ENGLISH 4 (003) /
Writing in the Discipline
of English
FALL 2005 (first half-semester course:
Sept. 7 -- Oct. 17)
Professor: Sandra Jamieson
Website: http://www.depts.drew.edu/engl/sjamieso/
Contact:
(email): sjamieso@drew.edu
Phone:
(office): 973.408.3499
(home): 908.757.1051
Class
meetings: Mon
& Wed 2:30-3:45
p.m. Class
room: EMB
206
Office: S.W. Bowne 118,
Office Hours: Mon &
Tues.,
4:00-6:30; Thurs. 12:00-2:00; and by appointment
IM
screen name:
"ProfJamieson"
Virtual Office Hours:
TBA.
This
course is linked to one of the four courses in the sequence "Mapping
the
Anglo-American Tradition" (21A, 21B, 20A, 20B) and the suggested
research
topics are drawn from the material in the linked module. For this
reason, all
students registered for ENGL 4 must also be co-registered for the
relevant
module.
| Texts | Course Description |
Intellectual outcomes |
Writing assignments |
| Grades |
Rules |
Onlines resources |
Daily Syllabus |
Anson, Chris,
Robert
Schwegler, and Marcia Muth. The Longman Writer's Companion. Longman, 2006
Gibaldi,
Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th ed).
Modern Language Association of America, 2003
Strunk, William
and E.B.
White The Elements of Style. Allyn &
Bacon, 2000
Truss, Lynne. Eats,
Shoots and Leaves: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Gotham,
2004.
Williams, Joseph.
Style: The
basics of Clarity and Grace. Pearson
Longman, 2006
ENGL
4 is NOT more first year composition! ENGL 4 is designed to
introduce
students to the writing and research skills specific to the discipline
of
English. The course is an introduction to the kinds of writing expected
of
English majors and those who continue the study of literature to
graduate
school and beyond. Most of that writing will involve research, so this
course
includes an extensive research component, but the materials you will
consult
will be those used specifically in the discipline of English: academic
journals, books, essays, and additional literary works, along with the
databases and search strategies used to find them. In addition to
helping
majors and minors strengthen their overall writing and research skills,
this
course will also allow them to extend the material covered in the
corresponding
section of ÒMapping the Anglo-American Tradition.Ó
Because the courses are
linked in this way, ENGL 4 will help students imagine research topics
and the
ways they develop from lectures and classroom discussion and invite
them to
build on that discussion as they develop and execute research plans.
If you do the
work in this
class, ENGL 4 will:
1)
Challenge
you to think about stylistic choices and thereby extend the clarity and
accuracy of your writing;
2)
Expand
your library research skills and expertise using the journals,
documents, and
databases central to the discipline of English;
3)
Familarize
you with, and give you brief opportunities to explore, some of the
different
kinds of projects that literary critics undertake (using biography,
reading
contemporaneous texts and images, using primary documents from the
culture in
relation to a literary text);
4)
Increase
the flexibility and precision of your thoughts about literature by
helping you
to use primary and secondary resources to develop and support theories
about a
work or author;
5)
Build
on your ability to imagine topics and questions for further research as
you
read and consider material is different classes;
6)
Deepen
your knowledge and understanding of a literary topic and author
introduced in
ENGL 20 or 21.
We will
measure these outcomes in your formal and informal writing, class
participation
and presentations, and the final portfolio, and your grade for the
course will
be based upon them.
You
will write something for
every class, but there are two major papers. The first asks you to
compare four
guides to writing and advance a thesis about the different treatments
of style.
The second asks you to use primary and secondary sources in an
exploration of a
text, author, genre, theme, or issue raised in ENGL 20 or 21. Each
assignment
includes several components, all of which will be handed in together in
a
portfolio at the end of the class.
Grade
breakdown:
Paper
1
(comparative project):
25%
of the final grade
Paper
2
(research project):
60%
of the final grade
Participation
and presentation:
15%
of the final grade (don't just speak for the sake of it, though)
Like
any community, the classroom community requires work to create and
maintain,
and there are consequences for those who in any way undermine this
community or
fail to do their share of the work necessary to maintain it. These
consequences
will be felt by all because the classroom community will not work if
students
do not make it work. They will also be felt by the individual
responsible. Students
must attend class, be prepared for class, be willing to share their
ideas, and
be respectful of the ideas of others. Lack of respect for classmates
will not
be tolerated in this class.
