Bulletin Board Office Hours Books Coursework Writing Portfolio Grading Attendance Late Papers Plagiarism Reading Schedule

Honors 106 Dr. Susan Farrell 72 George Street, #201  Phone: 953-5785  e-mail me at: farrells@cofc.edu

This course is intended to help you become a better writer, a careful reader, and a critical thinker.  In addition to writing six formal papersabout poetry, drama, and fiction, you will spend class time studying literary works and discussing the papers you and your classmates are writing.  This course requires that you 1)write a lot; 2) read ALL material carefully and critically; 3)complete all assigned work; 4)take a lot of responsibility for your own learning.

• MWF 1:30-3
• and by appointment

Books:

• A Pocketful of Poems,David Madden
• Henry IV, Part I, Shakespeare
• Fences, August Wilson
• The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
• The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston
• Class packet of supplemental poems (available at SAS-E Ink, 79 Wentworth St.)
• A  college-level dictionary
• A grammar handbook (such as Diana Hacker's Rules for Writers)

Coursework:

You will write six formal papers in this course; the sixth and last paper will be a take-home essay question for your final exam.  Two of the six papers in the course will first be turned in as drafts, commented on in workshop sessions, and then revised and turned in as finished papers.  I will give you more information about each paper, including a written assignment sheet, well in advance of its due date.   Coursework will also include several peer evaluations of classmates' papers, a final essay exam, occassional unannounced quizzes over reading material, and possible short homework assignments.  In addition, students will be required to contribute to the class bulletin board discussion of reading material.

Class Bulletin Board:

There will be a class bulletin board, which you'll be able to access through my home page.  Each student is required to post a minimum of ten responses to this bulletin board during the course of the semester.  Each response must be at least 100 words long.  All responses must be posted by Friday afternoon at 5:00 of the week we finish class discussion of a work

Each student will also be assigned a poem, play, or book for which you will serve as bulletin board discussion leader.  You will be required to post an intitial question or issue to generate discussion on your assigned work.  This initial question or issue must be posted before class discussion of the topic begins.  Failure to post your discussion question on time will lower your bulletin board grade by 50 points. Your posting as discussion leader may not count as one of your ten required bulletin board responses.
 

Writing Portfolio/Corrections:

You will be required to buy a folder with pockets to use as a writing portfolio this semester.  Your portfolio will contain all of your graded essays from the course, along with corrections for these essays and a grade/comment sheet filled out by me.

Each time you get a graded essay back, you must correct all grammatical mistakes on a separate sheet of paper (see correction guidelines in your Guide to Freshman English).  You will need to put your corrections into your porfolio folder and turn them in when your next assignment is due.  I will not accept a new paper unless you have the previous essay and a separate sheet of corrections in your portfolio.  My grade/comment sheet must also stay in your portfolio at all times.

When you turn in an assignment, your portfolio should contain the following items:

 1.  left-hand side:  all your previously graded essays (final versions only--no drafts)   with their corrections; grade/comment sheet on top.
 2.  right-hand side:  current essay (final version on top, rough draft underneath)

Failure to turn in a complete writing portfolio at the end of the semester will result in either a grade of "F" or "Incomplete" for the entire course.

Grading:

Your final grade will be determined according to these percentages:

• 10%---Bulletin Board
• 10%---Quizzes, Peer Critiques
• 10%---Paper #1
• 10%---Paper #2
• 15%---Paper #3
• 15%---Paper #4
• 15%---Paper #4
• 15%---Final Exam

• A+/98, A/95, A-/92

 
• B+/88, B/85, B-/82

 
• C+/78, C/75, C-/72

 
• D+/68, D/65, D-/62

 
• F = 50 Paper not turned in = 0

Attendance:

Regular attendance and participation are requirements to pass the course. You may take 4 absences without being penalized (although I don't recommend it--it's best for you to be in class every meeting). I don't distinguish between excused and unexcused absences, so you should save your 4 absences for when you're really sick or out of town. For each absence over 4 (for any reason--excused or unexcused), I will automatically subtract 3 points from your final course average. You are responsible for all work covered during your absence. Don't come to my office and ask what you missed. Find out from a fellow student. 

Late Papers:

Acceptable, complete draft essays must be turned in on specified dates.  Drafts are not graded, but are mandatory.  Failure to turn in drafts at the beginning of class on required due dates will result in ten points automatically being subtracted from the grade received on your final essay.  Late peer critiques and late bulletin board responses will not be accepted.

Final versions of essays and papers will also have specific due dates which should be respected.  Late papers will be penalized five points for each day or fraction of a day they are late.

Make-up exams will not be given except in rare circumstances when the student has documentation to prove a serious accident or illness.  If at all possible, you must notify me in advance when a make-up exam is necessary.

