L202: Literary Interpretation ACP – 2013-2014
Mr. Tim DeBrosse
English Dept Chair/Reading Specialist/L202 Instructor abhstdebross@mdeca.org
Course Description: L202: Literary Interpretation is a dual credit course. This means that your final grade counts as weighted, high school credit toward graduation and potential college credit through Indiana University. The student who elects to take this class must be aware that it is designed to be challenging for the typical freshman or sophomore college student. For this reason, this class should be taken only by those who can elevate themselves both intellectually and motivationally to this advanced level.
The specific content of this course is best described as follows:
Goals:

To provide readers with fresh understanding of the basic elements of literature as a tool for understanding the major literary genres, including plot, point of view, characters, setting, and more.

To help students discover the academic and sociologic value in reading to more fully understand literature in all of its genres, including poetry, short stories, the novel, and drama.

To develop students’ close reading skills as fuel for a defense of an arguable claim.

To introduce and then to develop students’ ability to generate the elements of argument, including issues, claims, evidence, audience, and warrants.

To enable students to make useful comparisons within the same piece of literature or in that of other literary works.

To demonstrate to students the effects of secondary elements to the context of the major literary genres, including author’s life, era, culture
Materials:
Making Literature Matter by John Schilb and John Clifford
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
The Kite Runner Khaled Hossieni
Other related articles, critiques, and essays

Assignments for Unit Two, Unit Three, and Unit Four include:
1) Reading all of the assigned pieces of literature as they are given.
2) Performing the necessary analytical process for each piece of literature as it is assigned. (figurative and literal interpretation, technical analysis, recognition of poetry patterns, definitions,, and so on)
3) Two short essays (300-750 words, depending on Unit) in response to a prompt that will require analytical skills to support an original claim.
4) A final exam involving short and long essays.
5) Quizzes and other assessment activities as needed.
6) Full participation in the activities of each class.
The process of writing the essays include demonstrating the entire writing process, taking part in small group and peer editing activities, and feedback from me. The entire writing process, including all drafts, must be turned in by the assigned due date without exception. Essays must follow all of the rules of manuscript form and employ the rules of MLA when documentation is necessary.
Introduction - Chapters 1, 2, and 3. Topics include: defining literature, applying close reading skills, developing sound argumentation by developing issues, claims, evidence, audience, and warrants) Chapter 4: The Writing Process.
Poetry:
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm…
(3)
Night Waitress (26)
Mending Wall (56)
Short Story: The Lottery (837)
Unit 1 – Writing about First Person Poetry. Looking for the patterns in poetry, including: repetitions, strands, binaries, anomalies for the purpose of creating and supporting claims.
.
Woodchucks (825)
Stopping by the Woods…
(1413)
The Fish (830)
Capital Punishment (1162)
When I Consider How My Life Is Spent
Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night
(53)
My Ex-Husband (1171)
My Papa’s Waltz
Dover Beach
(256)
(818)
(1568)
To My Dear and Loving Husband
Forgiving My Father
The Road Not Taken
(253)
(1415)
(574)
ASSESSMENTS for this unit include two short essays (50 pts. and 300-500 words) and one major essay (100 pts. and 750-1000). The first short essay requires that you formulate your own claim about a piece of first-person poetry and logically support it.
The second short essay requires that you qualify a claim that you make after comparing a group of selected poems that will be provided. The Unit One major essay will be an analysis based on a claim about the speaker in a first-person poem. Specifics of each paper will be provided two weeks before the due date.

Unit 2 – Writing about other genre/fiction using the same analytical techniques that were useful in Unit 1. Unit 2 focuses on the journeys taken by characters within a variety of genre for the purpose of analysis and discussion.
Short Stories:
Young Goodman Brown
The Worn Path (1349)
The Use of Force (91)
(1137)
When You Pawn I Will Redeem (1396)
A & P (600)
St. Lucy’s Home for Girls
(1073)
To Build a Fire (and revision) (handout) The Rich Brother (305)
Novel:
Play:
A Separate Peace
The Kite Runner
Raisin In the Sun with movie
(433)
Autobiography: from The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (516)
From The Lost City: Discovering the Forgotten Virtues of Community… (507)
ASSESSMENTS for this unit includes: two short essays and one major essay.
The focus of two short essays (100 pts. and 500-750 words) will be made as a reaction to classroom discussion and opportunity. The Unit Two major essay (200 pts. and 750-
1000 words) may be a weighted, comparative analysis of a short story that focuses on a journey. This analysis requires references to a comparative piece of literature that reinforces the claim from the selected text. Specifics of each paper will be provided two weeks before the due date.
Unit Three – Other context for literature. Focusing on a variety of literary genre and their accompanying commentaries, articles, reinterpretations, and critics.
A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1249) and commentaries
The Love of My Life (528) and article
Killings (1175) and the film In the Bedroom
Othello (705)
A Modest Proposal and critics
ASSESSMENTS for this unit include: two short essays and one major essay.
The focus of two short essays (100 pts. and 750-1000 words) will be made as a reaction to classroom discussion and opportunity. The Unit Three major essay (200 pts. and
1300-1500 words) may be a weighted, comparative analysis of a piece of literature we have already discussed and its reinterpretation, revision, adaptation, production, articles, commentaries, and critics.

GRADING – Your final grade will be determined by the number of points earned divided by the number of points possible during the course of each quarter plus the final exam.
Major papers are from 100-200 pts., minor papers are 50-100 pts, quizzes are 20 points, and participation is 10 pts. earned on unannounced days during the grading period. The final exam is 250 points.
Your final letter grade will be determined using the school board adopted grading scale as it is published in the 2009 Arcanum High School Handbook.
Plagiarism sometimes becomes an issue in a class like this. Be aware that any use of materials or ideas that are not your own is regarded as cheating. The penalties for plagiarism range from zeroes assigned for the assignment which could result in failure of this course. Other more serious penalties include detentions and suspensions. The punishments make plagiarism not worth the risk. Do your own work.
Student Academic Misconduct
The Indiana University Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct describes types of misconduct for which students may be penalized, including cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, and interference with other students’ work, as well as actions which endanger the University and the University community and possession of firearms. The Code also indicates the procedures to be followed in these cases. All students are required to adhere to the responsibilities outlined in the Code.”
The definition and clarification related to cheating, plagiarism, etc. is found here: http:/www.iu.edu/~code/code/responsibilities/adademic/index.shtml
Useful link to student-info about plagiarism: http:/www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.pdf