Effective Date of this Description/Syllabus: Fall 2014
Prepared by: Dr. Rhonda Wilcox
Office: Honors House 104
Phone: (678) 359-5296
email: rhonda_w@gordonstate.edu
Fall Office hours: TR 12:30-1:45, 3:30-4:30;
W 12:30-2:00, 3:00-5:00
COURSE
DESCRIPTION/SYLLABUS
Course Designation: English 2112
Course Title: World Literature II
Class hours per week: 3
Credit hours: 3
Division offering course: Humanities
Prerequisite for the course: A C or better in English
1101.
Course description for college
bulletin: A
survey of important works of world literature from the seventeenth century to
the present.
Teacher’s Course objectives:
To
acquaint students with seminal works of world literature and the cultural milieux in which they were produced;
To give
students a background for appreciating the values and concerns of modern
literature by studying the traditions which preceded it;
To awaken
in students an interest in literatures and cultures quite different from their
own and an awareness of literary/cultural richness and
diversity; in short—
To
have fun.
Department of Humanities Literature Course Objectives
Course Objectives: Upon completion of ENGL 2112, World Literature II, the student will
have:
If you need academic accommodations for a
disability, you must first go through the process of receiving approved
accommodations through the Student Counseling and Disability Services Office,
Student Center, Room 212, 678 359-5585.
Course Content:
The course plan is to focus on
the following authors; others will also be assigned: Molière, Voltaire, Wollstonecraft,
Cao Xueqin, Bashō, Douglass,
Goethe, Wordsworth, Heine, Keats, Ghalib, Baudelaire,
Dickens, Dickinson, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Joyce, Yeats, Eliot, Kafka, Pirandello,
Marquez, Thiong’o.
These are
literally world-famous stories, poems, and plays. People have enjoyed them
around the world. However, if you do not budget enough time for your reading,
you may start to view them as a burden rather than a pleasure. Instead, expect
to take a great deal of time—then relax and enjoy yourself. The best pleasures
cannot be hurried.
Required Texts: The Norton Anthology
of World Literature. Shorter Third Edition. Vol. 2.
Ed. Martin Puchner. New
York: Norton, 2013. Print.
Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Available at http://www.gutenberg.org .
Grading: Class
participation/pop quizzes: 15%
First Paper: 15%
Second Paper: 15%
Midterm Exam: 25%
Final Exam: 30%
Standards:
A=90-100, B=80-89, C=70-79, D=60-69
Your
failure to do any assignment listed above (except pop quizzes) will result in your failing the course. If you believe
you have a good reason for being excused from a pop quiz, discuss it with me
promptly; I will decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not to keep the
zero, excuse the quiz, or give a make-up with or without grade penalty.
Your first paper should not have outside sources: it should represent
your own response to the reading,
supported by copious specific
evidence from the reading. The subject should be one of the pieces of literature
from our text; the specific subject choice must be approved by me beforehand. I
will help you out via a planning conference, which is required. (The paper will
not be accepted until after the conference; the paper will accrue late points
if the conference is late.)
Your second paper
will be a traditional term paper. Further specifics will be provided prior to
the due date. Again, the specific subject
must be approved by me. A planning conference is recommended.
MLA form for quotation,
bibliography, etc., should be used for both these assignments.
Your exams will probably include some “objective” questions (e.g.
identifying quotations); they will certainly include some discussion questions.
Each will cover approximately half the course work.
Attendance policy: Without class discussions and
lectures, you might as well read this literature on your own. You will find
that experiencing a group’s reaction to a piece of writing is something that
cannot be recreated through merely reading class notes. This is not just a
lecture class. Furthermore, you can contribute to the class: thoughtful
questions can be just as valuable as insightful comments (though they should be
the questions of a person who has read the material). Missing classes will
reduce your ability to contribute and will therefore lower your class participation grade. Furthermore,
specific in-class activities will be used to help establish your participation
grade, and in most cases these activities must be carried out during a
particular class period.
If you must miss a class, let me
know beforehand if you can (or leave a phone or email message even during class
if need be); ask me or a classmate about assignments so you can prepare in case
there is a pop quiz when you return to class. My home phone number is
(404)373-5328. If you cannot contact me or a classmate, then read the next
assignment listed on the syllabus. If you are in class, you will be expected to
take the quiz. If you have not emailed me prior to the giving of a quiz, you
will be responsible for it.
Cell phones, Blackberries, and other
electronic devices: So that we can make the best use of our limited time
together, turn off your cell phones
and any other electronic devices before class begins,.
Exception: Emergency personnel may leave theirs on and slip out of class to
take phone calls in the hall when necessary. If you have a job as an EMT (or similar
work), notify me during the first week of classes and be sure to sit near
the door. Also, if you have some other sort of emergency situation for
which you wish to stay in cell phone contact, speak to me about the problem
before the relevant class period in order to be granted an exception. All
students should remember that they will receive a class participation grade,
and cell phone interruptions disturb discussion.
Student
Evaluation of Instruction: Near the end of this course, you may be asked to
evaluate the instruction of the course. Your honest responses will help make
this a better course. Also, please feel free to make suggestions during the course. Feel free to come by
my office. Remember, I want to hear from you.
