Coursework
Required work for the course includes careful reading of all assigned material and active participation in class discussions. Please come to class prepared with questions and comments about the assigned reading for each day—the success of the course depends on your involvement.
Participation/Class Citizenship (10%): This grade is based on a combination of class attendance, participation in discussion, being prepared, coming on time, paying attention, and having the required materials with you each day.
Quizzes (15%): There will be somewhere between 10-20 unannounced reading quizzes throughout the semester. The point of the quizzes is to make sure you keep up with the class reading. You may not make up quizzes that you miss. I will drop your two lowest quiz grades.
Papers (25%) You will write two papers in the class. The first paper involves close reading of a short poem or passage. The second paper asks you to respond to published criticism about a poem or story while exploring your own interpretation of it.
Exams (50%): There will two exams during the semester, plus a final exam in the class. These exams will contain objective, short answer, and essay questions. They will require that you analyze and synthesize material we’ve discussed in class.
Grading
Your final grade will be determined according to these percentages:
10% Participation; Class Citizenship
15% Reading Quizzes
10% Close Reading Paper
15% Critical Analysis Paper
15% Exam 1
15% Exam 2
20% Final Exam
Letter grades assigned will have the following numerical values:
- A+/98 B+/88 C+/78 D+/68
- A /95 B /85 C /75 D /65
- A- /92 B- /82 C- /72 D- /62
F = 50 Paper not turned in = 0
Late Papers
You may not make up any reading quizzes you miss. That’s why I drop two quiz grades at the end of the semester. Late critical analysis papers will lose 5 points for each day or fraction of a day they are late. Exams may not be made up except in cases of severe illness or emergency.
Attendance
Regular attendance and participation are requirements to pass the course. I don’t distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. I understand that sometimes you may become ill or have to miss class for some other reason. If that’s the case, it’s your responsibility to make up any missed work. But please remember that excessive absences (over 3) will seriously harm your participation/class citizenship grade. If you become seriously ill or have some other kind of emergency, please let me know and we’ll discuss your specific circumstances.
Accommodations for Students with Disabilities
The college will make reasonable accommodations for persons with documented disabilities. Students should apply for services at the Center for Disability Services/SNAP. Students approved for accommodations are responsible for notifying me as soon as possible and for contacting me one week before accommodation is needed.
Academic Integrity
All work submitted must be your own. Incorporating others’ words or ideas in your own work, including from artificial intelligence programs, without proper acknowledgment, or any other form of academic dishonesty will be considered plagiarism and a violation of the CofC Honor Code.
You MAY NOT turn in writing for this class that has been produced using ChatGPT, Grammarly, or other similar generative artificial intelligence (GAI) writing tools. While you may use such tools to find sources and to edit grammatical mistakes, you may not use them to generate text, to organize text, or to “improve” writing you’ve already done (for instance, you may not ask Grammarly to make a paragraph more persuasive, to make your style sound more academic, to rewrite whole sentences or paragraphs, etc.) In the humanities, we believe that writing is thinking. You learn by doing your own writing. I want to hear what you think, not what a machine predicts you will think. Using GAI tools to generate or substantially revise text will be considered plagiarism and a violation of the CofC Honor Code.