ENGL 335 Modern Poetry Syllabus (Spring 2014)

Modern Poetry–From Word to World

Virginia Woolf once wrote that somewhere around 1910, the world changed.  Things became, well, modern. Students and scholars still debate what exactly she meant by such a highly specific declaration, but few would disagree that fundamental changes were underway: rapid urbanization following booms in both industrialization and immigration; the challenge to traditional religious beliefs brought on by Darwin; the dwindling of British empire and the rise of America as a global force; the increasing tension and self-reflection surrounding questioning of race, gender, and class relations; developments in physics (e.g. Einstein) or the social sciences (e.g. Freud), among other areas of inquiry.  The list goes on; the changes under way, in short, felt tectonic. Our task in this course will be not to gain some monolithic sense of Modernism (with a capital “M”) but to understand how multiple, overlapping modernisms–some innovative, some more traditional; some urban, some rural–emerged as as a response to this world of rapid, often violent change. 

Though the majority of poetry we read will fall between the two World Wars (1914-1945), we will begin by going back to what we might think of as the roots of modernism in the nineteenth century. We will also trace various “late” modernisms as the movement–and its authors–persists beyond WWII.  What happens, we will ask, to modernism after, well, modernism? Finally, we will conclude by looking at how certain modernist figures live on in the poetic imagination of poets plying their trade up to the present.

Course Learning Outcomes:

By the end of this class, you will have had the opportunity to:

  • Distinguish modernist poetry from what came before (Romantic and Victorian poetry) and after (various manifestations of “post” modernism).
  • Explore the various movements that comprise modern poetry as you learn the key literary and theoretical terms related to the study of modern poetry.
  • Articulate how various contextual forces impacted modern poetry.
  • Describe the importance of original publications contexts (in both periodicals and books).
  • Blog extensively, in response to both critical and creative prompts, on a variety of poems and contextual considerations.
  • Work collaboratively with a group on a research-based project that results in an original and ambitious Digital Humanities Creations Project.

General Education Humanities Student Learning Outcomes

  • Students analyze how ideas are represented, interpreted or valued in various expressions of human culture.
  • Students examine relevant primary source materials as understood by the humanities area under study and interpret the material in writing assignments.

These outcomes will be assessed using the second “CloseRead” blog post, which is part of the broader blogging assignment.

Course Texts:

Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (Volume 1)

Spring and All, William Carlos Williams (Facsimile edition)

Recyclopedia, Harryette Mullen

Striven, The Bright Treatise, Jeffrey Pethybridge

Schedule

 

ON THE SCHEDULE: All assigned readings are scheduled for Monday and Wednesday.  Friday will be a day of re-reading; a day to refine and continue our conversations from earlier in the week in light of your MOD Blog posts; a day of collaboration and consultation as we enter our final projects; a day of possible quizzes; and a day to hear poetry via poetry recitations.

[All MOD Blog posts are due Thursday by 8pm | please read and re-read headnotes as we continue to encounter the same author]

Week 1 _____________________

Wed. 1/8 Fri. 1/10
  • Opening Discussion: The Worlds of Modernism–How do you conceive of the relationship between a poem and its context, between word and world?
  • Course Structure: Beyond the Cult of the Author: Modernism and Time, a Chronological Approach.
  • Demo: “practice post”
  • Handout: What Do We Know? What Do We Want to Know?
  • Readings Due:Introduction to the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry (xxxvii-lxiii).  Also, read the course website and come to class with your questions, concerns, and enthusiasms.
  •  In Class: Finalize Blogging Assignments / Schedule

Friday 1/10 Recitation: Prof. VZ

Blog Demo / Discussion

Week 2 _____________________

1855-1868 (Monday 1/13)

[read all relevant author headnotes in ANTH]

