Course Calendar for Intro to Literature, Fall 2012
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Week
1
Important Dates For Fall Semester 2012
Classes begin on Monday, August 20
Midterm is Friday, October 11
Thanksgiving break begins Nov. 21st at 4:30: no classes on Nov. 22 and Nov. 23
Finals week is Monday-Thursday, Dec. 10-13
The semester ends on Thursday, Dec. 13; graduation is on Dec. 13th
Dates
Week one, Aug.
20
Dates and Weekly Agendas
Introduction to the course; we will go over the first
few handouts in your Course Pack. We will go over
the list of fiction terms.
W -- UNIT ONE: Reading & Responding to
Literature (Chapters 1-8) We will talk about
reading and writing about Literature.
F -- We will bring in the Laptop cart to go over the
Angel website.
2
Week two, Aug.
We’ll use Story of an Hour (p. 115-117) to look at how
27
to apply reading and writing strategies to text.
UNIT Two: Short Stories & Creative Non Fiction.
(Chapters 9-18, plus the Supplemental Booklet). We
will look at Creative NonFiction as a genre. Look at
stories in chapters 9-11 & booklet.
M -- Atwood – Happy Endings
In Course pack
M -- Hemingway -- Hills like White
96-98
Elephants
3
M -- Kincaid – Girl
W -- Ruth Suckow -- A Rural Community
W -- Katherine Mansfield – Miss Brill
104-105
In Course pack
134-137
F -- Updike – A & P
131-34
W -- Faulkner -- A Rose for Emily
121-125
Week three,
We will talk about the Writing Assignments,
beginning with the Short Story Summary. The list
NO CLASS on
is in your course Pack; I’ll pass around a clipboard so
M, September
you can sign up for a story. I would like you to
3, Labor Day
identify your pick in the next two weeks.
We will also discuss the following stories from
Chapters 12 & 13.
W -- Marjane Satrapi – Persepolis (graphic
story)
W -- Tillie Olsen—I Stand here ironing
F -- Louise Erdrich—Beneath the House
C Dargan, Intro to Lit Calendar, Fall 2012
150-153
162-167
Booklet, 21
Page 1
F -- Anne Lamott—Polaroids
F -- Ferner Nuhn – essay. “Like a Thick Wall”:
Blocking Farm Auctions in Iowa.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5060/
Ferner Nuhn was married to Ruth Suckow.
4
Booklet, 29
Supplemental
handout
Week four,
We will move on to Chapters 14-16 & read several
September 10
selections in the packet. We’ll bring in the laptop cart
for part of one of the sessions.
M -- Flannery O’Connor -- Good Country People
M – Mark Twain – The Danger of Lying in Bed
In Course pack
handout
Mark Twain's Short Stories and Essays
http://www.mtwain.com/l_shortstoryandessay.html
We will look briefly at this website, with full text of Twain’s stories and books
http://www.mtwain.com/The_Danger_Of_Lying_In_Bed/0.html
Source for our story
M -- Willa Cather (A Wagner Matinee)
W -- Alice Walker -- Everyday Use
W -- William Faulkner-- Barn burning
F -- Tim O’Brien – the things they carried
F -- Lynda Barry -- Two Questions (graphic
story)
5
6
7
In Course pack
256-260
194-202
232-239
272-284
Week five,
We will look at stories in chapters 17 and 18 & the
September 17
booklet
M -- Eudora Welty—A Worn Path
285-289
M -- Poe -- The Tell Tale Heart
331-333
W -- Young Goodman Brown
320-325
W -- Charlotte Perkins Gilman—The Yellow
313-319
Wallpaper
F -- T. Coraghessan Boyle – Greasy Lake
306-310
F -- David Sedaris—Me Talk Pretty One Day
Booklet, p. 5
F -- Nikki Giovanni-Campus Racism 101
Booklet, 11
We will begin the Short story presentations.
Week six,
Turn in the written copy of your story and then post it
September 24
on Angel: I will show you how to do this, and create a
special forum on the Discussion Board for the short
story presentations.
Week seven,
We will wrap up the Short stories unit. Short
October 1
Story Terms test on Angel.
