LITR 101 Introduction to Genre
Dr. Nazmi ağıl
Course Description
This course aims at introducing you to different genres of literature. We are going to begin
with the essay, continue with the short story, the poetry and conclude with the novel.
Our choice examples will be from among writings that tell most about the genre they belong
to.
Assignments
Your performance will be graded on the following criteria: You will have two midterms and a
final exam. You will also be given many quizzes on the work assigned for each week, which
will help you not to postpone your readings. Class participation and class attendance will be
taken into consideration too.
Grading
Midterms
Final
Reading quizzes
Participation&
Attendance
40%
30%
20%
10%
Attendance Policy
You are expected to come to class on time and stay in until the end. If you miss
any class, you must find out what we did then, what is the new assignment and
get a copy of any hand-outs distributed. Do not forget, being present in class
means being on time with the course materials for that day.
Policy on plagiarism
You are supposed to create your own responses to the class and plagiarizing the work of
a friend or a text from the internet sources will not be tolerated. You are advised to see
me and clarify any doubts about the definition of plagiarism before handing in your
work.
Course Schedule
ESSAY
Week 1
Feb 9 (M) Introduction to the Course
Feb 11(W) Sartre What is Literature?
Week 2)
Feb 16 (M) Elements of the Essay (1-3)
The Essay as Argument: Persuasion (4-6)
D.H.Lawrence “Cocksure Women and Hensure Men”
Feb 18 (W) The essay as a story: History
Nora Ephron “The Hurled Ashtray”
The essay as a play: Dialogue
E.M.Forster, “On Graves in Gallipoli”
FICTION
Week 3)
Feb 23 (M) The elements of fiction
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour,
Feb 25 (W) Black Elk, High Horse’s Courting
I.L. Peretz, If Not Higher
Week 4)
March 2 (M) Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants
Katherine Mansfield, Miss Brill
March 4 (W) Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall Paper
Judith Ortiz Cofer, Not for Sale
Week 5)
March 9 (M) Mark Twain, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County
James Joyce, Araby
March 11 (W) William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Grace Paley, Anxiety
Week 6)
March 16 (M) John Steinbeck, The Chrysanthemums
Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find
March 18 (W) Ambrose Bierce, Chickamauga
Richard Wright, The Man Who was Almost a Man
POETRY
Week 7)
March 23 (M) First Midterm
March 25 (W) The Elements of Poetry
Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee
Leslie Marmon Silko, The Story teller’s Escape
N.Scott Momaday, The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee
Week 8)
March 30 (M) Countee Cullen, For a Lady I Know
Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool
Arthur Guiterman, On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness
April 1 (W)Marianne Moore, I May, I Might, I Must
Ezra Pound, In a Station of the Metro
Amy Lowell, Wind and Silver
Week 9)
April 13 (M) Robert Browning, My Last Duchess
William Wordsworth, I Wondered Lonely as a Cloud
Adrienne Rich, Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers
W,H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen
April 15 (W) Carl Sandburg, Fog
William Blake, The Tyger
William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18
Andrew Marwell, To his Coy Mistress
Week 10)
April 20 (M) Ekphrasis in Western Poetry:
Percy B. Shelley, Ozymandias
Keats, Ode on Grecian Urn
William Carlos Williams The Dance
April 22 (W)Ekphrasis in Turkish Poetry:
Nazım Hikmet On Balaban’s Prison Gate
İlhan Berk, Şeker Ahmet Paşa
Oktay Rifat, Fotoğraf
DRAMA
Week 11)
April 27 (M) Second Midterm
April 29 (W) Modes and Elements of Drama
Sophocles, Antigone
Week 12)
May 4 (M) Ibsen, A Doll’s House (881)
May 6 (W) Tenessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
NOVEL (Beyaz Kale by Orhan Pamuk) (We might decide together, as well.)
Week 13)
May 11 (M)
May 13 (Wed)
Week 14)
May 18 (M)
May 20 (W)