  • 1855: “Song of Myself,” Sections 1-4, Walt Whitman (ANTH 4-6)
  • 1855: “Song of Myself,” Sections 15-16 (scroll down–example of extended catalogs not in anthology) (LINK)
  • 1856: “Poem of the Proposition of Nakedness,” Whitman (LINK)
  • 1857: “Au Lecture,” (scroll to the Lowell translation) Charles Baudelaire (LINK) (compare Baudelaire and Whitman to Longfellow, “Today We Make the Poet’s Words Our Own“).–Also read BIO
  • 1857: “Correspondances,” Baudelaire (LINK).
  • 1860: “A Hand-Mirror,” Whitman, (ANTH 22-23) (compare to Longfellow “My Lost Youth“)
  • 1861: “A une passante,” Baudelaire (LINK)
  • 1862: #341, Emily Dickinson (ANTH 36)
  • 1867: “One’s Self I Sing,” Whitman (ANTH 3)
  • 1868: #1127, Dickinson (LINK)
  • XXXX: #632, Dickinson (ANTH 38)
  • 1868: #1129, Dickinson (ANTH 40-41)

1877-1898 (Wednesday 1/15)

  • 1877: “God’s Grandeur,” Gerard Manley Hopkins (ANTH 76)
  • 1877: “The Windhover,” Hopkins (ANTH 77)
  • 1885: “[Carrion Comfort],” Hopkins (ANTH 81)
  • 1890: “The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” William Butler Yeats (ANTH 94-95)
  • 1892: “Shillin’ a Day,” Rudyard Kipling (ANTH 146-147)
  • 1895: “We Wear the Mask,” Paul Lawrence Dunbar (LINK)–also read bio
  • 1896: “[With Rue My Heart is Laden],” A.E. Housman (ANTH 87)
  • 1896: “To an Athlete Dying Young,” A.E. Houseman (ANTH 85)
  • 1898: “I look into my glass,” Hardy (ANTH 45)
  • PROSE: from The Symbolism of Poetry, W.B. Yeats (ANTH 877-883)

Friday 1/17 Recitation

Blog Post Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 3 _____________________

[read and re-read all relevant author headnotes in ANTH]

1900-1912 (Wednesday 1/22)

  • 1900: “The Darkling Thrush” (originally titled “By the Century’s Deathbed”), Hardy (ANTH 48)
  • 1908: “O Black Unknown Bards,” James Weldon Johnson, (ANTH 172-173)
  • 1909: “The Fascination with What’s Difficult,” Yeats (ANTH 101)
  • 1910-11: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” T.S. Eliot, (ANTH 463)
  • 1912: “The Convergence of the Twain,” Hardy (ANTH 53-54)
  • 1912: “A Midnight Woman to the Bobby,” McKay (ANTH 500-501)
  • 1912: “The Voice,” Hardy (ANTH 57)
  • PROSE: from “Romanticism and Classicism,” T.E. Hulme (ANTH 889-895)
  • PROSE: The Futurist Manifesto, F.T. Marinetti (1909) (LINK)

Friday 1/24 Recitation

Blog Post Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 4 _____________________

[read and re-read all relevant author headnotes in ANTH]

 1912-1914 (Monday 1/27)

  • 1912: “A carafe, that is a blind glass,” Gertrude Stein (ANTH 180)
  • 1912: “A waist,” Stein (ANTH 181)
  • 1913: “A Pact,” Ezra Pound (ANTH 350)
  • 1913: “In a Station of the Metro,” Pound (ANTH 351)
  • 1914: “Channel Firing,” Hardy (ANTH 51-52)
  • 1914: “Mending Wall,” Robert Frost (ANTH 203-204)
  • 1914: “Home Burial,” Frost (ANTH 204-207)
  • 1914: “Oread,” Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) (ANTH 395)

1915-1916 (Wednesday 1/29)

  • 1915: “To a Steam Roller,” Marianne Moore, ANTH 433)
  • 1915: “Sunday Morning,” Wallace Stevens (ANTH 237-240)
  • 1915: from “Songs to Joannes,” Mina Loy (ANTH 269-272)
  • 1915: “The River Merchant’s Wife: A Letter,” Pound (ANTH 352)
  • 1916: “Easter, 1916,” Yeats (ANTH 105)
  • 1916: “The Road Not Taken,” Frost (ANTH 209-210)
  • 1916: “Chicago,” Carl Sandburg, (ANTH 227)
  • 1916: “Subway,” Sandburg (ANTH 228)
  • PROSE: Feminist Manifesto, Mina Loy (ANTH 921-925)
  • PROSE: From BLAST 1914-15 (ANTH 895-920)

Friday 1/31 Recitation

Blog Post Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 5 _____________________

1916-17 (Monday 2/3)