M -- UNIT THREE: POETRY, CHAPTERS 19-29
Introduction to the Poetry Unit. We will go over the
list of poetry terms in the Power point. We will discuss
the Poetry Unit homework: pick 8 poems from the list
of assigned poems and write about each one, using
the discussion questions in the Writing Assignments
packet in your course pack.
C Dargan, Intro to Lit Calendar, Fall 2012
Page 2
W & F -- We’ll sample poems from Chapters 1921
Chp. 19 – Understanding Poetry
Anne Sexton - The Starry Night, with the Van Gogh
painting, p. 342
Nikki Giovanni - Poetry, p. 345
William Shakespeare – That time of year thou mayst
in me behold, 350
Chp. 20 – Poetry and Art
Rita Dove – Sonnet in Primary Colors, 354
Robert Hayden –Monet’s Water lilies, 355
Chp. 21—Voice
Emily Dickinson – I’m nobody who are you? 361
Leonard Adams – My Grandmother would rock quietly
and hum, 363-364
Janice Mirikitani – Suicide Note, 367-368
Robert Frost – Fire and Ice, 369
Randall – Ballad of Birmingham, 378-379
(We will also look at parody & parodies of Fire and
Ice).
8
Poet
Poem
Paul Dunbar
Linda Pastan
We wear the mask
Marks
Week eight,
M -- We will discuss how to explicate a poem,
October 8
and talk about the writing assignment.
Midterm is
Friday, Oct.
12—NO
CLASSES
We’ll look at poems in chapters 22-24
Chp. 22—Word choice, Word order
Walt Whitman – When I Heard the learn’d
Astronomer, 383
Margaret Atwood – The City Planners, 388
Mark Halliday – The Value of Education, 391
Gwendolyn Brooks – We Real Cool, 392
Chp. 23 -- Imagery
William Carlos Williams – Red Wheelbarrow, 401
Ezra Pound – In a station of the Metro, 401
Suzanne Berger – The Meal, 402-403
Robert Frost – Nothing gold can stay, 404
From the Supplemental section, in the course
pack
Walt Whitman
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
Walt Whitman
The Wound-Dresser
W -- Chp. 24 – Figures of Speech
Shakespeare – Shall I compare thee to a summer’s
day, 408
Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Constantly risking absurdity,
410
N. Scott Momaday – Simile, 412
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9
Week nine,
October 15
Sylvia Plath – Metaphors, 413
Randall Jarrell – The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,
413
Sylvia Plath – Daddy, 416-417
Margaret Atwood – You Fit into Me, 421
M -- We’ll move on to Chapters 25, 26, and 27.
Chp. 25 – Sound (Meter)
Emily Dickinson – I like to see it lap the miles, 431
Adrienne rich – Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, 433
Lord Alfred Tennyson – The Eagle, 434
W. H. Auden – As I walked out one evening, 438-439
Lewis Carroll – Jabberwocky, 440
Chp. 26 – Form (Blank verse, stanza, sonnet)
Billy Collins – Sonnet, 443
William Shakespeare – When, in Disgrace with
Fortune and Men’s Eyes, 446
W -- Samuel Coleridge – What is an Epigram?
452
William Blake – Her whole life is an Epigram, 452
Martin Espada – Why I went to College, 452
Carl Sandburg – Chicago, 454
Pat Mora – immigrants, 459
Marilyn
Hacker
Ruptured Friendships, or The
High Cost of Keys
Chp. 27—Symbol, Allegory, Allusion, Myth
Edgar Allan Poe – The Raven, 465-467
Adrienne Rich – Diving into the Wreck, 469-470
William Butler Yeats – Leda and the Swan, 475
F -- Supplemental Poetry section in Course
Pack
Ernest Thayer
Casey at the Bat
Felicia Dorothea
CASABIANCA
Hemans
The Charge of the Light
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Brigade
Emma Lazarus
The New Colossus
We may have a partial workday with the laptops as
time allows.
10
Week ten,
October 22
We will look at the following poems with
partners.
