Comp. Lit. 403
Comprehensive Literature 403
Ms. Lindsay Green
greenli@champaignschools.org
“You want tangible, social
benefits to writing fiction?
There are people walking
around today because
other people wrote words
that spoke to them.
That’ll do.”
217.552.3246
Major Units of Study:
creative non-fiction
short fiction
Sula by Toni Morrison
Poetry
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
chargerlit.weebly.com
Major Assessments:
College/Narrative essay
Critical lens extended responses
Sula essay
Poetry analyses tests
Hamlet creative analyses
Final critical essay
- Warren Ellis, novelist
The Big Idea: The more you know about what others think and feel, the better you are able to engage
socially. People who read literary fiction (and creative non-fiction) are better on tests measuring empathy,
social perception and emotional intelligence — skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to
read someone’s body language or gauge what they might be thinking.
Needed Materials:
Suggested Materials:
A writing utensil every day and a writer’s notebook (my gift to you)
A binder or section of a binder for this class
Grading: This class follows a traditional grading system. The grading scale is as follows:
70%
Major grades (essays, performance projects, speeches, tests, etc.)
15%
Minor grades (quizzes, writer’s notebook, homework, daily tasks)
15%
Final (essay-based)
90-100 = A
80-89= B
70-79 = C
60-69 = D
59 and below = F
Late Work: Assignments submitted after their due dates will be subjected to a grade penalty.
1 day late
- 10% from overall score
2 days late
- 30% from overall grade
3+ days late
- 50% from overall grade
Absences: You have two days to make up your work for every one day you are absent.
Essay Revisions: If you are not satisfied with an essay grade, you may revise once to raise your score. In order to
receive credit for your revision, you must:
save a new copy of the essay and rename it as “Revised _____ Essay.”
send me an email to inform me of your revision no later than a week after the essay was returned.
Plagiarism and cheating will result in zero credit with no opportunity to make up the assignments.
Absences: You may submit make up work for all absences. It is your responsibility to collect assignments from my
website (updated daily). You should seek any additional instructions from me before or after school or via email.
Essay Revisions: If you are not satisfied with an essay grade, you may revise to raise your grade. In order to receive
credit for your revision, you must:
schedule and attend a paper conference with me before/after school or via email
submit both the graded first draft and the revised draft
Plagiarism and cheating will result in zero credit with no opportunity to make up the assignments.
Comp. Lit. 403
WHY READING TOLSTOY WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER BOSS
LITERATURE SHARPENS YOUR SOCIAL SKILLS, AND WHO DOESN’T NEED
THEIR SOCIAL SKILLS SHARPENED? BY DRAKE BAER
Reading literature isn't only good for showing off how smart you are to your friends; it can also advance your career.
That's because, as a new study published in the journal Nature shows, the right books can give you training in
empathy. According to the New York Times Well blog:
(The study) found that after reading literary fiction, as opposed to popular fiction or serious nonfiction,
people performed better on tests measuring empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence-skills that come in especially handy when you are trying to read someone’s body language or gauge
what they might be thinking.
Why should we have The Brothers Karamazov tucked under our arms on our way to work?
Because the "soft skills" of empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence are major difference makers. First of
all, they're things that robots can't (yet) do better than us. Second, if you're in a company loaded with conceptual
brainpower--like, say, Google--then soft skills will differentiate you from the eggheads. And third, people are
recognizing that empathy is a primary leadership tool--the surest way to co-investment--so anything that trains us in
empathy is an asset.
“A novel
simulates life in
the same way
that a driving
game simulates
a race.”
The way the researchers found this out is fascinating.
How to find a feel for feeling:
Psychology professor Emanuele Castano and doctoral student David Comer Kidd found
subjects via Amazon's Mechanical Turk, the bookseller's marketplace for small jobs at small
pay--which got their sample set beyond the usual collection of college students. So folks
between 18 and 75 were paid $2 or $3 to read a few minutes. Some were given excerpts of
high-end literary fiction (think Don DeLillo), while others read a best seller like Gillian
Flynn's Gone Girl, or an article from Discover magazine.
Then, after reading, the participants took tests that measured their ability to understand how people were feeling by
their expression. In a test called "Reading the Mind in the Eyes," participants studied 36 photographs of pairs of eyes
and chose one of four adjectives to best describe the emotion therein.
The folks that read the literary fiction had the best scores, the nonfiction readers were in the middle, and the readers
of popular fiction did as bad as those who read nothing. So much for 50 Shades of Grey.
What about serious fiction that makes it so good for our emotional intelligence?
A novel simulates life in the same way that a driving game simulates a race.
Albert Wendland, a director of the master's program in writing at Seton Hill University, explained as much to the New
York Times:
Reading sensitive and lengthy explorations of people's lives, that kind of fiction is literally putting
yourself into another person's position--lives that could be more difficult, more complex, more than what
you might be used to in popular fiction. It makes sense that they will find that, yeah, that can lead to
more empathy and understanding of other lives.
Add that to the business case for the English major.