  • 1916: “Sea Rose,” H.D. (ANTH 395)
  • 1916: “Garden,” H.D. (ANTH 396-397)
  • 1916: “The Young Housewife,” Williams Carlos Williams (ANTH 286)
  • 1916: [late entry] “Tract,” William Carlos Williams (ANTH 286-288)
  • 1917: “Hysteria,” T.S. Eliot (LINK)
  • 1917: “The Harlem Dancer,” Claude McKay (ANTH 501)
  • 1917: “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” Wallace Stevens (ANTH 244-246)
  • 1917: “Danse Russe,” Williams (ANTH 288)
  • 1917: “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” Wilfred Owen (ANTH 525)
  • 1917: “Strange Meeting,” Owen (ANTH 529)
  • 1917: “Dulce et Decorum Est,” Owen, (ANTH 527-528)

1918-1919 (Wednesday 2/5)

  • 1918: “Disabled,” Owen (ANTH 532-534)
  • 1918: “The Fish,”Marianne Moore (ANTH 436-437)
  • 1918: “Repression of War Experience,” Sassoon (ANTH 391)
  • 1918: Reznikoff (LINK, and see headnote in ANTH 537)
  • 1918: “Epitaphs of the War,” Rudyard Kipling (ANTH 150-155)
  • 1919: “The Second Coming,” Yeats (ANTH 111)
  • 1919: “A Prayer for my Daughter,” Yeats (ANTH 112-113)
  • 1919: “Poetry,” Moore (ANTH 438-439)
  • 1919: “To His Love,” Ivor Gurney, (ANTH 496)
  • 1919: “Laventine,” Ivor Gurney, (ANTH 497-98)
  • Prose: “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” T.S. Eliot (ANTH 941-947)
  • Prose Supplement: Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia (LINK)

Friday 2/7 Recitations

Blog Post Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 6 _____________________

 1920 (Monday 2/10)

  • 1920: [O sweet spontaneous], ee cummings (ANTH 547-548)
  • 1920: “The Dark Hills,” E.A. Robinson  (ANTH 169)
  • 1920: “The Lynching,” Claude McKay (ANTH 502)
  • 1920: “Portrait of a Lady,” W.C. Williams (ANTH 289)
  • 1920: “Gerontion,” T.S> Eliot (ANTH 470-472)
  • 1920: “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley,” Pound (ANTH 354-361)
  • PROSE: from Prologue to Kora in Hell, W.C. Williams (ANTH 954-959)

1921-1922 (Wednesday 2/12)

  • 1921: “A Negro Speaks of Rivers,” Langston Hughes (ANTH 687-688)
  •  1921: “America,” Claude McKay (ANTH 503)
  • 1921: “The White City,” McKay (ANTH 503)
  • 1921: “The Snow Man,” Wallace Stevens (ANTH 247)
  • 1921: “Tea at the Palaz of Hoon,”Stevens (ANTH 247)
  • 1922: “Why Do You Feel Differently,” Gertrude Stein (ANTH 195)
  • 1922: “Brancusi’s Golden Bird,” Mina Loy (ANTH 273)
  • PROSE: from How to Read, Ezra Pound (ANTH 939-941)

Friday 2/14 Recitation

Blog Post Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

After the recitation, Friday’s class will be reserved for discussing DH Creation projects:
Tools, Topics, Timeline 

Week 7 _____________________

1922 (Monday 2/17)

  • 1922: The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot, 474-487
  • It goes without saying that each of you will be responsible for reading the entire poem.  But I also want you to re-read–to “own” as I’ve often said–one section in particular.  So, last names A-C focus on section 1; D-H on section II; J-M on section III; P-SHI on section IV; and SL-Z on section V.  Please be ready to discuss that sections role within the overarching structure of the poem, noting individual lines and sections that stand out.
  • After you’ve deeply considered your own section, it might help to get a sense of what scholars have written about that section, and The Waste Land in general, over the past 50 or so years.  You can visit the collection of criticism on the MAPS homepage to sample this ongoing critical conversation.

1923 (Wednesday 2/19)

  • 1923: Spring and All, William Carlos Williams (SAL Intro + 1-45)
  • Re-read header for William Carlos Williams (ANTH 283-286)
  • 1923: “Spring and All,” William Carlos Williams (ANTH 291-292)

Friday 2/21 Recitation:

Blog Post Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

After the recitations and any remaining business, Friday’s class will be reserved for discussing DH Visualization projects:

Choosing a Topic–informal proposal due 

Week 8 _____________________

1923 (Monday 2/24)

  • 1923: Spring and All, William Carlos Williams (SAL 45-the end)
  • 1923: “To Elsie,” Williams (ANTH 293-294).