M --Chp. 28—Discovering themes in poetry
Edna St. Vincent Millay – The Courage that my Mother
Had, 482
Raymond Carver – Photograph of my Father in His
Twenty-Second Year, 483
Mitsuye Yamada – The Night before Goodbye, 484
C Dargan, Intro to Lit Calendar, Fall 2012
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11
Week eleven,
Carl Sandburg – Fog, 488
William Stafford – Traveling through the Dark, 488
Dorothy Parker – General Review of the Sex Situation,
490
Rupert Brooke – The Soldier, 491
Yusef Komunyakaa – Facing it, 495
W -- Chp. 29 – Poetry for further reading
William Blake – The Lamb, 499
Emily Dickinson trio– Because I could not stop for
Death, 502
Emily Dickinson-I heard a Fly Buzz—when I Died--,
503
Emily Dickinson -- Faith is a fine invention, 503
Louise Erdrich – Indian Boarding School, 507-508
Robert Frost – Mending wall, 508-509
Robert Frost - Road not taken, 509
Robert Frost - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
evening, 509-510
F -- Langston Hughes- Theme for English B, 510
Langston Hughes – The Negro Speaks of Rivers, 511
Marge Piercy -- Barbie Doll, 515
Christopher Marlowe – The Passionate Shepherd to his
Love, 513-514
Sir Walter Raleigh – The Nymph’s Reply to the
Shepherd, 516
Phillis Wheatley – On being brought from Africa to
America, 520
M -- We will wrap up the Poetry unit. We will
October 29
review for the Unit test, which will be done on Angel.
W -- UNIT THREE: DRAMA, CHAPTERS 30-35.
Introduction to drama: we will go over the terms.
F -- We’ll look at the origins of theatre in the
Greek civilization as well as in Shakespeare’s day
with an introductory Powerpoint presentation.
12
Week twelve,
M -- Chp. 31 – We will not cover this chapter, on
November 5
short plays. Instead, we will read the play “Trifles”
out loud and then discuss it. This is a play with Iowa
connections. Trifles is in Chapter 32, pages 555-561.
Chp. 32 – We’ll look at plotting. Do the worksheet
for Trifles on Angel. We will prepare for Hamlet.
W & F -- Chp. 33, character. We will read
Hamlet, p. 643-692. We will watch the video. Do
the Hamlet worksheet.
13
Week thirteen,
M --Hamlet.
November 12
W –- Wrap up Hamlet.
F -- Chp. 34, Staging. Look at Greek theatre, with a
brief look at Oedipus the King, 701-719, and discuss
its place in Sophocles’ trilogy of plays. We will
C Dargan, Intro to Lit Calendar, Fall 2012
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highlight Antigone, using this copy of the play online.
http://tinyurl.com/ycpo7zp
We will watch a few clips from the video, posted on
14
Week fourteen,
November 19
No classes on
Friday –
Thanksgiving
break
15
Week fifteen,
November 26
YouTube.
M -- Chp. 35, Theme. We will look briefly at the intro
to the chapter; however, we will watch the video for
Raisin in the Sun instead of reading Fences. Here is a
copy of the dialogue online.
http://tinyurl.com/6lfnxy
Langston Hughes – Harlem, 409
Poem referred to in the title
W – Watch Raisin.
Thanksgiving break begins Nov. 21st at 4:30: no classes on
Nov. 22 and Nov. 23
M – Continue watching Raisin.
Turn in the Literary Research Project.
W – Raisin
F -- Wrap up Raisin in the Sun. We’ll bring in the
laptop cart for part of one of the sessions.
16
Week sixteen,
M – Sample a few other modern plays by looking at
December 3
some trailers and sources about the playwrights.
W – laptop day
F -- We will wrap up the drama unit and prepare for
the final over Drama Unit. The final needs to be done
by Sunday, December 9.
FINALS – Begin on Monday, Dec. 10 and end on Thursday, Dec. 13
Our last day of regular classes is Friday, December 7th.
Our Final is on Wednesday, Dec. 12, from 10 to 11:50. I have a small group Finals
day activity for you to do together; you will earn 50 points for it.
C Dargan, Intro to Lit Calendar, Fall 2012
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