Plagiarism, Cheating:
The Department of Humanities of Gordon College views
any form of cheating as a serious violation of commonly accepted standards of
honesty. All student work must be solely that of the person submitting the
work. Any giving or receiving of unauthorized help from others or from notes or
other materials during the course of taking a quiz, test, or exam or in writing
a paper will result in an F on the work; any use of forbidden materials such as
copying others’ work during the course of in-class writing will also result in
an F for the assignment. Note that an F on the work involved in cheating is the
minimum punishment. (See page 75 of the Academic Catalog for details of the
Academic Dishonesty Policy.) A zero may be assigned, or an F for the course may
be assigned, and, if
justified by aggravating circumstances, the matter may be referred to the
Provost and/or the Judicial Committee or (according to a rule approved by the
full faculty in Spring 2010) the Vice President of Student Affairs. One example
of a case which would be referred to the Provost and Vice-President would be:
accessing the internet via smartphone to answer questions during a midterm
exam. (N.B. I have already caught people doing this;
don’t join them.)
Moreover, when source materials are used in the
writing of papers, the student must document such use of sources both by
clearly indicating material being used as quotation and by giving proper
recognition when ideas or information has been paraphrased or summarized; the
following principles enunciated in the section on avoiding plagiarism in James
D. Lester's Writing Research Papers: A
Complete Guide, 8th edition, should be scrupulously observed:
1. Acknowledge borrowed material by introducing the
quotation or paraphrase with the name of the authority. This practice serves to
indicate where borrowed materials begin.
2. Enclose within quotation marks all quoted
materials.
3. Make certain that paraphrased material has been
rewritten into your own style and language. The simple rearrangement of
sentence patterns is unacceptable. [For example, the following re-wording would
not be acceptable paraphrase of the preceding sentence: It is unacceptable to
simply rearrange sentence patterns.]
4. Provide specific in-text documentation for each
borrowed item. For example, MLA [Modern Language Association] style requires [author’s]
name and page for all in-text references. Requirements differ for other fields.
5. Provide a bibliographic entry on the Works Cited
page for every source cited in the paper.
6. Omit sources consulted but not cited in [your
paper]. This point is important. You do not want your instructor leafing back
through the paper trying to find your use of a source that, in truth, was not
cited. (140-41)
Note that the indention of the six rules above is another method of indicating
that material is quoted from someone else; when you have a long section to quote, then instead of using quotation marks, you
indent. My indention of the six rules indicates that they are the exact wording
by James D. Lester on pages 140-41 of his book.
Furthermore,
you must avoid collusion. Here is a definition from the head of the department
of Humanities:
Collusion is
defined as receiving excessive help to the point that a work can no longer be
considered the product of a single author and therefore cannot be accurately
assessed an individual grade. If I suspect a submitted work to be the result of
collusion, I reserve the right to refuse credit for that work if the claimed
author is unable to demonstrate sole authorship. A good way to avoid this
problem is to get help from the Student Success Center rather than from family
or friends.
I may or may not decide to
have you submit some of your work to Turnitin.com. Terms and Conditions of Use
may be found at http://www.turnitin.com/static/usage.html.
TENTATIVE
SCHEDULE
Week One: 8/14: Introduction; The
Enlightenment in Europe: Molière, Tartuffe
Week Two: 8/19-21: Tartuffe, continued; Voltaire, Candide
Week
Three: 8/26-28: Candide,
continued; Wollstonecraft, from The
Vindication of the Rights of Woman; Pre- / Early Modern China and Japan: Bashō, From The Narrow Road to the
Deep North
Week Four: 9/2-4: Cao Xueqin, from The
Story of the Stone
Week
Five: 9/9-11: Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
an American Slave; Romanticism and Realism in Europe: Goethe, Faust, Part One
Week Six: 9/16-18: Faust,
Pt. 1, continued; Romantic poets: Blake; Wordsworth; Keats; Heine
Week Seven: 9/23-25: Romantic poets:
Blake; Wordsworth; Keats; Heine (continued); Dickinson, poems
Week Eight: 9/30-10/2: Dickinson, poems
(continued); Paper One drafts due Thu
[Last day
to drop classes without penalty is Oct. 6]
Week Nine: 10/7-9: Paper One due Tuesday; Midterm
Exam Thursday
Week Ten: 10/14-16: Fall Break Mon-Tues; Baudelaire; Ghalib
Week
Eleven: 10/21-23: Realism: Dickens, selections from Great Expectations; Tolstoy, "The Death of Ivan Ilych"
Week Twelve: 10/28-30: Ibsen, Hedda Gabler; Modernism:
Joyce, “The Dead”
Week Thirteen: 11/4-6: Yeats, Eliot,
poems; Pirandello: Six Characters in
Search of an Author
Week
Fourteen: 11/11-13: Kafka, The
Metamorphosis; Magical Realism in South American Literature: Marquez,
"Death Constant Beyond Love"; Neruda, poems;
Allende, “And of Clay Are We Created”
Week
Fifteen: 11/18-20: Colonialism and Post-Colonialism in Africa and beyond: Anansi orature; Senghor, poems; Thiong’o, “Wedding at the Cross”; Kincaid, “Girl”
Week
Sixteen: 11/25-27: Beckett, Endgame; Thanksgiving Holiday Wed-Fri
Week
Seventeen: 12/2: Paper Two due; exam
preparation
Additional
readings and work may be assigned.
Final Exam Tues. Dec. 9,
12:30-2:30 pm