1923-1924 (Wednesday 2/26)

  • 1923: “Der Blinde Junge,” Mina Loy (ANTH 274)
  • 1923: “Women,” Louise Bogan (ANTH 588-589)
  • 1923: [I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed], Millay, (ANTH 512)
  • 1923: [Gazing upon Him Now, Severe and Dead], Millay, (ANTH 512)
  • 1923: From Cane “The Reapers,” “Harvest Song,” “Portrait in Georgia,” November Cotton Flower,” Jean Toomer (ANTH 559-560 and LINK)
  • 1924: “Gertrude Stein,” Mina Loy (ANTH 281)

2/28 Recitations

After the recitations, Friday’s class will be reserved for discussing DH Visualization projects: Project Proposals Due

Blog Post Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 9 _____________________

+++Spring Break+++

Week 10 ____________________

1925-1927 (Monday 3/10)

  • 1925: “The Weary Blues,” Langston Hughes (ANTH 688)
  • 1925: “I, Too,” Hughes (LINK)
  • 1925: “Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem,” Helen Johnson (LINK)
  • 1925: “Yet I Do Marvel,” Countee Cullen (ANTH 727)
  • 1925: “Incident,” Cullen (ANTH 728)
  • 1925: “Shine, Perishing Republic,” Robinson Jeffers (ANTH 415-416)
  • 1926: “Po’ Boy Blues,” Hughes (ANTH 690)
  • 1926: “Ars Poetica,” Archibald MacLeish (ANTH 516)
  • 1927: “The Watershed,” Auden (LINK)
  • 1927: “Hard Daddy,” Hughes (ANTH 692)
  • 1927: “Bad Man,” Hughes (ANTH 692)
  • PROSE: “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain” (1926), Langston Hughes (ANTH 964-967)

1927-1930 (Wednesday 3/12)

  • 1927: “Tenebris,” Angelina Weld Grimke (LINK)
  • 1927: “Poem Beginning ‘The’,” Louis Zukofsky (ANTH 733)
  • 1928: “Ode to the Confederate Dead,” Allen Tate (ANTH 650-652)
  • 1928: “Hurt Hawks,” Robinson Jeffers (ANTH 416-417)
  • 1930: “Ma Rainey,” Sterling Brown (ANTH 674)
  • 1930: “Southern Road,” Sterling Brown (ANTH 673-674)

Friday 3/14 Recitation

Blog Post Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 11 ____________________

1930 (Monday 3/17)

  • 1930: From The Bridge, Hart Crane, “Proem” (ANTH 613-614), “Cape Hatteras” (ANTH 631-636); “The Tunnel” and “Atlantis”  (ANTH 641-646)

 1931-1940 (Wednesday 3/19)

  • 1931: “Somewhere i have never traveled,gladly beyond,” ee cumming (LINK)
  • 1932: “Slim in Atlanta,” Sterling Brown (ANTH 680-681)
  • 1935: “Mozart, 1935,” Wallace Stevens (LINK)
  • 1936: “Two Tramps in Mud Time,” Robert Frost, (ANTH 218-219)
  • 1936: “The Idea of Order at Key West,” Stevens (ANTH 249-250)
  • 1939: “The Circus Animal’s Desertion,” W.B. Yeats (ANTH 142)
  • 1939: “Politics,” Yeats (ANTH 143)
  • 1939: “September 1, 1939,” W.H. Auden (ANTH 801)
  • 1939: “1939: “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” Auden (ANTH 798)
  • 1939: “Musee des beaux Arts,” Auden (ANTH 797)
  • 1940: “What Are Years,” Marianne Moore (ANTH 452)
  • PROSE: from Adagia, Wallace Stevens (ANTH 972-975)

Friday 3/21 Recitation

Also, on Friday, revise (and properly categorize) your Final Project post in light of my comments. Include at least 6 sources in a running bibliography.

