Composition and Literature: The Uses (and Abuses) of Literature
Course Description Course Objectives Required Texts Requirements Schedule
Course Description
This course is a writing course centered on literary texts. It is thematically organized around the ways in which writers use literature to express particular personal and cultural views, as well as how others writers, artists, and critics analyze, adapt, and appropriate these works. The course is centered on three units, each dealing with a genre or work of literature that has had lasting cultural impact. We will analyze these texts and their influence as well as focus on the cultural conditions that produced them. Through in-class writing assignments, weekly journal entries, and several significant essay assignments students will hone their writing skills as well as their critical thinking skills.
Course Objectives/Student Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course, students should be able to do the following:
- Construct a coherent, original 10-page academic argument that relies on primary textual analysis and textual evidence for support.
- Demonstrate accurate MLA citation, including the documentation of electronic and print sources, academic journal articles, and images.
- Apply a theoretical lens to the analysis of a written or visual text.
- Read critically and carefully, considering key features of texts of various genres.
- Synthesize others’ arguments with one’s own.
- Understand and analyze the cultural conditions in which a text was produced.
Required Text(s):
M.B. Clarke and A.G. Clarke. Retellings: A Thematic Literature Anthology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Nina Auerbach and David J. Skal. New York: Norton, 1997.
In addition to the texts above, some of our readings will be posted on our class Blackboard site. You will be required to read and either print these readings or be able to access them on a laptop or tablet to bring them to class.
Course Requirements:
Participation 15%
Weekly Journal Entries 15%
2nd Draft of Paper 1 15%
2nd Draft of Paper 2 20%
Paper 3 Proposal 10%
2nd Draft Paper 3 25%
Class Participation:
Class participation means coming to class alert and prepared. You must bring all of your materials, including the readings for the week. Students who attend every class, bring their materials, and are attentive will receive a grade of a baseline “C” for participation. To receive a participation grade beyond this baseline you must significantly participate in discussion, and other activities such as in-class writing and workshops.
Weekly Journal Entries
For this course you will be required to maintain a journal on Blackboard to which you will post most weeks. Journal entries will be due by 10:00 AM on Thursdays and will be in response to prompts that I will provide. Journal entries must be at least 250 words and reflect substantively on the topic assigned. These responses will be relatively informal and will serve as a place where you can begin to gather and develop your thoughts. They may also be a resource for you to brainstorm in and mine for paper topics. I will grade journal entries Pass/Fail, and while I will not generally penalize students for grammar and syntax issues, I will be paying attention and responding to students whose reflections need some polishing. Dates that each of these is due is listed on the course schedule.
Assignments
Students will complete three papers as well as a substantive proposal for paper 3. Two of the three papers will receive attention in-class doing peer-review. Students will also submit a first draft of their paper to me for comment and will then be expected to revise the paper before final submission. Students who do not turn in a first draft will have ten percent deducted from their paper grade. The first of these papers will be a close-reading assignment which will analyze in detail a piece of literature we have read. The second paper will be focused on the historical and cultural context surrounding a work of literature and will require research into that context. The final paper will be a substantial research paper that makes a strong argument about the relationship between an originary work and an adaptation. More information about these assignments will be provided later in the semester.
Course Schedule:
This schedule should be considered tentative as readings and assignments may be added or changed by the instructor to meet the needs of the class.
The readings listed should be read before the day indicated. R refers to our primary textbook Retellings, while Dracula refers to our Norton Critical Edition of Dracula . Blackboard means that the text is available in the “Readings” area of our course Blackboard site.
