Community College of Rhode Island
Spring 2016
ENGL1200, Introduction to Literature
Instructor: Beth O’Leary Anish
e-mail: boanish@ccri.edu *
Office: 1364, Flanagan Campus
Office phone # (voicemail): (401) 333-7139
Office Hours: Mon, Weds, and Thurs: 8-9 a.m. and noon-1 p.m., or by appointment
*the preferred method of communication for this course will be e-mail through the
course Blackboard site. You will see a “Course E-mail” link on the menu in our course,
as well as in the folder for each week. You should check for messages each day. Please
use these other methods of contacting me only if you have problems accessing the site.
You should print off this syllabus as a reference in case you are experiencing computer
problems and need to reach me.
Course Description:
This course examines a variety of literary genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama) as expressions
of the human desire to communicate philosophy, experience, and attitudes. Examples found in diverse
literary cultures from ancient times to the present are the basis for reading, analyzing, and evaluating
these forms of verbal expression. (Meets Literature elective and English concentration requirements)
Lecture: 3 hours (http://www.ccri.edu/catalog/cd-index.pdf).
Methodology:
I will post notes each week on terms and concepts that will help you improve your understanding of
literature. We will discuss assigned readings on the discussion board each week in learning teams
(each team will answer questions about one of the required readings). Assigned readings will come
from our anthology, and will include fine examples of short fiction, poetry and plays. You will keep a
reading journal in which you respond to one of the short stories or poems you read each week. You will
be asked to interpret literature in writing more formally in two short papers, as well as on a midterm and
final exam.
Instructional Objectives:
At the conclusion of this course, you should be able to:
- recognize the main literary genres, terms and some modes of criticism
- perform close readings of texts with varying levels of difficulty
- write thoughtfully and critically about literary works
Required Text and Online Supplement:
Mays, Kelly J., Ed. The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter 12th ed. New York: Norton, 2016.
ISBN#: 978-0-393-93892-0. (CCRI bookstore:
http://bookstore.ccri.edu/store1/Home.aspx)
Technical Support:
If you are experiencing technical problems with this or any of your online courses, please see
http://it.ccri.edu/forstudents.shtml for a link to frequently asked questions and contact information for IT
support staff. If you are looking at a printed version of this syllabus and need technical help, call the
CCRI help desk at 401-825-1112, or e-mail them at: helpdesk@ccri.edu .
Participation and Communication:
Though we do not meet face to face for this course, please do not feel that I am not available to you.
We will meet here in cyberspace, perhaps more often than we would have in a traditional “on ground”
course. The following are the ways we will interact this semester. As you will see, both you as student
and I as instructor have responsibilities we must fulfill to make this a successful learning experience.
Weekly Letter:
Our course week will run from Mondays to Sundays. By Monday morning of each week you will see a
“Week in Review” letter from me in your course e-mail, reminding you what we accomplished the
previous week, and announcing our activities for the coming week. At this time I will also post the
materials for the new week, including my lecture notes, required readings, discussion board questions,
assignment guidelines, and a chronological list of assignments due.
Discussion Board Participation:
The discussion board questions I post each Monday morning will ask you to apply your interpretive
skills to one of our readings. You will participate on the discussion board as part of a learning team,
with each team responsible for a different one of our readings for the week. In your learning teams you
will try to fully explore a work of literature each week, based on the questions I give you. I will jump in
when I feel a team is far off an appropriate answer, as well as to commend you for getting it right!
Your participation on the discussion board is required each week in the following manner: 1) you must
post a substantial reply to my initial question by Thursday at 11:59 p.m.; 2) you must post meaningful
responses to at least two of your learning team members’ posts by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. You should
continue the conversation until you feel you and the other team members fully understand the work of
literature.
A “substantial” reply addresses the question I have asked, using specific details and examples from the
work of literature in question to support your response. It will be at least 150-250 words long
(approximately one or two paragraphs). If you wish, you can compose your post in MS Word to monitor
your word count, then copy and paste it into the discussion board as a reply to my question.
