| Dr. Alex E. Blazer | Course Site | Syllabus |
| In Class Activities | Scholarly Criticism | Selected Reading |
| Informal Writing | Peer Response | Group Project |
| Paper 1 | Paper 2 | Paper 3 |
Loving Awry
English 205.02: Literatures in English
Fall 2007, MWF 1:00-1:50PM, 226 Lake Superior Hall
We've discussed the general literary elements of confict, character, and setting. We've done conflict and character analyses of Salinger's narrator and protagonist and Homes's narrator. Now, we'll bring all of these elements together as we work on an in class group activity that applies our general discussion to the particular character of Josie from Joyce Carol Oates' First Love . Form four groups of four or five members. Each group is responsible for analyzing Josie's character through a series of four interrelated questions listed below. Be sure to write down your group's response.
In this in class group activity, you'll practice determining the core conflict as well as discussing key symbols. Break into groups of three or four and complete the following two tasks. Be sure to write down your group's response.
Tasks
Characters
In order to extend our discussion of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof beyond the bounds of loving awry as well as to introduce us to the research process, we read a work of scholarly criticism on Williams's play. For the last fifteen minutes of class, divide into groups based on the assigned article (Bak, Bibler, Crandell, Davis) and discuss the article. Be sure to take notes, for we will finish our discussion of the articles and the play on Monday.
In the fourth informal writing, individuals summarized the article in 100-200 words. This in class activity is designed to further prepare you for research process of the group project and final research paper by giving more specific guidelines. In a 75-100 word paragraph, written in no more than 15 minutes,
An effective literary interpretation commences with an effective introduction; and a strong thesis, which analyzes the meaningful issues of a literary work, lies at the center of a good introduction. In this activity, you will practice writing a thesis that you may choose to use for your second paper.
Individually, write the answer to the following questions.
Next, pair off with a fellow student or two and review each other's work based on the following questions:
If they like the results, writers may save their work (upload to the In Class Activity group file exchange or email it) for using in the upcoming paper.
As you'll find out in class discussion, I have a particular psychoanalytic-existentialist approach to literature. However, there are more approaches to literature than you can learn in any one class or any one degree. In order to introduce you to the various ways of reading (not to mention to prepare for the group project and third paper), we'll read and discuss scholarly articles, which exemplify different critical approaches, on many of the texts we're reading in class. While I encourage you to read all of the criticism, you are only responsible for reading the articles that you're assigned on this sheet. All articles are available online in the Course Documents section of Blackboard.
| Text | Article | Students |
|---|---|---|
| Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | John Bak, "'sneakin' and spyin' from Broadway to the Beltway: Cold War Masculinity, Brick, and Homosexual Existentialism" |
Margaret Allen Caitlin Nienhaus |
Michael P. Bibler, "'A Tenderness which was Uncommon': Homosexuality, Narrative, and the Southern Plantation in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" |
Jessica Badder Chad Erwin Kelly Manser Lauren Shahly |
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| George W. Crandell, "'Echo Spring': Reflecting the Gaze of Narcissus in Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" | Kirk Beilman |
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David A. Davis, "'Making the Lie True': The Tragic Family in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and King Lear |
Sarah Barber Amy Meert |
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| Lynch, Lost Highway | Margaret Allen Jaclyn Meiste Lauren Shahly |
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Bernd Herzongrath, "On the Lost Highway: Lynch, Lacan, Cinema and Cultural Pathology" |
Reilly Brower Kristen Filush Kelly Manser |
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Todd McGowan, "Finding Ourselves on a Lost Highway: David Lynch's Lesson in Fantasy" |
Jessica Badder Elizabeth Conklin Emily Cooney Pete Doane |
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| Maarten
de Pourcq, "Unbeschreiblich Weiblich Looking awry to the home in Euripides' 'Medea' and David Lynch's 'Lost Highway'" |
Sarah Barber Kirk Beilman Sarah Cochran Gregory Heynen Caitlin Nienhaus |
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| Whedon, Buffy The Vampire Slayer | Vivien Burr, "Ambiguity and Sexuality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A Sartrean Analysis" | Reilly Brower Sarah Cochran Pete Doane Christian Goetz |
Margaret Allen Sarah Barber Chad Erwin Jaclyn Meiste |
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| Chris Richards, "Who Are We? Adolescence, Sex and Intimacy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" | Elizabeth Conklin Emily Cooney Amy Meert Lauren Shahly |
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| Gwyn Symonds, "'Solving Problems with Sharp Objects': Female Empowerment, Sex and Violence in Buffy the Vampire Slayer" | Jessica Badder Kirk Beilman Kristen Filush Kelly Manser Caitlin Nienhaus |
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| Ai, Vice | Claudia Ingram, "Writing the Crisis: The Deployment of Abjection in Ai's Dramatic Monologues" |
Reilly Brower Sarah Cochran Pete Doane Christian Goetz Margaret Allen Sarah Barber Chad Erwin Jaclyn Meiste |
| Rob Wilson, "The Will to Transcendence in Contemporary American Poet, Ai" | Elizabeth Conklin Emily Cooney Amy Meert Lauren Shahly Jessica Badder Kirk Beilman Kristen Filush Kelly Manser Caitlin Nienhaus |
Anne Sexton's The Complete Poems and Ai's Vice are available as in Literature Online via links in Blackboard > Course Documents.
