English 4W: Critical Reading and Writing
"Unlikely Heroes"
Winter 2014
Instructor: James Reeves
M/W 1-2:50, Bunche 3117
Office Hours: M/W 3-4, HUM A94
jamesreeves@ucla.edu
Course Description
The purpose of this course is to help you develop as a critical thinker and reader. To that
end, we will engage the three major genres of literature (fiction, poetry, and drama)
through the practice of close reading. In other words, we will spend significant amounts
of time analyzing individual literary texts, paying especial attention to the ways in which
both language and form operate. While our reliance on close reading will demand that we
often limit our analysis to the realm of the text itself, we will also explore broader
thematic and intertextual reading practices. And, finally, at the same time that we hone
our critical reading skills, we will also work to translate those skills into critical writing.
Course Theme
This course examines the ways in which the notion of heroism has shifted over time.
More specifically, it will pose the following questions: What makes a certain person or
character worth writing/reading about? How do the texts we will be reading answer this
question? What do their answers say about the respective cultural and historical contexts
in which they were written? What do notions of heroism tell us about gender and class
politics? And, more immediately, why do we care about certain literary heroes?
Required Texts
Course Reader (available at the campus bookstore)
William Shakespeare, Henry IV, part 1
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal
Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
Assignments / Grading
Participation: 15%
Two creative writing assignments (to be posted on CCLE): 10% First due Wednesday
1/22 and second due Monday 2/17
Paper 1: 20% Due Monday 2/3
Paper 2: 30% Due Wednesday 3/12
Final Exam: 25%
Late Policy
Assignments should be turned in at the beginning of class on their respective due dates. I
will only accept hard copies of the two formal essays. Late assignments will be marked
down one-third of a letter grade for each day they are late, and assignments that are more
than a week late will not be accepted.
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Participation
Your participation is necessary to make this class work. You are expected to attend every
class and to take part actively in classroom discussions and activities. While there is no
official attendance policy, you cannot participate if you are not here. It is therefore in
your best interest to be here. If you must miss class, please email me beforehand. If you
do not contact me at least one hour before class, you will automatically lose credit for the
day’s participation grade.
Creative Writing Assignments
This quarter, you will be expected to upload two short creative writing assignments—a
poem and a short story—to the course website. Both assignments should be your own
work and should deal with at least one of the themes we will cover in class. Your writing
need not be formal, as these are creative assignments. We will workshop the poems in the
fourth week of the quarter, and we will workshop the short stories in week seven. More
detailed instructions will be distributed in week two. Instructions are also available on
CCLE.
Formal Papers
You will write two formal essays for this course. Each essay should be 4-5 pages long,
double-spaced, in Times New Roman 12-point font, and should provide an extended
close reading of one of the texts addressed in class. You will not be required to use
outside sources, but you will be expected to make an interesting, intellectually
stimulating argument that wrestles with a specific interpretive dilemma raised by your
chosen text.
Final Exam
1. The final exam will ask you to identify five passages (out of ten) from the course
readings and to provide a brief explication of each identified passage. (50%)
2. You will also be required to write an extended essay in response to one of three
prompts. Your essay should synthesize several of the themes we’ve covered in class, and
it should address multiple texts. (50%)
Classroom Rules:
Treat One Another With Respect: In the course of analyzing literary texts, disagreements
are bound to occur. It is critical, however, that we voice our disagreements respectfully
and remember that this is an academic setting. No one should feel intimidated or belittled
in section. On the other hand, if someone disagrees with your interpretation of a
particular text, remember that it’s not personal.
Technology Policy: Laptops are allowed in class for note-taking purposes. Cell phones
should be silenced and put away.
Communications: My office hours are the best way for me to address substantial queries
outside of class, but you can email brief questions to me at jamesreeves@ucla.edu. I will
typically respond within twenty-four hours on weekdays and within forty-eight hours on
weekends. However, I will not respond to emails sent the day before or after a paper is
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due, or emails sent the day before the final exam. If you have questions about grades,
come see me during office hours.