Blog Post Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 12 ____________________

1940-48 (Monday 3/24)

  • 1940: “Of Modern Poetry,” Wallace Stevens (ANTH 255-256)
  • 1942: “The Bitter River,” Langston Hughes (ANTH 694-696)
  • 1942: “The Silken Tent,” Robert Frost (ANTH 222)
  • 1942: “The Gift Outright,” Frost (ANTH 224)
  • 1942: “Little Gidding,” T.S. Eliot (ANTH 488-493)
  • 1944: from The Walls Do Not Fall, H.D., (ANTH 401-405)
  • 1944: “[pity this busy monster,manunkind], ee cummings (ANTH 556)
  • 1947: “Directive,” Frost (ANTH 224-225)
  • 1948: from Cantos, “LXXXI,” Ezra Pound (ANTH 380-384)

1951-1975 (Wednesday 3/26)

  • 1951: From Montage of a Dream Deferred, Hughes (ANTH 700-704)
  • 1952: “The Plain Sense of Things,” Wallace Stevens (ANTH 266)
  • 1953: “The Planet on the Table,” Stevens (ANTH 265)
  • 1954: “Debris of Life and Mind,” Stevens (LINK)
  • 1954: “Carmel Point,” Robinson Jeffers (ANTH 419)
  • 1955: from “Asphodel that Greeny Flower,” W.C. Williams (ANTH 311-317)
  • 1962: “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus,” Williams (ANTH 310-311)
  • 1965: “Negroes,” Charles Reznikoff (LINK)
  • 1969: Cantos, “CXX,” Ezra Pound (ANTH 387)
  • 1975: From Holocaust, Reznikoff (ANTH 543-545)

Friday 3/28 Recitation

  • Mapping Modern Poetry activity
  • On Friday, we will meet in class, but I will also hold additional conferences on Thursday and Friday to  discuss your final project plans. Sign up here

Blog Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 13 ____________________

Modernism Now–Haryette Mullen

Monday  3/31 

  • 2006: Recyclopedia, Harryette Mullen (a compilation of three earlier books–Trimmings, S*peRM**K*T, and Muse & Drudge, published between 1991 and 1995).  For Monday, please read the foreword, “Recycle This Book” (REC vii-xi) as well as the first two books in the collection (REC 1-96).
  • I had originally asked that you re-read excerpts from Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons (ANTH 180-184).  I encourage you to do so.  But I have also prepared a selection of Stein’s poetry from Tender Buttons that is particularly relevant.  You can access those excerpts here.
  • If you want to read a bit about what Mullen thought she was accomplishing inTrimmings, you can peruse some excerpts from her interviews.  After the interview selections, I have a few choice quotes from a critic, Elisabeth Frost, writing about Trimmings.
  • Framing Muse and Drudge: some critical reflections

Wednesday 4/2

  • Muse & Drudge, Haryette Mullen (REC 97-178).

[Friday 4/4 reserved for in-class collaboration on DH Creations Project]

FINAL PROJECT SIGN-UP

Blog Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 14 ____________________

Modernism Now–Jeffrey Pethybridge

Monday  4/7 & Wednesday 4/9

  • Striven, The Bright Treatise (2013), Jeffrey Pethybridge [STRIV]
  • For Monday, flip through the book just to get a sense of it and read through page 107 (the first poem starts on page). If Mullen’s relationship to Modernism was very clear at times (her riffs on Stein and Hughes among others) Pethybridge’s might be less clear. Come to class having thought about why and how Pethybridge’s book is relevant in our conversation about modernism’s continuing presence up to the present. There are a lot of poems here–some quite complex. Focus on two or three that you felt particularly drawn to and be ready to discuss them with the class.
  • For Wednesday, finish the book.

[Friday 4/11 we will have a Skype conversation as a class with Jeffrey Pethybridge and remaining time will be reserved for work on DH Creations Project: we will still meet in class, but work largely independently.  I will be available for consultation.  This will be a particularly good time for you to get together in your groups]

Blog Assignments:

  • Blog Due (Check Group Schedule for Category):

Week 15 ____________________

Presenting Modernisms: Exam Prep on April 14, Presentations on April 16, 18, 21, & 23

  • DH Presentations: Schedule (see week 13 signup sheet)

WEEK 16 ____________________

Final Day of Class: Wednesday, April 23

[Final Exam Date]

The exam will be held on Saturday, April 26 between 12:00 – 3:00–the same location as our regular class.