The larger
academic
community depends on the generation of and willingness to share and
discuss
ideas in dialog and in written texts. For this reason, plagiarism will
not be
tolerated in those seeking to remain in the academic community. (Please see Drew's Academic
Integrity
Policy if you are unsure what it means to use sources correctly,
and The
Writer's Companion or the MLA
Handbook to correctly
create works
cited lists.)
This is college,
so I
should not have to post classroom management rules you should have
learned in
elementary school. If you are unsure how we expect college students to
behave,
it is your responsibility to ask. If I find I have accidentally strayed
into an
elementary class, I will be happy to post the most draconian of rules.
Don't
make me do that!
There
are many resources you can use as you work on the papers for this
class. The
following are recommended:
*
General resources for Writers: http://www.users.drew.edu/sjamieso/Webresources.html
*
For papers that use comparison: http://www.users.drew.edu/sjamieso/resources/Comparison.html
*
For research proposals: http://www.users.drew.edu/sjamieso/research_proposal.html
*
For annotated bibliographies:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_annotatedbib.html
*
For revision and editing: http://www.users.drew.edu/sjamieso/12stepediting.htm
*
The writing center for personalized guidance in your writing: http://www.therichco.com/wconline/drew/schedule/
*
More information for English majors and minors: http://www.depts.drew.edu/engl/test/majors.html
In
this paper you will compare the way style and advice about how to write
effective prose are presented in The Elements of Style, by William
Strunk and
E.B. White; Style: The basics of Clarity and Grace, by Joseph
Williams; and The
Longman Writer's Companion, by Chris
Anson, Robert
Schwegler, and Marcia Muth, with added support from Eats, Shoots
and Leaves:
A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss
and the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers by Joseph
Gibaldi. The
objective of each of these three texts is to help readers become more
effective
writers, but each seems to develop from a very different definition of
"effective," and each adopts a very different tone. While
some topics are
covered in all three texts, most are not and those that are receive
different
attention and space. Each text emphasizes different aspects of writing
while
appearing to have the same goal.
Your task in this paper is to explore the differences and
similarities
between these texts and write a comparison that helps us to make sense
of those
differences and similarities.
Begin this comparison by browsing through the
table of contents, layout, and chapters before you read the preface and
introduction. You may want to consider whether the front matter
adequately and
accurately represents and introduces the text in question.
To
help you get started, consider the following questions:
- How
does each text define style?
- What
assumptions drive the notion of style presented in each text?
- What
assumptions does each book seem to make about our reasons for writing?
- What
assumptions does each book seem to make about our reasons for
consulting a book
on style?
- What
tone do the authors of each text adopt?
- What
attitudes do they seem to have about their readers?
- Who
seems to be the audience for each book?
- What
do we learn about style from this discussion?
-
Which
book seems to speak to you (i.e. seems to match your assumptions,
purposes,
etc.?)
- What
examples can you give of differences between the three texts?
- What
examples of similarities can you give?
- What
is the biggest different?
- What
is the most obvious similarity?
- How
does each text make you feel as a writer?
Once
you have answered these questions and any others that occur to you as
you read,
draw some larger conclusions about the differences between these three
texts
and develop a thesis from that.
Due
Dates:
September 12:
Basic comparison (you do not need to have a thesis yet,
but the comparison should be point-by point);
September 14:
Thesis that considers the three texts and the material
by Lynn Truss;
September 19: Final comparison paper, all drafts, and one page comparison grid.
In
this assignment you will explore an issue, topic, text, or author
presented in
ENGL 21A, conduct initial research and develop a research proposal,
conduct
more research and write an annotated bibliography, and then write up
a thesis-driven paper. Below are some examples of the kind of research
questions you might ask and topics you might explore. These topcis were
suggested by the professor of ENGL 21A with the hope that they would
pick up on themes from the course and give you a sense of the kinds of
topics that might be researched when one studies this period. You may
also develop your own topic, either as a modification of one of these
or following a different line of questioning (but please talk to me and
get my approval before you start the research).
Due
Dates:
October 3:
Working bibliography
and annotations of five essential sources;
October 9:
Final annotated
bibliography due (10-15 sources);
October 12:
Very rough draft of paper due;
October 17:
Very good draft of paper due;
October 24: Final paper with
annotated
bibliography and EVERYTHING ELSE YOU HAVE WRITTEN IN THIS COURSE THIS
SEMESTER
due in a folder outside my office by 5:00 PM.
Papers
focusing on the
exploration of a genre
1.
Poetry
of the period--an author: If
you are interested in the travels of Chaucer, you might
ask who he met in Italy and think about how that might have influenced
his
work. [There have been a number of debates about this
topic, so there is
rich research material to be studied. You might focus in particular on
the
debate about whether he met Boccaccio.]