Plagiarism: As always, the UCLA plagiarism policy is in effect: “Plagiarism includes,
but is not limited to, the use of another’s words or ideas as if they were one’s own,
including but not limited to representing, either with the intent to deceive or by the
omission of the true source, part of an entire work produced by someone other than the
student, obtained by purchase or otherwise, as the student’s original work or representing
the identifiable but altered ideas, data, or writing of another person as if those ideas, data,
or writing were the student’s original work.”
Reading Schedule
Week 1 – Poetry
Mon 1/6: Excerpts from Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey; Stephen Dunn, “To a Terrorist”
Wed 1/8: William Cowper, “The Castaway”; George Herbert, “Death”; Percy Shelley,
“Ozymandias”; William Butler Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”
Week 2 – Poetry
Mon 1/13: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Kubla Kahn”; Tennyson, “Ulysses”
Wed 1/15: W.H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”; John Milton, “On the Late Massacre
in Piedmont”; Charlotte Smith, “Written at the Close of Spring”
Week 3 – Poetry
Mon 1/20: NO CLASS—Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday
Wed 1/22: Anna Laetitia Barbauld, “The Rights of Woman”; T.S. Eliot, “Cousin Nancy”;
Sharon Olds, “The One Girl at the Boys’ Party”; Anne Sexton, “Cinderella”; Creative
Poem Due on CCLE
Week 4 – Poetry/Drama
Mon 1/27: William Blake, “The Chimney Sweeper”; Sylvia Plath, “Edge”; Poems
Workshop
Wed 1/29: Shakespeare, Henry IV, part 1
Week 5 – Drama/Short Fiction
Mon 2/3: Sheridan, The School for Scandal; First Formal Essay Due
Wed 2/5: Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener; Jean Rhys, “On Not Shooting Sitting
Birds”; Stephen Crane, “The Blue Hotel”; Kirk Vonnegut, Jr., “The Manned Missiles”
Week 6 – Fiction
Mon 2/10: Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
Wed 2/12: Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy
Week 7 – Fiction
Mon 2/17: NO CLASS—Presidents’ Day Holiday; Short Stories due on CCLE
Wed 2/19: Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy; Short Stories Workshop
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Week 8 – Fiction
Mon 2/24: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Wed 2/26: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Week 9 – Fiction/Film
Mon 3/3: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Wed 3/5: Out of the Past
Week 10 – Film
Mon 3/10: Out of the Past
Wed 3/12: Final Exam; Second Formal Essay Due
Student Resources
Plagiarism
Plagiarism includes presenting someone’s words, ideas, (any other person’s intellectual
product) as if they were your own. If you use someone else’s work without quoting or
citing completely, you have committed plagiarism and will fail the assignment and/or the
course, be reported to the Dean of Students, and possibly be dismissed from UCLA. Do
not use any outside sources; do not submit the same paper more than once; if you have a
question, please ask us. When in doubt, cite it. For further information on UCLA’s
plagiarism policy, please visit http://www.deanofstudents.ucla.edu/conduct.html.
OSD
If you wish to request an accommodation due to a suspected or documented disability,
please inform your instructor and contact the Office for Students with Disabilities as soon
as possible at A255 Murphy Hall, (310) 825-1501, (310) 206-6083(telephone device for
the deaf). Website: www.osd.ucla.edu <http://www.osd.ucla.edu/>
Student Writing Center
The Student Writing Center offers one-on-one sessions. The Center is staffed by peer
learning facilitators (PLFs), undergraduates who are trained to help at any stage in the
writing process and with writing assignments from across the curriculum. Locations:
A61 Humanities; Reiber 115 (for dorm residents only). Phone: 310-206-1320. Website:
www.wp.ucla.edu
Counseling and Psychological Services
Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) is a valuable campus resource for selfcare. According to the CAPS website: “In the broadest terms, the mission of CAPS is to
promote academic achievement and reduce attrition and impediments to academic
success. In carrying out this charge, our mission is three-fold and reflects the needs of a
diverse campus community: (1) to promote positive personal growth and selfmanagement by UCLA students; (2) to assist students in coping with increasingly
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complex and stressful emotional crises, trauma and mental health issues which may
interfere with academic and personal functioning; and (3) to enhance the psychological
well being and safety of the campus community.”
Website: http://www.counseling.ucla.edu/ <http://www.counseling.ucla.edu/>