General Expectations and Requirements

• Become familiar with the syllabus, texts, and schedule.
• Contact the Chemeketa bookstore for your texts.
• Complete all readings, activities, discussions, responses, and unit writings on time.
• Collaborate with other students to enhance your learning. Exchanges with other students will occur throughout the course. Your responses and unit writings will be shared with other on-line students in this course.
• Carefully identify each response and each writing assignment according to the prescribed format.

What you will experience from the study of American literature (1900 to the present)

• Exploration of literature as a source of revelation, enrichment, expression of human experiences
• Cultivation of ability and confidence to respond to literary texts through discussion and writing
• Enjoyment and appreciation of literary forms
• Understanding of conventions, terminology, classifications
• Deeper awareness of the American experience, American psyche, American identity through its body of literature. (What does it mean to be American? What are the roots of that identity? Where do I place myself in this context? How does literature help us to explore these and other questions?)
• Awareness of the multiplicity of perspectives and the variety and strength of literary achievement within the body of literature from 1900 to the present

• Demonstrate ability to read a literary work at a literal level
• Demonstrate ability to read a literary work at a figurative level
• Identify and define the literary devices covered
• Demonstrate the ability to differentiate in the literary text(s) among content issues such as literary periods, styles, and themes
• Write compositions/essays using a controlling thesis statement, textual support, documentation, and standard grammar/mechanics
• Articulate and defend plausible interpretations of reading assignments in writing.

2. Historical/Cultural Contexts (1900 to the present)

1. Issues of war, race, gender, civil rights, and land uses
2. Modernism
3. Growth and diversity of business, industry, technology, and cities
4. Environmentalism
5. Multiculturalism and multiple perspectives of our life and times

3. Literary Forms and Elements:

• Fiction (Plot, Theme, Character, Style, Narrative Form, Point of View, Setting, Tone, Figurative Language);
• Poetry (Theme, Forms, Rhythm and Meter, Diction, Figurative Language, Sound and Meaning);
• Drama (Plot and Theme, Character, Structure, Style, Setting, Figurative Language, Stage Direction);
• Expository, Religious and Political Prose (Content, Style, Point of View, Tone, Purpose, Figurative Language).

The course design and methods make it possible for us to LEARN FROM the literature and from each other, not just LEARN ABOUT the literature.

Three units comprise the course:

UNIT ONE: two poets, studies in contrasts
UNIT TWO: short story and poetry masters - old and new

Units include a focus, introductions, readings, reading and study guides, Internet and library explorations, other related research activities, discussions, essays, and other formal writings. Units are organized in the following way:

• Focus - outcomes, content, overview, and resources, including Internet sites
• Introductions - brief introductions to the literature
• Readings and Activities - introductory; selections, with headnotes and footnotes; approaches to readings; study guides; supplemental, including Internet sites. [Note1: As you read, study guide questions and prompts will direct your attention to important elements. Note 2: Supplemental readings may always be found by referring to the primary and secondary works listed at the end of the Heath text headnote for each writer.]
• Informal discussions - These will be both individual and collaborative, they will be your contributions to the class's collective work, and they will demonstrate the learning you are constructing through reading, research, and discussions with others in the class. [Note: Some replies to others will be given according to a method called the "1+1 Feedback Pattern." This is a very important way of responding to one another, and you will need to follow the plan carefully.
• Formal discussions - Some will occur during a unit; some will occur at the end of a unit.

Note about informal and formal discussions: At the beginning of each unit, be sure to read the Unit Discussion directions in order to help guide your approach to your reading and study of the selections and, when indicated, your review of Internet sites.  Some informal discussions require you to discuss what you are discovering when you review Internet sites, so be sure to make some kind of notation of what you review as you go along.  Also, when you write your formal discussions at the end of a unit, you may want to refer to something you found at an Internet site.

Throughout the course you will

1. write your individual discussions of the readings
2. share your discussions for others to read and respond to
3. ask and answer questions about the readings
4. work with other students to develop a response together
5. summarize and post the results of a partner or small group discussion

I cannot overemphasize how important on time work is.  It is essential for your success and the success of our common enterprise. If you discover that you simply cannot maintain the schedule established for coursework and for online discussions, make the wise choice to drop.