A “meaningful” response to your team member’s post contains more than the words, “good point” or “I
agree.” Such short responses do not move the discussion forward, and therefore will not be awarded
any credit. You will be expected to reply in several sentences, mentioning specifically why you do or do
not agree, as well as other thoughts that your team member’s post brought up for you. Thoughtful,
detailed responses will be awarded full credit.
Other considerations on the discussion board are the tone and language you use. You should use
appropriate language for a classroom (avoid internet abbreviations and foul language). While I will not
grade the responses for proper grammar, I do expect you to write in clear sentences that your
classmates and I can understand. Discussions should be conducted with civility and respect for all
voices and opinions. You can reasonably disagree with your team members without attacking positions
that differ from your own. You should carefully consider your team members’ views, and if still in
disagreement, should present evidence for your own opinions without belittling the opinions of others.
Your discussion board participation is an integral part of your learning experience in this course. It will
count for 25% of your final grade. Participation each week will be judged according to the following
rubric, with 9 being the highest number of points earned each week, and 0 (for lack of participation)
being the lowest:
Number of
responses
3
One substantial
reply to initial
discussion question.
Two meaningful
responses to team
members’ posts.
2
One reply to initial
discussion.
1
One reply to initial
discussion.
One or no responses to Zero replies to team
team members, or two
members.
responses to team
members that are not
detailed enough.
Ideas
Expressed Ideas
are clearly stated
and supported by
evidence from
the text.
Expressed Ideas
are not always
supported by
evidence.
Expressed Ideas
Have little or no
evidence for
support.
Comments are
relevant and
important to the
discussion
question.
Parts may be
relevant but
other parts
may be off
topic.
Comments have
little or no
relevance to the
topic under
discussion.
Relevance
As with all written assignments, late discussion posts will lose credit (1 point off for each day the post is
late), and will not be accepted at all after 10 days late. On the other hand, you will earn an extra point if
your discussion posts and responses are done on time, for a total of 10 possible points each week.
If you do not complete your discussion posts each week, you are not only jeopardizing your grade and
missing out on a key part of this learning experience, you are also letting your group mates down. You
have a responsibility to yourself, to your group, and to me to do the assigned readings and discussions
each week.
Though you only need to discuss one work of literature with your discussion team each week, you are
responsible completing all of the assigned readings, and for reading the discussions of all the other
learning teams. This will be important when it comes time to write your interpretive essays, and on the
midterm and final exams.
Email:
If you have private or personal concerns, you should e-mail me within our Blackboard course site. You
may email me at any time, and I will respond within 24 hours on weekdays, and within 48 hours on
weekends. Please note that Blackboard works with its own internal mail system, which means all
messages are sent, stored and read within the course, not through your own external mail. To access
mail, you have to log on and go to your course, and click on the mail icon on the menu on the left side
of your screen (or within our weekly unit folders). I call this internal messaging system “Course E-Mail.”
It is recommended that you check your Course E-Mail at least once a day, so that you don’t miss
important course information. There will be no alert telling you that you have received an e-mail.
General Course Questions/Concerns:
If you have general questions about the course, its assignments, readings or lecture notes, please feel
free to post them as a discussion question in the “General Course Questions/Concerns” forum. By
posting a general question here rather than e-mailing it to me privately, you allow other students to
benefit from the response. They may be wondering the same thing! If you e-mail me a general
question, I will reply to your e-mail and ask if I can post the question and response for the rest of the
class to view.
“Water Cooler”:
While discussion board posts should stick to our course topics, it is nice to have a place in an online
course where students can get to know one another as you would in a traditional classroom. I have set
up the “water cooler” forum for you to have conversations with your classmates that do not relate to our
course material. During the first week of the semester you should post a brief introduction of yourself
there, stating some of your interests, hobbies, and why you are taking this course online. I will post my
introduction first as an example. Posts in the water cooler area will not count toward your discussion
board participation grade, and, aside from the first week’s introduction, are not required. Though this is
a place for social gathering, the language used here should still be appropriate for the classroom.
