English 102 - 10: Folklore and Mythology Instructor: Sarah Newhouse Instructor email: snewhous@camden.rutgers.edu Office: Armitage 467 Office hours: T Th 12:00-1:30 Class meets: T Th 1:30-2:50 ATG 105 Welcome to English 102! In this course we will build upon the writing skills that you learned and utilized in English 101, now adding research skills that will enable you to create a polished, college-level researched paper. Essential to this process will be your ability and willingness to use the library’s resources (in person and online), construct open but directed research questions, analyze primary and secondary sources, and correctly integrate secondary material into your own analytical argument. You will also be required to make heavy and thoughtful revisions to your papers throughout the writing process, and to submit writing at every stage of the research process. The class – and thus your graded performance -- may also include any of the following: peer review of written work, class workshops, individual and group presentations of research, group work in class, short in-class writing assignments, quizzes, research-based homework assignments, library trips, and instructor conferences. As the subject matter for this course, we will be reading fairy tales, myths, and folklore, along with scholarship on these stories. The primary readings we do (the stories themselves) will cover a wide ranger of cultures and formats, including Japanese ghost stories, Scandinavian epic poetry, Disney movies, Marvel comic books, and American folk heroes. The secondary material we cover will mostly be scholarship about folklore from different disciplines, but students are encouraged to investigate scholarship from all fields while constructing their independent research projects. Central to this class will be the themes that pervade all folklore and types of stories that are found around the world and throughout the centuries. The stories that fascinated your ancestors are likely the same ones that continue to fascinate readers, moviegoers, and consumers today, and as a class I hope we can discuss and investigate why people continue to be so fascinated with the same stories. Required Texts: Faigley, Lester. The Brief Penguin Handbook. 3rd ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2009. Cole, Joanna. Best-Loved Folktales of the World. New York: Anchor Books, 1982. Graded Assignments Paper 1 (5-7 pages): 20% Paper 2 (8-10 pages): 30% Annotated Bibliography and Research Proposal: 10% Presentation: 5% Participation: 10% Informal Writing and Quizzes: 10% Final Portfolio: 15% Grading Scale: A, B+, B, C+, C, D, F Course Policies Attendance: In this course, you are allowed to miss five classes without any penalty to your final grade. For every class period missed after five, your final course grade will drop by a full letter grade. For example, if you have six unexcused absences and a B at the end of the semester, your grade will drop to a C. If you miss 10 classes but receive an A on every assignment, you will earn a D for the course. These absences do not, of course, include excused absences like documented illness, band trips, sports games and tournaments, and other important events. If you are participating in an event of which you have prior knowledge, then I need to see documentation, with an official Rutgers University letterhead, at least a week before the class you will miss. During this course we will have two one-to-one conferences and each of these counts as two days of attendance. If you miss a conference without a legitimate excuse, this takes up two of your five allowed absences. Also note that tardiness is disruptive to the class and disrespectful to me and to your classmates. Please make an effort to be in the classroom on time. Excessive tardiness will bring down your participation grade. If you arrive late and miss all or part of an in-class quiz or assignment, you will not be allowed to make it up or be given extra time to complete it. If you are more than 30 minutes late you will be marked absent for the day. Classroom behavior: Any disruptive student will be asked to leave class for the day and marked as absent. Disruptive behavior is anything that interferes with my capacity to teach or your classmates' capacity to learn. This includes behavior like text messaging, talking on cell phones, playing computer games, checking email, snoring loudly, talking to classmates, reading newspapers, and doing homework assignments for other classes. I'm investing myself in our class