 Policies

Course Requirements  [subject to change]

Attendance:______________________________________________

Attending class regularly shows respect not only for your professor, but for your peers and for the very mission of the course.  Perhaps more importantly, if you do not attend class regularly, you will not do well.  I will give regular quizzes and writing activities in class, and our class discussions and lectures will contain crucial information to help you succeed on the the midterm and final exams.  Class participation and engagement are also an important part of your grade.

I will take attendance daily.  After four absences–whether unexcused or excused–I will lower your grade by a single increment–from a B to a B-, for example–for each additional absence. Beware the slippery slope: excessive absence both lowers your grade automatically and in almost every case results in poor performance in other areas of the class (missed quizzes, docked participation points, poor test performance, etc.).

Excessive tardiness will be viewed as absence.  I will commit to starting class precisely on time–particularly important for a 50-minute session–and I expect you to do the same.  If you walk in during the middle of a quiz, I reserve the right to withhold credit for that day’s portion of participation, quizzes, and in-class writing.  And any pattern of tardiness will translate quickly into an absence.  In short: arrive on time, and be ready to discuss that day’s assigned reading.

Technology in the Classroom: No texting!  Please silence phones.  Laptops are welcome, but if I catch you using social media or engaging in online activities unrelated to class, I will consider you absent on that day.  If you do bring a laptop, please sit towards the front of the class.

Assignments and Grades_______________________________________

Your grade in this course will reflect your performance in five broad categories as described below.  You can earn a maximum of 1000 points in this course.  Please see the “Assignments” tab for more detailed descriptions of the various assignments.

  • Presence—200 points / 20%: measured by  random quizzes and other low-stakes in-class writing assignments (15%) and class engagement (which includes completing course/instructor evaluations at the end of the semester (5%). I do not have a precise amount of your grade set aside for “class participation” because it is such an elemental part of the course: it is expected.  Thus, while you will not earn points each time you contribute to our conversations, consistently not participating will negatively impact your grade in the same way that excessive absences might.  If you ever have a question about how the “Presence” portion of your grade is shaping up, just ask me and I’ll let you know where you  stand.
  • The MOD Blog—300 points / 30% (10 posts at 30 points each): Over the course of the semester, each of you will compose 10 blog posts–2 in each of the designated categories–relating to our work in this course. I will grade these posts in two groupings: at the mid-term point and at the end of the semester (5 posts will be required in each half of the course).
  • Recitation Fridays: 50 points / 5%: A few students sound out some modern poetry for us: memorized, out loud, every Friday.
  • Final Exam–250 points / 25%: The final exam will be comprehensive and it will involve a combination of author IDs, short-answer questions, and one longer essay question that I will tell you in advance so you can prepare. I will set aside time in class for review at the end of the semester.
  • DH Creations: Tools and Techniques for Making it New–200 points / 20%: DH is shorthand for Digital Humanities, a relatively new element in English and other humanities departments.  It involves many different areas of concern, from the study of video games and other electronic media, to all of the ways that technology (through data visualization, online archives, podcasts, and even course websites) is becoming more and more a part of our daily lives as students, citizens and scholars.   Most inspiring for my own interest in this new area of concern is the drive to MAKE things.  That is, I do not want you to simply show me you’ve learned something something; I want you to make something that might help others learn and understand as well.

Figuring your Grade: I will add up all the points you’ve earned in the course and give grades based on the following table:

  • A-Range: 970-1000 = A+, 930-969 = A, 900-929 = A-
  • B-Range: 870-899 = B+, 830-869 = B, 800-829 = B-
  • C-Range: 770-799 = C+, 730-769 = C, 700-729 = C-
  • D-Range: 670-699 = D+, 630-669 = D, 600-629 = D-
  • <600 = F

COURCE POLICIES AND PROCEDURES:___________________________

Dual Submission Policy: The same paper may not be submitted for a grade in more than one class.

Plagiarism and the Honor Code: What follows is quoted verbatim, and reflects official CofC policy:

Lying, cheating, attempted cheating, and plagiarism are violations of our Honor Code that, when identified, are investigated.  Each incident will be examined to determine the degree of deception involved.

Incidents where the instructor determines the student’s actions are related more to a misunderstanding will handled by the instructor.  A written intervention designed to help prevent the student from repeating the error will be given to the student.  The intervention, submitted by form and signed both by the instructor and the student, will be forwarded to the Dean of Students and placed in the student’s file.