Course Requirements/Grade Breakdown:
Journal assignments: 20%
Short essays: 30% (2 essays at 15 % each)
Midterm Exam: 10%
Discussion Board: 25%
Final Exam: 15%
Your schedule for written assignments is as follows:
Assignment
Discussion board participation
Date Assigned
Each Monday
Journal entries
1/25
Interpretive Essay: Short
Fiction
Midterm Exam
Interpretive Essay: Poetry
Final Exam
2/15
Date Due
Initial post by Thursday, and
response to 2 team members’
posts by the following Sunday
of each week.
One entry posted on
Blackboard by Sunday of
each week; will be graded
twice during semester (3/6
and 5/8)
3/6
3/7
4/4
5/9
3/13
4/17
5/13 (Friday)
Discussion Board Participation (25%)
As outlined in Participation and Communication above, 25% of your grade will be based on the quality
and quantity of your postings to the Discussion Boards. Please see the Participation and
Communication for further details about this assignment.
Journal Entries (20%)
Journal entries should be submitted weekly through the discussion board journal feature. These entries
are private; only I can read them when you submit them. I will read them each week, so they must be
submitted by each Sunday night for full credit, but I will only assign grades twice during the semester,
once during week 6 and once during week 14. You will have a total of 12 journal entries for the
semester. Your entries will be about one of the required works of literature you read each week. It
must be a different work than the one you discuss in your learning team. This will give you the
opportunity to explore two works in writing each week. To help guide your response, you can consider
questions I have asked the other learning teams. You can also consider what your response was to the
work of literature: did it make you think of some of your own experiences, or other things you have
read? How? Explain these connections in your entry, which should be at least 2-3 paragraphs long.
Short Essays (15% each, for a total of 30%)
Over the course of this semester you will be required to write two short essays, about 2-3 pages in
length each (typed and double-spaced, with 1” margins and size 12 font). You will submit the essays
as MS Word documents (.doc or .docx) or rich text files (.rtf) via the Assignment Drop Box tool on the
course site. Each of the essays will be worth 15% of your final grade. You will have two weeks to
complete each of the essays from the dates I assign them. For information on how these essays will be
graded, please see the general Rubric for Literary Papers. The first essay will ask you to interpret a
short story or stories we have read for class, while the second essay will ask you to interpret poetry.
For each assignment I will give you a choice of topics, and questions to focus your writing. You may be
asked to compare and contrast characters from two short stories, or two poems that address a similar
subject (more detailed assignment sheets will be available on the dates the essays are assigned).
Exams (25%)
The Midterm exam will be worth 10% of your final grade, while the Final exam will be worth 15% of your
final grade. You will have nearly one week to complete each of these open book exams.
The Midterm will consist of passages taken from some of the short stories we have read to that point in
the semester. You will be asked to explain how those passages relate to the overall meaning of the
story we have discussed. Your answers will take the form of short essays.
The final exam will be about the three plays we will read (Trifles, A Raisin in the Sun, and Death of a
Salesman). You will be given a choice of essay questions to answer about each of the three plays.
Late Paper Policy:
Papers are expected to be turned in by 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) on the night for which they
are due on the syllabus. In the event that a paper cannot be turned in on time because of an
emergency or other problem, you must alert me in advance and e-mail me the assignment as soon as
possible. For each day a paper is late, ½ a letter grade will be taken off the paper grade. This means a
“B” paper turned in one day late will be a “B-”; the same paper turned in two days late would be a “C+”,
etc. After 10 days, even an “A” paper would be an “F,” so no papers will be accepted more than 10
days late.
