completed.

Late submissions: Any student who submits late materials is subject to lower grades, either in individual grades or course grades.

LITR 5535 2003 Schedule of readings: This schedule is subject to change.

N = Norton Anthology of American Literature, shorter 6^th edition (2003)

Tuesday 26 August: Introduction; students indicate presentation preferences.

Tuesday 2 September: Columbus, N 25-29; Selections from Genesis (handout); John Smith, N 42-53. Anne Bradstreet N 114-119, 124-131. Mary Rowlandson, N 135-152.

selection reader(s):

discussion recorder:

poetry: Anne Bradstreet, “To my Dear and Loving Husband,” N 125.