Cases of suspected academic dishonesty will be reported directly by the instructor and/or others having knowledge of the incident to the Dean of Students.  A student found responsible by the Honor Board for academic dishonesty will receive a XF in the course, indicating failure of the course due to academic dishonesty.  This grade will appear on the student’s transcript for two years after which the student may petition for the X to be expunged.  The student may also be placed on disciplinary probation, suspended (temporary removal) or expelled (permanent removal) from the College by the Honor Board.

Students should be aware that unauthorized collaboration–working together without permission– is a form of cheating.  Unless the instructor specifies that students can work together on an assignment, quiz and/or test, no collaboration during the completion of the assignment is permitted.   Other forms of cheating include possessing or using an unauthorized study aid (which could include accessing information via a cell phone or computer), copying from others’ exams, fabricating data, and giving unauthorized assistance.

Research conducted and/or papers written for other classes cannot be used in whole or in part for any assignment in this class without obtaining prior permission from the instructor.

Students can find the complete Honor Code and all related processes in the Student Handbook.

Resources

The College has a number of resources to support your life and work in this course and beyond.

The Center for Disability Services will do anything they can to help accommodate any disability that might affect your ability to succeed in this course.  Please visit their website or talk to me if you have any questions about this resource. Any student eligible for and needing accommodations because of a disability is requested to speak with the professor during the first two weeks of class or as soon as the student has been approved for services so that reasonable accommodations can be arranged.

The Center for Student Learning has a number of resources to help you achieve academic success.  Perhaps most important for our purposes is the Writing Lab, which is located on the first floor of Addlestone Library.  I encourage you to take advantage of the Writing Lab in the Center for Student Learning (Addlestone Library, first floor).  Trained writing consultants can help with writing for all courses; they offer one-to-one consultations that address everything from brainstorming and developing ideas to crafting strong sentences and documenting sources.  For more information, please call 843.953.5635 or visit http://csl.cofc.edu/labs/writing-lab/.

Should you have questions about undergraduate research grants, counseling, or other services available, please let me know and I will do my best to direct you to the proper resource.

Signature Assignment: Blog Posts in the “CloseRead” category

All blog posts are due Thursday by 8pm, though I encourage earlier posts.  If you choose to comment on a post instead of composing your own original post, you can have until midnight.

The blog is required reading.

There are 10 required blog posts, and you are required to post in each of the post categories at least twice. 

The MOD Blog—300 / 30% (10 posts @ 30 points each): Over the course of the semester, each of you will compose 10 blog posts–2 in each of the categories describe below–of 300-400 words (not including quotations). I will grade these posts in two groupings: at the mid-term point and at the end of the semester.  I expect your posts to be polished, free of errors, properly formatted, and they will, at times, incorporate various forms of media and external reference (images, video embeds, links to other sites or posts, and so on). Never blogged before using the WordPress platform? Check out the instructions in the drop-down under the blog link in the main menu. As you review the instructions, please pay close attention to the use of categories. Each group rotates through five blog categories: “CloseRead,” “Chronos,” “Critical,” “Creative,” and “Wildcard.” Each group will also cycle through two “Off” weeks. Here’s what each category is about:

  • “CloseRead”: In these posts, please practice your skills at literary analysis and interpretation, also known as “close reading.” Poems are often dense and difficult, and modernist poems are often especially so. The goal here is to pay close attention to and analyze the texts’s particulars–sound, formal structure, allusion, metaphor, ambiguity, voice, speaker,  lineation, narrative, themes, motifs, and so on. Even in a course where we will do our best to situate each poem within its cultural and historical context, we can’t forget matters of style and form: we must read through them, rather than around them. To achieve the highest possible points for these posts, your close reading should be guided by a focused central interpretive claim, and that claim should be supported by carefully selected quoted evidence (not included in the word count), which you engage analytically. The strongest posts will also demonstrate an awareness of relevant literary, cultural, and historical contexts. Also, please assume an external readership, which means you should set up quotes and scenes using narrative / descriptive cues rather than textual cues that only point to page and line number.

I expect your posts to be polished, free of errors, properly formatted, and they should, at times, incorporate various forms of media and external reference (images, video embeds, links to other sites or posts, and so on).