Students with Special Needs:
Every effort will be made to meet the individual needs and various learning styles of students in this
course. It is of the utmost importance that you inform me at the beginning of the semester of your
particular needs. If you have concerns about this course, please e-mail me, or make an appointment to
meet me in person or conference with me by phone. If your concerns are about a learning disability or
another specific need, you may also contact a learning specialist at Disability Services. All information
is strictly confidential. To visit the website for Disability Services, go to http://www.ccri.edu/dss/.
Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism:
All work that you turn in for this class should be your own. When you put your name on an essay,
discussion post or journal entry and submit it to your professor, you are claiming that you are the author
of that writing, and that you did all of the work therein. You are always free to have “another pair of
eyes” take a look at your work and give you feedback. In fact, you may want to get assistance with
your writing from the tutors at one of the college’s Writing Centers: http://www.ccri.edu/writingcenter/ .
These tutors will not write your papers for you, nor should anyone else.
Plagiarism is passing someone else’s words and ideas off as your own. Whether that involves taking a
whole paper off the internet, borrowing from a source without acknowledging it, or having a friend or
family member give a little too much input into your paper, plagiarism is not an accepted academic
practice. You will only learn from this class if you do your own work. If I find out that you have
purposely submitted an essay, journal entry or discussion post that is not your own work, you will earn
an “F” for that assignment. It is within my rights as an instructor to fail you for the course.
I have, unfortunately, caught more than a few students plagiarizing in the past. In two instances
students turned in the same paper on the same night (a quick Google search showed me that they had
found the papers online). Other times it has been obvious that the student’s writing so improved in a
few weeks that the assignment could not have been written by the same student. Google has helped
me again on those occasions, or if not, a brief interview with the student has shown that an aunt or
some other well-meaning relative had given too much assistance.
In a literature class, it is especially tempting to look up other people’s interpretations of poems, stories
or plays online. I encourage you to write your own interpretation of the works we read together. If they
are difficult (and some will be), work together with me and your classmates until you understand them.
If you do look up the works online, you must acknowledge where you have borrowed words and ideas
that you use in any writing you submit to me. Otherwise you’re passing off someone else’s words as
your own, and that is plagiarism. This is true whether you are writing a journal entry, a discussion post,
an essay, or an exam!
Clearly having someone else write your paper or borrowing a paper from the internet is wrong. More
subtle cases of plagiarism happen when students are not clear how to cite sources properly in a
research paper. Know that any time you borrow words or ideas from an outside source you must give
credit to the author of that source. You should not need outside sources for your papers in this class,
but if you do use them you need to cite them properly according to MLA Style. Please ask me for help
on how to cite sources or see the following references:
MLA Style Information (click on Alden Library MLA Guide PDF):
http://qcc.mass.libguides.com/content.php?pid=131553&sid=1128175
For the full CCRI Academic Honesty and Plagiarism policy, see the college handbook:
http://www.ccri.edu/advising/student_services/handbook.html#POLICY_ON_ACADEMIC_DISHONEST
Y .
Grading Rubric for Literary papers:
Unity
Support
Coherence
Sentence Skills
A (Excellent)
Essay has clear
main point (thesis),
often stated at end
of introduction.
Thesis points paper
in one direction, and
is easily defensible
in a short essay (not
too broad or too
narrow). All
supporting details in
the essay fit with
thesis.
Essay includes
plenty of specific
details and
examples from
text(s), including
quotations, to back
up thesis statement.
Essay flows
smoothly from start
to finish. There are
transitions between
ideas and
paragraphs. Ideas
are arranged in
logical order, and
new paragraphs
started when topic
shifts. Essay
includes
introduction, body
paragraphs and
conclusion.
Essay includes
clear, error-free
sentences. Few, if
any, fragments, runons, point of view
shifts, etc.
B (Good)
Essay has clear main
point (thesis) in
introduction, though
perhaps not as
interesting, unique or
insightful as that of
an “A” paper.
Supporting details
back up thesis.
C (Fair)
Essay’s point
(thesis) may be
vague and difficult to
defend in a short
paper, but writer
does attempt to
have a point or
direction. The paper
may wander off of
this point
occasionally.