Anne Sexton, Love Poems (1969), from The Complete Poems (1981)
Read all of Love Poems, and be prepared to discuss the following poems:
"The Touch"
"The Kiss"
"The Breast"
"The Interrogation of the Man of Many Hearts"
"That Day"
"Loving the Killer"
"For My Lover, Returning to His Wife"
"You All Know the Story of the Other Woman"
"The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator"
"Barefoot"
"Us"
"Knee Song"
Ai, Vice
Read as much of Vice as you can, and be prepared to discuss the following poems:
"Twenty-Year Marriage"
"Cruelty"
"Why Can't I Leave You?"
"I Have Got to Stop Loving You So I Killed My Black Goat"
"Everything: Eloy, Arizona, 1956"
"Nothing But Color"
"The Good Shepherd: Atlanta, 1981"
"The Mother's Tale"
"The Priest's Confession"
"Reunions with a Ghost"
"Penis Envy"
"False Witness"
Ai, Dread
"True Love"
The informal writing and first two papers compelled you to analyze literature, to estimate the author's world view. This assignment asks you to do just that, but also to teach the class what you've come to understand. Your group must choose a work of literature in the genre you've been assigned. Groups of four or five will compose a website that provides a working analysis of the text as well as an annotated bibliography of journal articles, book chapters, and scholarly websites on the text and/or its author. Groups will then teach the work of literature to the class in a multimedia enhanced presention. The website and presentation must be uploaded to Blackboard on the day your presentation is due. The project should be informative and argumentative. This assignment is neither a book report nor a biography, but instead a critical and analytical interpretation of a work of literature.
The purpose of this sheet is merely to form groups. Sign up for two slots, placing a #1 by your first choice and a #2 by your second choice. Once groups are assigned, those groups are responsible for meeting with me outside of class to determine a work of literature to read, research, and teach to the class via both a website and an oral presentation.
Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls |
Reilly Brower Sarah Cochran Pete Doane Christian Goetz |
Norman, 'night Mother |
Margaret Allen Sarah Barber Chad Erwin Jaclyn Meiste |
Plath, poetry |
Elizabeth Conklin Emily Cooney Amy Meert Lauren Shahly |
Hitchcock, Vertigo |
Jessica Badder Kirk Beilman Kristen Filush Kelly Manser Caitlin Nienhaus |
The informal writing and first two papers compelled you to analyze literature, to estimate the author's world view. This assignment asks you to do just that, but also to teach the class what you've come to understand. Your group must choose a work of literature in the genre you've been assigned. Groups of four or five will compose a paper of sorts that provides a working analysis of the text as well as an annotated bibliography of journal articles, book chapters, and scholarly websites on the text and/or its author. Groups will then teach the work of literature to the class in a multimedia enhanced presention. The written and presentation components must be uploaded to Blackboard on the day your presentation is due. Note that Blackboard Group Pages affords group discussion board, collaboration (chat), email, and file exchange. The project should be informative and argumentative. This assignment is neither a book report nor a biography, but instead a critical and analytical interpretation of a work of literature.
The presentation should accomplish two objectives:
As long as you meet these two objectives, the format of the presentation is completely up to you. Audiovisual aides such as Microsoft Powerpoint will help to guide your presentation. You may choose to focus on various elements of literature (conflict, character, setting, symbol, point of view, structure, tone) as ways into the work of literature as we have done in previous classes. You have all the technology of our lab at your disposal: computer with internet, projector, dvd/vcr, cd players, and Microsoft Powerpoint; let me know if you need other equipment. Presentations will be 20 minutes long followed by a five to ten minute question and answer period.
Groups assigned. |
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Choose text for group project. |
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Read and analyze text individually. |
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Discuss text as group. |
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Research Methods Tutorial. Research text both individually and as group. |
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Begin planning presentation and written components. |
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Lab time for group projects given in class. Work on presentation and written component. |
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Lab time for group projects given in class. Work on presentation and written component. |
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Group Presentations Written component due on day of presentation. |
The goal of informal writing assignments is to get you to think actively and write critically about literature. These short assignments of 1-2 double-spaced, typed pages will also prepare you to write the longer, formal papers. Approximately once per week, you will be asked to respond to or practice analyzing some element of fiction (conflict, character, setting, imagery, figure of speech, etc.) or respond to a thematic issue.
Responses will be due by the start of class on the due date, either as a typed hard copy or word-processing file in Blackboard > Assignments > Informal Writing #. To retrieve your graded paper, go to Blackboard > View Grades > Informal Writing #. Click the "0" link to open up your grade. Your graded paper is the attached file in section 3 Feedback to Student. Click here for grading rationale and calculation of informal writing assignments.
