English 1B: Critical Inquiry and Literature
Tuesdays, 5:15-8:25 pm, DM 35
Ms. Ruth Rhodes
465-2336, Office E7, Office Hours M-TH 10:45-11:45 and by appointment
Ruth-Rhodes@redwoods.edu
What Is English 1B?
In English 1B, we use literature as a basis for critical thinking and critical writing. We analyze issues, problems, and situations represented in poetry, short fiction, and drama and create logical interpretations of the purposes and meanings of different works of literature. We also evaluate how well texts work—looking closely at their physical, structural, and stylistic elements.
In response to the readings assigned in class, you will write both short and long essays (3 short essays 2-3 pages each and 3 longer essays 6-8 pages each) totaling a minimum of 6000 words. Your essays will demonstrate your developing critical reading, thinking and writing abilities, and will, at their best, add fresh, new insight to the meanings and significances of literary works.
This course is designed for students who seek to satisfy both the full year composition and the critical thinking transfer requirements.
Outcomes: What Will I Learn to Do?
In this course, you will learn to think like a critical reader. By the end of the semester, you should be able to:
· Identify, interpret, and evaluate the physical, structural, and stylistic features of literature
· Analyze a writer’s purpose in a text
· Identify, analyze and evaluate the issues, claims, and assumptions in texts, identifying appeals to logic, emotion, and values
· Evaluate the effectiveness and quality of a literary work
· Evaluate the authority, credibility, relevance, and bias of literary essays (secondary source materials)
You will also learn to think like a critical writer in this course. By the end of the semester, you should be able to:
· Use the writing process to create short and long essays in response to readings
· Develop clear, relevant, and logical thesis statements
· Support your theses with examples, details, and evidence from primary and secondary sources
· Acknowledge through your analysis a respect and understanding of multiple points of view, while demonstrating the ability to differentiate between well-reasoned and poorly reasoned interpretations
· Demonstrate mastery of universal intellectual standards, including clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, and logic
· Bring new insight to the understanding of literary works
· Demonstrate competence in MLA documentation style
What Materials Will I Need?
· Kirszner, Laurie and Stephen Mandell. Portable Literature: Reading, Writing, Reacting, 6th Edition. Boston, MA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007.
· Lunsford, Andrea. The St. Martin’s Handbook, 5th Edition. Boston: St. Martin’s, 2003.
· A floppy disk or flash drive, a notebook, and a folder for saving your work.
Projects: What Assignments Will I Complete?
You will complete readings, take quizzes, write short and long essays (including research essays) and participate in discussions and activities. Depending on the size of our class, we may use small groups for some discussions. Students may take turns preparing for and leading class discussions.
What Format Should My Essays Follow?
Use MLA (Modern Language Association) format for all typed work. You should be familiar with this format from English 1A. A sample paper, written in MLA style, can be found on page 879 of the St. Martin’s Handbook. Links to on-line sources that can assist you with documentation style are on my website, http://dn.redwoods.edu/coursenotes/rhodes/.
Assessment: How Will I Be Graded?
Quizzes / Homework / Participation: 25%
Essays: 75%
Grades Available:
Attendance Policy
In this class, attendance counts. There are no “excused absences.” You must decide for yourself whether or not you can afford to miss class. Attendance is taken at the beginning of class, so if you’re late, it counts as half an absence. After more than three absences, you automatically fail the course. Additionally, if you aren’t here when I give a quiz or collect homework, you get a zero for that assignment. Essays are marked off one letter grade each day they are late.
Students with Disabilities
If you have a disability and think you will need special accommodations, please come see me after class or during office hours so that we can talk. Bring your DSP&S accommodations agreement with you.
Code of Conduct
You are expected to be on time, prepared, and focused for class and lab with all the books and materials you might need. Treat other members of the class with respect and tolerance and do all that you can to avoid disrupting learning. You are free to leave the room at any time, but do so quietly. Turn off your cell phone before class begins. Save your snack for break time—don’t eat during class.
Cheating
If you are caught cheating (turning in work that is not your own, copying during a quiz, etc.), you will receive a zero for the assignment and will be subject to academic discipline, including possible expulsion. One common form of cheating is plagiarism, taking the words, phrases, or ideas of others and claiming them as your own. Be aware that copying information straight from websites and printed materials without quoting and/or citing is a serious academic crime. In class, we will cover appropriate strategies to avoid this mistake. You will also be required to submit your essays to Turnitin.com before papers are accepted for grading.