D (Poor)
Essay is lacking a
clear direction or
point (thesis),
therefore supporting
details are scattered
to support various
points.
F (Failing)
There is no point to
the essay.
Essay includes some
specific details and
examples from text(s)
to support thesis, but
perhaps not as many
as an “A” paper.
Support for thesis is
vague, not specific.
Few details and
examples are given
as evidence. Writer
may bring up a point
but not support it.
Essay may jump
around, not flow
smoothly from start
to finish. It may lack
some transitions.
Paragraphs could
perhaps be ordered
differently. It does
attempt a separate
introduction, body
paragraphs and
conclusion.
There is not one
clear direction so
support is
increasingly vague.
Essay may include
more clichés than
specific details.
Essay tries to cover
too many topics so
it cannot be neatly
organized. It may
lack a conclusion
and not have
enough body
paragraphs. It may
introduce a point at
the end of the essay
that should have
been developed
earlier in the essay.
Support is vague, if
there at all. No
specific details or
examples to illustrate
what writer is trying
to say.
Essay is organized
well overall, but may
include some places
where a new
paragraph should
have been started
and wasn’t, or where
writer jumps to next
topic without a
transition. Essay has
introduction, body
paragraphs and
conclusion.
Essay may include a
few grammatical
errors, but not
enough to get in the
way of
communicating
writer’s ideas.
Essay has no plan of
organization, no
logical order.
At this level paper
Sentence-level
Sentence-level errors
grammatical
errors are found
throughout essay.
mistakes become a
throughout the
Writer has not
problem; there are
essay. It becomes
communicated ideas
more run-ons,
difficult to
clearly.
fragments, point of
understand writer’s
view shifts and
ideas because they
misused words than
are not expressed
in “A” and “B”
clearly.
papers.
Source for the “Four Bases for Revising Essays”: Langan, John. College Writing Skills with Readings, 7 th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008.
Course Topics/Assignment Schedule*:
*Every week you will be expected to participate on the discussion board (at least three times, as described above)
and post journal entries, with the exception of the introductory week, and midterm and final exam weeks.
Intro
1/25-1/31
Read Welcome Letter and journal project handout; Introduction to our Norton Reader, p. 1-9.
Sherman Alexie’s story “Flight Patterns, p. 54-67, and his poem, “Facebook Sonnet,” p. 942.
By 1/31, post your self-introduction to the “Water Cooler” forum. Also by 1/31 post your
response to one of Alexie’s works; talk about how either the story or the poem is related to
current events in our world today. It is required that you post into these discussions by 1/31
so that I can report to the college that you are “attending” the class. You may be dropped
otherwise.
Topics: Welcome/Introduction to course. Introduction of journal project (hand-out). Explore course
site.
Week 1
2/1-2/7
Read Fiction: Reading, Responding, Writing, p. 12-19 and 29-31; Chapter 1: Plot, p. 85-92;
Maupassant, “The Jewelry,” p. 655; Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues,” p. 93; Munro, “Boys and Girls,” p. 152;
and Updike, “A&P,” p. 63; plus lecture notes.
Topics: Elements of a Short Story; Plot.
Week 2
2/8-2/14
Read Chapter 2: Narration and Point of View, p. 174-178; Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado,” p. 178;
Kincaid, “Girl,” p. 184; Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants,” p. 634; and Bambara, “The Lesson,”
p. 146; Reader Response theory handout and lecture notes.
Topics: Narration and Point of View; Introducing Literary Criticism; Reader Response Theory.
Week 3
2/15-2/21
Read Chapter 5, Symbol and Figurative Language, p. 334-340 and Writing About Literature, p. 18851922; Hawthorne, “The Birth-Mark,” p. 339; Danticat, “A Wall of Fire Rising,” p. 366; Chopin, “The
Story of an Hour,” p. 523; Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” p. 526; Psychoanalytic Criticism handout,
lecture notes and Interpretive Essay assignment sheet.