during the time we are there, as are your classmates. You are expected to do the same. Turn your cell phone ringers off before class starts. Any student who comes to class unprepared (without reading material or note-taking material, hasn’t read the assigned text, etc) will also be asked to leave and marked absent. Paper format: Papers written for this class should be written in New Times Roman 12 pt font, double spaced, with 1 inch margins. They should all have your name, the course name (English 102), my name and the date in the upper left-hand corner. Papers should follow MLA format for grammar and citations as it is outlined in your Penguin Handbook. You must staple your papers before you come to class. Please note that whenever you turn in a final draft you must also hand in your rough draft (whichever version has my comments on it). If you fail to write a rough draft at all, your final paper grade will be reduced by one letter grade. Late papers will result in a full letter grade deduction for every day that they are late. For example, an A paper turned in one day late will receive a B. And an A paper turned in four days late will receive an F. Please note that these are weekdays and not class periods. If you do not turn your paper in during our class on Tuesday, I expect you to make arrangements with me to turn it in on Wednesday. I do not accept any papers by email. If you have any questions about a grade you earned, I will be happy to discuss the grade and my grading process with you. My only requests are that you wait at least 48 hours after the papers have been returned before you come to see me, and that you bring to our meeting a written (typed) argument for why you think the grade should be altered. Revisions and re-writes: I have an “open re-write” policy. Revisions will be accepted throughout the semester, until the date on which your final portfolio is due. The only requirement is that you meet with me to discuss your paper. If you are willing to take the time to consider my comments and put the effort into a thoughtful revision, then I am more than happy to take the time to grade it. Please note somewhere on the revised paper that it is a revision and turn it in with the original graded version. Participation and discussion leaders. At the beginning of the semester, you will sign up for three days during which you will be one of the class discussion leaders – at least one must be after Spring Break. In our second class we will go over how to create productive discussion questions, a skill that will serve you well in your college career. The day you lead our discussion of a text you will bring 3-4 questions to class, and be prepared to present them to the class in some format (write them on the board, printed on an overhead transparency, in a PowerPoint presentation, etc). You will also turn in a 250-300 word, type-written response to one of these questions. The quality of your questions, how well you are able to engage the class in discussion, and the quality of your written response paper will determine your grade for this activity. Participation in the class on a daily basis is an important part of your grade. Participating means asking questions, contributing to discussion, and being prepared for class by bringing the required books, homework, writing utensils, etc. If you are uncomfortable speaking in class, please see me at the beginning of the semester. During the second half of the semester, you will give a presentation on the research you are conducting for Paper 2 to share your findings with your classmates. We will discuss the requirements for this presentation after Spring Break. Plagiarism and academic dishonesty will not be tolerated. Plagiarism in any form and assignments with any plagiarized content will not be accepted and will result in immediate failure the assignment. Examples of plagiarism include passing another student's work off as your own; failing to report your source for a fact, quotation, or idea; and receiving too much help on an assignment (to the point that the words and ideas are no longer your own). Any apparent academic dishonesty will be reported to the Judicial Officer in the Office of Student Affairs and may result in your failure of the course. Computer and internet access. Most of our primary reading material will come from our book, Best-Loved Folktales, but all of our secondary material will come from online sources, including journals available through the Rutgers Libraries website and e-reserve. I will also frequently notify