Week One: Introducing the Course
1/23: Introduction
Week Two: Fairy Tales: “Cinderella”
1/28: Foundational Stories
Reading: Three Versions of “Cinderella” R 1-13
1/30: Reading Culture Critically
Journal Entry 1 due
Reading: Jill Birnie Henke, Diane Zimmerman Umble, Nancy J. Smith, “Construction of the Female Self: Feminist Readings of the Disney Heroine” (Blackboard)
Week Three: Revising Stories, Revising Culture: “Little Red Riding Hood”
2/4: In-class workshop on close-reading
2/6: Three Versions of Little Red Riding Hood
Journal Entry 2 due by 10:00 AM
Reading: Charles Perrault, “Little Red Riding Hood,” R 619-621
Brothers Grimm, “Little Red Cap,” R 621-624
Angela Carter, “The Company of Wolves,” R 644-650
Week Four: Critical Tools
2/11: Applying Literary and Cultural Theory
Reading: Jack Zipes, “A Second Gaze at Little Red Riding Hood’s Trials and Tribulations,” (Blackboard)
2/13: Finding a Vocabulary
Draft of Paper 1 due
No Journal Entry
Reading: Thomas Leitch. “Between Adaptation and Allusion.” (Blackboard)
Julie Sanders “What is Adaptation?” (Blackboard)
Week Five: Interpretive Frameworks, Narrative Point of View and Subversion
2/18: Interpretive Frameworks
Reading: Charles Perrault, “Bluebeard” (Linked from Blackboard)
2/20: Subverting Point of View
Journal Entry 3 due by 10:00 AM
Reading: Angela Carter “The Bloody Chamber” (Blackboard)
Neil Gaiman, “The Hidden Chamber” (Blackboard)
Week Six: Behind the Façade: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
2/25: In-class workshop
Paper 1 due
2/27: Interpretive Frameworks (revisited)
Journal Entry 4 due by 10:00 AM
Reading: Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, R 1374-1413
Week Seven: Revising Stevenson
3/4: Parody and Revision
Reading: “The Strange Case of Dr. T. and Mr. H”.1414-15
Tony Eprile, “A True History of the Notorious Mr. Edward Hyde,” R 1419-26
3/6: Historical and Cultural Context
Reading: Henry James, “Partial Portraits,” R 1426-27
Elaine Showalter, “Dr. Jekyll’s Closet,” R 1427-43.
Journal Entry 5 due by 10:00 AM
Week Eight: Working on Paper 2
3/11: Peer-review of Paper 2
3/13: No Class- Research and Reading Day
Draft of Paper 2 due
Week Nine: Spring Break- No Class Meetings
Week Ten: Literary Research
3/25: Workshop on Research
3/27: Workshop on incorporating research
Journal Entry 6 due by 10:00 AM
Week Eleven: Engaging the context deeply
4/1: Workshopping Thesis Statements for Proposals
Paper 2 due
4/3: Preparing for Dracula: Historical Context in-depth
Journal Entry 7 due by 10:00 AM
Reading: Stephen Arata, “1897” (Blackboard)
Rudyard Kipling, “Recessional” (Blackboard)
Week Twelve: A Very Victorian Monster
4/8: Orient and Occident
Reading: Bram Stoker, Dracula 9-110 (chapters I-X)
4/10: Vamps and Vampires
Journal Entry 8 due by 10:00 AM
Reading: Bram Stoker, Dracula 110-193 (chapters XI-XVI)
Week Thirteen: A Mostly Modern Monster
4/15: The Other at Home
Proposal for Paper 3 due
Reading: Bram Stoker, Dracula 194-262 (chapters XVII-XXII)
4/17:The End?
Journal Entry 9 due by 10:00 AM
Reading: Bram Stoker, Dracula 263-327 (chapters XXIII-XXVII)
Week Fourteen: The Vampires We Deserve
4/22: Reading: Nina Auerbach, Introduction from Our Vampires Ourselves (Blackboard)
-“Vampires in the Light,” Dracula 389-407
4/24: Who are “Our” Vampires?
Journal Entry 10 due by 10:00 AM
Week Fifteen: Finishing Course Assignments
4/29: Peer-Review of Paper 3
5/1: Conference Day- No Class Meeting
Draft of Paper 3 due
Week Sixteen: Wrapping up the class
5/6: Some final thoughts on criticism and art
Reading: Selections from Walter Pater, “Leonardo Da Vinci” (Blackboard)
Selections from Oscar Wilde, “The Critic as Artist” and “The Decay of Lying” (Blackboard)
Finals Week:
5/12 2:00-4:00: Final exam period
Brief presentation on paper 3
Final Paper due
Course Description Course Objectives Required Texts Requirements Schedule
"Quickly, to the Panopticon!" 