The dual goals of this course are for you to read and write about literature in a variety of manners. Informal writing and formal papers allows you to analyze the texts; reading scholarly criticism and participating in class discussion exposes you to a variety of other interpretations. Peer response sessions extend the reading and writing process by allowing you and your peers to engage in direct oral and written dialogue about matters of interpretation, with the ultimate goal of improving your formal papers. You have the opportunity to revise your first two formal papers based upon comments by your peers and myself. You will provide constructive criticism to 2 or 3 other members of the class as will they to you.
Answer the following questions as you formulate your one page, double-spaced response to each peer's paper. Because these peer response papers and sessions help your peers revise their papers and thus improve their grade, it is very important that you offer the best constructive criticism in the strongest possible terms, both in writing and in the group meeting. Do not simply say that a peer's paper is okay. Even if you find no problems, engage a dialogue with the paper's interpretation.
In the peer response meeting, group members will share their responses in verbal form. Writers take turns listening to their group members review their work. Specifically, the group should go around the circle and address the following issues. The process should take 7-10 minutes per writer and last 35-50 minutes depending on the size of the group.
Note: While Groups 2 and 4 are waiting 10 minutes for me to start the peer response, they should brainstorm a set of six questions regarding Lost Highway, three of which should be related to basic plot and narrative (what happened) and three of which should be thematic (what does it mean). Groups 1 and 2 should do the same after they have finished peer response. Turn in the questions to me before leaving.
We have discussed Atwood, Rachel, Graham, H.D., Salinger, Homes, Oates, Ellis, and Williams works at length in class. You have written on three of these works, but only informally and tentatively. Now is your opportunity to rigorously analyze a work of literature. For the first formal paper, write an essay built around the most important passage in one of the works of literature that we have read so far. In your studied interpretation, what is the most significant passage? Why is it central to the core conflicts, character, and meaning of the story? What issues does it embody? In other words, using this key passage, you should write a paper that 1) interprets the meaning of the work via 2) explicating the fundamental conflicts and basic concerns of the text.
Note: You will write two drafts of this paper. The first draft will be ungraded (though still subject to length and late penalties) and reviewed by both your peers and myself in order to give you constructive criticism for revising the second, graded draft.
We have discussed Atwood, Rachel, Graham, Salinger, Homes, Oates, and Ellis, Williams, Lynch, and Whedon at length in class; and we have read critics' differing interpretations of Williams, Lynch, and Whedon. For the first formal paper, you analyzed the core conflicts and meaning of a work by looking at a significant passage. For the second formal paper, enter into the critical debate with the class and critics; write an essay that analyzes a difference of interpretion on a key point in a work of literature. Present the different interpretations, then argue for your side, your reading. Some issues that we have debated include but are not limited to: Is Brick gay or straigt? (Why) does it matter? Is Sean's relationship with Paul real and how does that change our reading of the characters? Where does reality end and fantasy begin in Lost Highway and how does that change our reading of the work? You may, of course, use an interpretive question not listed here. You may use any work we've read in class, but it must not be the same work on which you wrote your first formal paper.
Note: You do not have to use the critical articles we've discussed in class, but you may do so if they help you formulate the debate.
Note: You will write two drafts of this paper. The first draft will be ungraded (though still subject to length, late, and MLA style penalties) and reviewed by your peers in order to give you constructive criticism for revising the second, graded draft. Although I will not read an entire first draft, I will be happy to evaluate theses.
In the first formal paper, you analyzed a particular passage, and in the second paper you debated the oppositing meanings of a work that we have read in class. For the third and final paper, select a work of literature not discussed in class (it may, however, be the work your group project worked on), and, after clearing it with me, write an in depth analysis and interpretation of the work using 3-5 works of scholarly criticism to provide support or counterargument. The primary emphasis of this paper is your thoughtful, rigorous analysis of a work of literature; use the secondary sources only inasmuch as they aid your interpretation.
Thesis and Sources: When we meet individually to discuss your third paper, bring your working thesis, a bibliography of 10 works of scholarly criticism (approximately half books and half journal articles. Here is the sign-up sheet for our individual conference, to be held during class time in 226 Lake Superior Hall.
Individual Conference Sign-Up Sheet
| Christian Goetz | Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls | |
| Caitlin Nienhaus | Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye | |
| Jessica Badder | Frost | |
| Sarah Barber | Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo | |
| Kelly Manser | Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet | |
| Sarah Cochran | Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Toms | |
| Jaclyn Meiste | Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire | |
| Emily Cooney | Plath, poetry | |
| Chad Erwin | Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea | |
| Elizabeth Conklin | Chopin, The Awakening | |
| Reilly Brower | Steinbeck, The Pearl | |
| Lauren Shahly | Austin, Pride and Prejudice | |
| Amy Meert | Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter | |
| Pete Doane | Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five | |
| Margaret Allen | Norman, 'night, Mother | |
| Kristen Filush | Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird | |
| Kirk Beilman | Hitchcock, Vertigo |
Note: You will only turn in one draft of this paper to me; however, I encourage you to share drafts with peers you've learned to trust in class and peer response sessions.