you of homework assignments, new readings, and revised schedules via email. You must have regular access to the Internet, Rutgers webmail, and a printer in order to take this class. If any of these requirements will be a problem, please see me as soon as possible. Daily Schedule Tuesday, January 20th Introduction First-day essay Thursday, January 22nd Handout on research Using library website and JSTOR demo Reading: PHB Ch 1 “Think as a Writer,” Ch 2 “Plan and Draft” Tuesday, January 27th Reading: “Cinderella” (e-reserve), “Beauty and The Beast” (8-23) “Sleeping Beauty” (137-139), “Hansel and Gretel” (145-151) Handout: Propp’s 33 Tale Types Thursday, January 29th Reading: (JSTOR) Lieberman, Marcia R. “Someday My Prince Will Come: Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale.”College English, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Dec., 1972), pp. 383-395. Best-Loved Folktales: “The Indian Cinderella” (694-696) Tuesday, February 3rd Reading: “Snow White” (53-61), Neil Gaiman’s “Snow White” (e-reserve) PHB Ch 5 “Read and View with a Critical Eye,” Ch 6 “Write to Analyze,” Ch 12 “Write About Literature” Thesis statements: how to write ‘em Thursday, February 5th Reading: (JSTOR) Stone, Kay. “Things Walt Disney Never Told Us.” The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 88, No. 347, Women and Folklore (Jan. - Mar., 1975), pp. 42-50. PHB Ch 17 “Find and Evaluate Sources in Databases” Tuesday, February 10th Ghost Stories Reading: TBA Thursday, February 12th Reading: (JSTOR): “Bloody Mary in the Mirror: A Ritual Reflection of Pre-Pubescent Anxiety.” Western Folklore, Vol. 57, No 2/3 (Spring-Summer, 1998), pp 119-135. Rough draft Paper 1 due Tuesday, February 17th NO CLASS – Individual mandatory conferences with instructor Thursday, February 19th NO CLASS – Individual mandatory conferences with instructor Tuesday, February 24th Tricksters Reading: “Anansi’s Hat-Shaking Dance” (615-617), “Anansi and His Visitor, Turtle” (618-619), “How the Spider Obtained the Sky-God’s Stories” (620-623), “Señor Coyote and The Dogs” (687-688) Thursday, February 26th Reading: (JSTOR) “The North American Indian Trickster,” Mac Linscott Ricketts. History of Religions, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Winter, 1966), pp. 327-350. PHB Ch 8 “Write to Inform,” Ch 9 “Write Arguments” Tuesday, March 3rd American Folklore Reading: “Paul Bunyan’s Cornstalk” (668-671) Online reading from www.americanfolklore.net: Johnny Appleseed, The Birth of Paul Bunyan, Babe the Blue Ox, Davy Crockett and the Frozen Dawn Online reading from http://www.jerseyhistory.org/legend_jerseydevil.html Thursday, March 5th Final draft Paper 1 due Library workshop Hand out Paper 2 PHB Ch 16 “Plan Your Research” Tuesday, March 10th Urban legends Reading from snopes.com: Swap Meat, Death of Little Mikey, The Microwaved Pet, Pins and Needles, Bloody Mary HW for Thurs: pick three (untrue) urban legends from snopes.com and identify the fears or issues that they represent Thursday, March 12th Reading: (e-reserve) “New Legends for Old,” The Vanishing Hitchhiker. Brunvand, Jan Harold. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1981. PHB Ch 18 “Find and Evaluate Sources on the Web,” Ch 19 “Find and Evaluate Print Sources” March 14th-March 22nd Spring Break Tuesday, March 24th Annotated Bibliography and Research Proposal Due How to Read a Book Thursday, March 26th Reading: “The Tinderbox” (358-364) Reading: PHB Ch 21 “Incorporate Sources and Avoid Plagiarism” Tuesday, March 31st Reading: PHB Ch 27, “Write with Power,” Ch 28 “Write Concisely,” Ch 29 “Write with Emphasis” Thursday, April 2nd Presentations Tuesday, April 7th Presentations continued Grammar review day Thursday, April 9th Reading: PHB Ch 30 “Find the Right Words,” Ch 31 “Write to Be Inclusive” Rough draft Paper 2 due In-class peer review Tuesday, April 14th NO CLASS – Individual mandatory conferences with instructor Thursday, April 16th NO CLASS – Individual mandatory conferences with instructor Tuesday, April 21st Reading: PHB Ch 22 “Write and Revise the Research Project” Thursday, April 23rd Reading: (e-reserve) “Irish Tales and Story-Tellers.” Seamus O Duilearga Tuesday, April 28th Reading: Students’ Choice (TBA) Thursday, April 30th Wrap-up, Evaluations, and Final Thoughts Final draft of Paper 2 is due during finals week, during our assigned “exam” time: Friday, May 8th 2:00 – 5:00 pm (Armitage 467) Please contact me before exam week if you need to make special arrangements to turn the final paper in before the assigned date.