Topics: Symbolism and Figurative Language; Writing About Literature; Psychoanalytic Criticism.
Assign Essay #1: Short Fiction.
Week 4
2/22-2/28
Read Chapter 4, Setting, p. 284-290 and Chapter 6, Theme, p. 383-387; Garcia Marquez, “A Very
Old Man with Enormous Wings,” p. 405; Mukherjee, “The Management of Grief,” p. 432; Lahiri,
“Interpreter of Maladies,” p. 446; and Díaz, “Wildwood,” p. 413; and Feminist Criticism handout and
lecture notes.
Topics: Setting; Theme; Feminist Criticism.
Week 5
2/29-3/6
Read Chapter 3, Character, p. 218-225; Faulkner, “Barn Burning,” p. 225 and “A Rose for Emily,” p.
628; O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” p. 470 and “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” p.
495; lecture notes and Marxist Criticism handout.
By 3/6, Submit Essay #1.
Topics: Character; Southern American literature; Marxist Criticism.
Week 6
3/7-3/13
Midterm Exam (due by 3/13)
Week 7
3/14-3/20
Read Poetry: Reading, Responding, Writing, p. 698-702 and 712-719; Chapter 21, Cultural and
Historical Contexts: The Harlem Renaissance, 1031-1040 (includes Cullen, “Yet Do I Marvel,” p.
1041; Hughes, “Harlem,” p. 1043 and “I, Too,” p. 1045; McKay, “The White House,” p. 1048) and
lecture notes.
Topics: Reading and Responding to Poetry; The Harlem Renaissance.
3/21-3/27 SPRING BREAK: No new materials
Week 8
3/28-4/3
Read Chapter 10, Speaker: Whose Voice Do We Hear?,” p. 735-743 and Chapter 12, Theme and
Tone, p. 794-800; Marge Piercy, “Barbie Doll,” p. 1124; Rita Dove, “Daystar,” p. 762; Linda Pastan,
“Marks,” p. 838, and Sylvia Plath, “Daddy,” p. 1072; lecture notes.
Topics: Speaker, Theme, and Tone; Feminist Poetry.
Week 9
4/4-4/10
Read Chapter 13, Language: Word Choice and Order, p. 822-828 and Chapter 15, Symbol, p 848854; Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken,” p. 856 and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” p.
1116; Seamus Heaney, “Digging,” p. 1116 and David Wagoner, “My Father’s Garden,” p. 753; lecture
notes and Interpretive Essay assignment sheet.
Topics: Language and Symbol; Nature and Human Nature; Assign Essay #2.
Week 10
4/11-4/17
Read Chapter 14, Visual Imagery and Figures of Speech, p. 834-841, Chapter 18, External Form, p.
918-921, and The Sonnet, p. 931-932; Shakespeare, “That time of year thou mayst in me behold,” p.
837, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?,” p. 844, “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,”
p. 933, “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments,” p. 934, and “Let me not to the marriage of true
minds,” p. 934; lecture notes.
Topics: Imagery and Figurative Language; Poetic forms; Shakespeare’s sonnets.
By 4/17, Submit Essay #2
Week 11
4/18-4/24
Read Drama: Reading, Responding, Writing, p. 1152-1165 (includes Glaspell’s Trifles, p. 1155);
Chapter 23, Elements of Drama, p. 1178-1187; Glaspell, “A Jury of Her Peers,” p. 537.
Topics: Reading Plays.
Week 12
4/25-5/1
Read Chapter 25, Cultural and Historical Contexts: Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, p.
1446-1523.
View for extra credit, a film version of A Raisin in the Sun and write one page response by 5/1.
Week 13
5/2-5/8
Read Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, p. 1709-1776.
View film version of Death of a Salesman (borrow from local or college library, or rent on Netflix or
other service; either film version of the play is fine. It’s even available on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFY9w9n4at8 ).
Week 14
5/9-5/13
Final Exam, due by Friday, 5/13. No late Final Exams will be accepted.