Plagiarism:

All work submitted must be your own. You may discuss writing assignments and prepare for tests with your classmates (in fact, I strongly encourage you to do so), but all that you write should be yours. Incorporating others' words or ideas in your essays without proper acknowledgment, or any other form of academic dishonesty, will result in an "F" for the entire course. 

Reading Schedule:

Read all assignments before coming to class on the dates below.  All assignments must be turned in at the beginning of class on the day that they are due.

*Poems marked with an asterik do not appear in A Pocketful of Poems.  They can be found in the course packet of supplemental poems

Week 1:  Course Introduction
Th 13 January
Course Introduction

Week 2:  Poetry--Speaker and Rhetorical Situation
Tu 18 January
Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess"; Sir Phillip Sydney, Sonnet 1*; Discuss Paper #1
Th 20 January
Michael Drayton, "Since There's No Help; John Donne, "The Flea"*; Andrew Marvell, "To His Coy Mistress"

Week 3:  Poetry--Simile, Metaphor, Personification
Tu 25 January
Paper #1 Due;  Robert Frost, "The Silken Tent"*; John Keats, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"; John Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning"*
Th 27 January
Thomas Campion, "There Is a Garden in Her Face"; Shakespeare, "My Mistress' Eyes"; Randall Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"'; Emily Dickinson, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death"

Week 4:  Poetry--Imagery and Symbolism
Tu  1 February
William Carlos Williams, "The Dance"; Walt Whitman, "Cavalry Crossing a Ford"; Edmund Waller, "Go, Lovely Rose"; William Blake, "The Sick Rose"; Dorothy Parker, "One Perfect Rose"; Robert Frost, "Mending Wall"
Th  3 February
Emily Dickinson, "The Soul Selects Her Own Society"*; Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Spring and Fall:  To a Young Child"*; John Keats, "To Autumn"; Discuss Paper #2

Week 5:  Poetry--Irony and Paradox
Tu  8 February
Percy Shelley, "Ozymandias"; John Donne, "Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God"; Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"

             Poetry--Form, Rhythm, and Sound
Th 10 February
Paper #2 Due; George Herbert, "Easter Wings"; e.e. cummings, "Buffalo Bill's"; Shakespeare, "That Time of Year Thou May'st"*; Robert Frost, "Acquainted with the Night"; Discuss Paper #3

Week 6:  Poetry--Form, Rhythm, and Sound
Tu 15 February
Robert Frost, "Departmental"*;  Robert Herrick, "To TheVirgins, to Make Much of Time"; Theodore Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz"; Robert Haydn, "Those Winter Sundays"
Th 17 February
Draft of Paper #3 Due; Workshop Day

Week 7:  Henry IV, Part I
Tu 22 February
Final Version of Paper #3 Due; Henry V, Part I--Act I; Discuss Paper #4
Th 24 February
Henry V, Part I--Acts II and III
 

Week 8:  Henry IV, Part I
Tu 29 February
Henry V, Part I--Acts IV and V
Th  2 March
Watch film excerpts of Henry

Week 9:  Spring Break
Tu  7 March
Spring Break
Th  9 March
Spring Break

Week 10:  The Things They Carried
Tu 14 March
Paper #4  Due; The Things They Carried (through "The Dentist"); Discuss Paper #5
Th 16 March
The Things They Carried (through "Good Form")

Week 11:  The Things They Carried

M 20 March
Interdisciplinary Panel Discussion on The Things They Carried
Location:  Lightsey Conference Center, 3:00-4:30

Tu 21 March
The Things They Carried (finish book)

W 22 March
Readers Theatre: "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong"
Location:  Physician's Auditorium, 3:00 and 7:00

Th 23 March
Draft of Paper #5 Due

Week 12:  The Things They Carried
Tu 28 March
Workshop Day

W 29 March
Tim O'Brien public reading
Location:  Physicians Auditorium, 7-8

Th 30 March
Final Version Paper #5 Due

Week 13:  Fences
Tu  4 April
Fences --Act I
Th  6 April
Fences--Act II

Week 14: The Woman Warrior
Tu 11 April
The Woman Warrior ("No Name Woman" and "White Tigers")
Th  13 April
The Woman Warrior ("Shaman" and "At the Western Palace")

Week 15:  The Woman Warrior
Tu 18 April
The Woman Warrior ("A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe")
Th 20 April
The Woman Warrior (Watch Maxine Hong Kingston video)

Week 16:  Classes End
Tu  25 April
Class Wrap-Up; Discuss Final Exam

Final Exams:
9:25 class--Tuesday, May 2, 12:00-3:00
1:40 class--Friday, May 5, 12:00-3:00