Unit writing (essay writing) - The essay is a genre of reflection and of thinking about any aspect of life, any experience, or any topic. What we are about when we write an essay is that we are asserting an idea and explaining its truth. We are not reporting nor listing facts; we are not simply identifying the parts of a whole or showing the order of things; we are not merely summarizing. Rather, we are showing how we comprehend the topic we are focused on, and we are presenting our comprehension to others so that they may also comprehend that bit of world we are focused on at that moment. In other words, we are showing RELATIONSHIPS by analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating, and making applications. The parts of a topic are not simply listed; how the parts relate to one other in the making of an idea is what is laid out in the essay. Indeed, these parts are laid out clearly for the reader to see and to comprehend in the way the writer comprehended them.

In writing about literature, we explain an idea we have about the topic we are discussing.

In directing your approaches and responses to the readings, I will make it possible for you to discover many ideas about the selections. In your individual and group discussions of the literature, you will constantly discover relevant ideas that can be asserted and defended in an essay.

Eventually, by various means, along any number of "response" paths, these ideas come down to new and/or richer understandings of ourselves and our world, and/or new and richer insights into the stories, poems, dramas, and non-fiction prose that we human beings make out of words.

As a way to help yourself discover your ideas about literature, refer to "Asking/Questioning in the Humanities" in the Resources Area. The key words in the comprehension, application/analysis, and synthesis/evaluation categories are the ones that will generate the right kinds of questions to ask about literature. Clear, definitive answers to these questions may be turned into thesis statements (your main ideas) for your essays. You will notice that these key words appear often in the places where I guide your approaches and responses to the readings.

Another essay-writing resource I have provided for you is from a composition text by Chris Anderson and Lex Runciman.  The book is a A Forest of Voices (1995).  Read what they describe as the TRIAC pattern for essay writing, found in the Resources Area.

If you are inexperienced in the writing of essays, contact me for some steps you can take to learn the skills you need. Don't hesitate to ask for assistance.
 

On poetry, refer to "A Guide to Reading Poetry." Note: The guide contains links to still further discussions of poetry's elements and characteristics.  Specifically, the linked files are titled "Some Notes on Rhyme," "Focus on External Form: Shape, Sound, and Pattern," "External Form: A Set of Analytical Questions," and "Focus: Word Power."

On fiction, refer to "Elements of Fiction.
 

For discussions:  The quality of discussions, both informal and formal will help determine your grades:
Unit One = 35%
Unit Two = 35%
Unit Three = 30%
 
A = 90-100 pts
B = 80-89 pts
C = 70-79 pts
D = 60-69 pts
F = 50-59 pts

Basic criteria for discussions and replies to others:

• on time, thorough work that meets the stated requirements of the assignment
• adequately developed, thoughtful, specific and detailed writing
• complete and thoughtful replies to others as assigned
• passages from selections mentioned and discussed in order to support assertions and conclusions
• background and contextual information provided as needed
• clear, correct sentences and organized, coherent paragraphs (in other words, polish your writing before posting it or while composing it in the WebBoard message area)

Note:

1. Specific criteria may be given with the directions for discussions.
2. Certain factors, such as regular and involved participation, quality of significant discussion tasks and of other major assignments, and instructor judgment, may figure into raising a high B, C, or D to the next higher grade.
3. Consistently late work will lose points.

I will read the conference discussions, recording your participation in the course and tallying the points you earn for your participation.  I will give feedback to the class about the overall work in a particular area of the course.  Individual evaluations and grading will be posted in private conferences.

SPECIAL NOTE:  A special note about plagiarism.  Copying work from other students in class, out of class, or from the web will earn you an "F" in the class.  This problem has arisen before in my online classes and is considered academic dishonesty.  Please refrain from this activity because I do not enjoy failing students; however, I will if the occasion should arise.
 

Chemeketa Community College © PJS | 2000 | Updated 2003