2.
Poetry of the period--an author: What
happens to Chaucer's reputation in the 15th
C.?
3.
Poetry of the Period--a text: If you are
interested in the intersection between
orality and literacy and the intermingling or development of
manuscripts, you
might look at what has been written on the question of just how Christian
Beowulf is. Is the Christian matter material that
was added on to the story by scribes guilty at writing down a pagan
epic, or is
it crafted into the very guts of the poem itself? [An
investigation of the
history of the Beowulf
(Cotton Vitellius A.XV) should yield lots of material, including an
awareness
of the vicissitudes of dealing with old manuscripts.]
4.
Poetry of the Period--Troubaritz and Troubadors: For this
assignment you
might investigate the troubaritz
and who they were. You could also research the life and work of
troubadour
Bernard de Ventadorn or minnesinger Walter von der Vogelweide. And
don't
forget female religious poet and musician Hildegard of Bingen. Who were
these
people and what did they do?
Exploring the
cultural
context of the period
5.
Chaucer's contemporaries: We
know
a lot about Chaucer and his travels [see the timeline in the PowerPoint
in the
21A k:drive] and we have talked about Chaucer's innovations. If you are
interested in this aspect of his work, you could explore
the question of who
Chaucer's literary contemporaries were, what they wrote, and how was it
different from what Chaucer wrote.
6.
Monastic life: This
period saw the production of several manuals or guides to behavior for
the
cloistered religious. In the Norton, there is the excerpt from The
Ancrene
Riwle,
a guide for nuns written by a male. There is also a short
text called A Wooing of Our Lord.
One possible research topic
for these texts involves finding discussion of how the language of
romantic
and/or Courtly Love is deployed in them, and exploring what vision of
women is
created by them. What about the rise of the cult of the Virgin? Is
this a
positive or a negative development for women in a patriarchal, feudal
culture?
[You might come across Maria Warner's
Alone of All Her Sex,
but there's a lot out there
on this].
Another
line of inquiry would be to review St Benedict's Rule. What does it say
about
monastic culture? About living in the early Middle Ages? About the
ideal
society?
7.
Courtley Love: Was it a game or was it
serious? Just how serious was it? How does it intersect the idea of the
Virgin
as the "perfect woman"?
8. The role of
audience and the change from passive to active listening: A
question always asked
of late medieval mss [manuscripts] is "Who was the audience and under
what
conditions was the poem performed (like, were men and women
present)?" So, who
was the audience of SGGK or Chaucer (and in the latter case, how did it
change--but that's trickier)?
9. The
court of Henry II: The life
of Henry and/or Eleanor is easily
researched if you are interested in a more straightforward historical
research
topic. You might ask what role the court played in the development of
the arts
at the time. You could also ask about how their story of
marriage; adultery; mistresses
and lovers, and their sons; reflects the feudal concerns outlined in
class.
Exploring
themes,
images, and representations
10.
Themes--orality (1): Another
possible research topic is to look
at material on story-telling in other oral cultures and
compare the description
of those story-telling events to Beowulf. You
could also consider the only other
version of the Finnsburg episode from Beowulf (ll.
1069ff), which is on
the "Ruthwell Cross," a stone monument, and consider the differences
between the
fixed story and the oral versionÑand therein orality itself.
11.
Themes--orality (2): An alternative Beowulf project
would be to look at what has been
written on the question of just how Christian the poem is. Is the
Christian
matter material that was added on to the story by scribes guilty
at writing
down a pagan epic, or is it crafted into the very guts of the poem
itself? An
investigation of the history of the Beowulf (Cotton
Vitellius A.XV)
should yield lots of material, including an awareness of the vicissitudes
of
dealing with old manuscripts.
12. The role
of women in this period: Are
the Lais of Marie de France subtly feminist? Even
subversive? [Anyone looking at that has to read again "Lanval" and
should find "Equitan"]
13. Musical
instruments:
There
is material on how the lyre was constructed and how it was tuned or
played, but
it's pretty musically technical. Students with that degree of technical
understanding might research this (incorporating images
from contemporary art
if they like). More accessible would be a consideration of the motet in
its
religious and secular versions. This is important because it is a kind
of
musical allegory, with one line of lyrics commenting on or
in the secular, even
disputing the other line (or lines). Students interested in music might
research this, and, perhaps think about it in relation to the material
we have
read for the class.
| Syllabus mainpage | English Dept | Page just for majors & minors | Drew University | Sandra Jamieson | email the professor | IM: "ProfJamieson" |