Schedule, English 1B
Week One: Critical Thinking and Poetry
What is critical thinking?
What is poetry? How and why do we read it?
Poetic explication: How is it done?
“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick
“Hope” by Ariel Dorfman
“What Lips My Lips Have Kissed” by Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Birches” by Robert Frost
“Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins
Homework: Read the poems for week two and write a 2-3 page explication of one of them (see handout for complete directions).
Week Two: Nomenclature and Critical Theory
Quiz and discussion on the poems below
How do we classify poetry? What language do we use to describe it?
Poetry and critical theories: Thinking like a literary scholar
“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
“To an Athlete Dying Young” by A. E. Housman
“Indian Boarding School: The Runaways” by Louise Erdich
“The United Fruit Company” by Pablo Neruda
“The One Girl at the Boys’ Party” by Sharon Olds
“Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy
“To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell
Homework: Read the poems for week three and write a 2-3 page paper interpreting the meaning or significance of one of them, using one of the critical theories we covered today (see handout).
Week Three: Critical Theory and Critical Research
Quiz and discussion on poems below
Preparing for the research paper
“Dover Beach” by Mathew Arnold
“Africa” by Maya Angelou
“Defending Walt Whitman” by Sherman Alexie
“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” by William Wordsworth
“Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” by Dylan Thomas
“Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich
Homework:
1. See handout for the first research paper (long essay). Bring your sources and your rough draft to class.
2. Find and bring to class a “discovered” poem or other significant poem
Week Four: Evaluating Sources / Peer Editing / Discovered Poems
Comparing and evaluating sources for the research paper
Peer editing of research papers
Discussions of “Discovered” poems
Homework:
1. Complete first research paper
2. Read Chapter 4 (73-84) including the short story “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
Week Five: Introduction to the Short Story
Quiz and discussion on “Hills Like White Elephants”
What are short stories? How and why do we read them?
What language do we use to discuss them?
Also cover “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker
Homework: Read the stories for week six and be ready for a quiz
Week Six: Plot and Character
Quiz and discussion on the stories below focusing on plot and character
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
“A&P” by John Updike
Homework: Read the stories for week seven and be ready for a quiz
Week Seven: Setting and Point of View
Quiz and discussion of the stories below focusing on setting and point of view
“Big Black Good Man” by Richard Wright
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
“Everything that Rises Must Converge” by Flannery O’Connor
Homework: Read the stories for week eight and write a 2-3 page paper on the significance of plot, characterization, setting, or point of view for any one of the stories assigned this term
SPRING BREAK, March 12-16
Week Eight: Style, Tone, and Language / Critical Research and the Short Story
Quiz and discussion on the stories below focusing on style, tone, and language
Preparing for the research paper
“Araby” by James Joyce
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
“The Things they Carried” by Tim O’Brien
Homework: See handout for the second research paper (long essay). Bring copies of your sources and your rough draft to class.
Week Nine: Evaluating Sources and Peer Editing / Eudora Welty’s “The Wide Net”
Comparing and evaluating sources for the research paper
Peer editing of research papers
Also cover Eudora Welty’s “The Wide Net”
Homework: Complete the second research paper
Week Ten: An Introduction to Drama
In-class reading of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
What are dramas? How and why do we read them?
Panel Discussion: The role of actors in characterization
Homework: Read The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and be ready for a quiz
Week Eleven: The Glass Menagerie
Quiz and discussion on The Glass Menagerie
The staging behind the scenes: the director and the stage manager
Homework: Read Oedipus the King and be ready for a quiz
Week Twelve: Oedipus the King
Quiz and discussion on Oedipus the King
A Brief history of the theater
Week Thirteen: Oedipus the King continued / Critical Research and Drama
Continued discussion of Oedipus the King
Preparing for the research paper
Homework: See handout for the final research paper. Bring sources and a draft of your final essay to class.
Week Fourteen: Evaluating Sources / Peer Editing
Comparing and evaluating sources for the research paper
Peer editing of research papers
Homework: Complete the final research paper
Week Fifteen: The Vagina Monologues
Cover The Vagina Monologues
Politics and theater: What ought to be the role of art?
Research papers due
Week Sixteen: Final Exam
Our class will meet at the usual time
The above schedule and procedures are subject to change
in the event of extenuating circumstances.