Course Syllabus
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ENL 03: Introduction to English Literature
TR 4:10PM-6:10PM
167 Olson
Office Hours: 281 Voorhies
TR 10:00AM-11:00AM or by appointment
Week 10: 11/29-12/1
Course Description: This course will seek to introduce students to some of the high water marks of English Literature from the 9th to the 20th centuries. The texts we will cover, much like English as a language itself, will come from a wide range of sources, influences, authors, and styles. Students will trace English-ness from some of its deepest roots in the poetic ballad Beowulf, draw connections between Italian and English authors in the middle ages in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and explore the ties between Ancient Rome, Early Modern London, and Revolutionary France in the proto- science fiction classic, Frankenstein. Additional texts include selections from Shakespeare, Joseph Conrad, Rudyard Kipling, Wilfred Owen, and others.
The connections we draw in the class will develop students’ understanding of important questions, themes, and conversations in both Anglophone society and the wider world. Questions like what impact the shift from Latin to English had on society, how English-ness changed in the colonial era, and how writing in English has diversified over the course of 1,000 years will be at the center of our discussions and student assignments.
The emphasis of the grading structure in this course will be on close reading, analysis, and interpretation through critical engagement and sustained, guided discussion. Discussions will be supplemented by short lectures and readings that provide historical, cultural, and literary contexts for each piece. The course may be counted toward satisfaction of the University Writing requirement in all undergraduate colleges. Accordingly, students will write several papers and will have the opportunity to revise some of their work.
Prerequisite: None.
GE credit (New): Arts & Humanities, World Cultures, and Writing Experience.
Format: Discussion; Extensive Writing.
Course Goals:
To introduce you to representative literary, dramatic, and poetic texts in English from the earliest examples through the early 20th century.
To help you situate these texts in their historical, cultural and literary contexts.
To encourage the development of critical, analytical engagement with texts and historical situations.
To hone your abilities in the craft of scholarly, argumentative writing, especially through practicing critique and revision.
Texts:
Beowulf - Translated by Seamus Heaney. Norton Edition (2001) ISBN: 978-0393320978
Frankenstein- Norton Critical Edition edited by J. Paul Hunter (2021) ISBN: 978-0393644029
A Midsummer Night’s Dream- Folger Shakespeare Edition, 2004. Simon & Schuster; Updated edition. ISBN: 978-0743477543
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight- Translated by W.S. Merwin. Knopf; Reprint edition (March 30, 2004). ISBN: 978-0375709920.
Beowulf, Frankenstein, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream are available through the digital bookshelf on our Canvas site. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will be in hard copy. All other texts will be available in pdf format on the Canvas site under the files tab.
Grading:
Attendance/Participation: 10%
Short Responses (3): 2-3pp (300-500 words): 10%/each
Midterm Essay- 5-7pp (1500-2100 words): 25%
Self-Review-1-2pp (300-500 words): 10%
Final Essay- 5-7pp (1500-2100 words): 25%
Attendance/Participation: To receive full points in this category, you must attend all course meetings (apart from 1 excused absence, which I leave up to your discretion to use); you should arrive punctually and actively contribute to discussion in an informed manner. “Informed” participation can only happen if you study the assigned material before class meetings and if you bring the assigned text (or device to review online and Canvas readings on days these are assigned) to class with you. Thoughtful questions and comments count as high-quality participation because they facilitate learning; so too does active engagement in paired and group discussions.
Written Assignments:
Please Note: This course meets the requirements set forth by the University for a course satisfying a portion of the University Writing Requirement. Therefore, in this course you are asked to write at least 6000 words over the course of the quarter, and you must submit all writing assignments to receive a letter grade for the class. Failure to submit any of the writing assignments will result in an overall failure of the course regardless of a calculated percentage grade. All assignments and responses will be turned in on Canvas.
Short Response: Short writing responses are meant to get you thinking critically about a text we are reading. Prompts will ask students to think about a particular theme or issue related to class discussions, and they will often ask students to gather some evidence to prove their claims. Responses will be between 700-1000 words in length, and are due on Sundays of the assignment week at midnight. Prompts will be released at least one week prior to the due date and students are welcome to use these responses to prepare for the longer analytical papers later in the quarter.
Midterm and Final Essays: Two times this quarter students will be asked to write an essay of around 5-7pp (1500-2100 words) that analyzes and interprets specific elements, themes, threads, tropes, motifs, and patterns that you find interesting or important to the text(s) we are studying in class. On a broader scale, these essays represent one of the various ways you will be asked to interrogate our selections with an eye for understanding the significance of both ancient writing and its modern evolution. More specifically, this assignment is designed to test students’ abilities to provide compelling arguments with substantial evidence and logical organization over a longer piece than the Short Response. Submissions will be on Canvas and prompts will be posted two weeks in advance whenever possible.
Once I have graded and returned the Midterm Essay, students will be given the opportunity to revise and re-submit the paper by the end of the quarter. Students will be given the higher grade of the two submissions. Please Note: I will not accept a re-submission of an Essay without a completed Self-Review.
Self-Review: After I have returned the Midterm Essay students will be required to perform a Self-Review that will be due by the last day of instruction. The review will consist of a 1-2pg (300-700 word) critique of the ideas and execution from the first submission of the paper, where students will specify where and how their essays failed to provide compelling arguments, either based on my comments or your own updated understandings of the concepts and ideas at hand. Self-Reviews will be evaluated on the level of input in analyzing the relevant faults of the larger piece (i.e., do not simply summarize my comments), as well as your ability to fix these faults in the re-submission. The 1-2pg review (300-700words) must address these two main issues:
What went wrong? What did you want to communicate to your readers, and how did that communication fail in some way? This might be a paragraph that started out with a descriptive sentence, thereby burying its purpose, or it might be a vague choice of words that failed to communicate a specific feeling or tone you wanted to convey. In any case, ask yourself how the steps you took in writing your paper missed the mark in getting your point across. More specific points to think about might be:
What did you want your argument to prove? What did you prove with the work you have done so far?
What evidence did you select? Was this evidence the right choice?
Was there an issue with a particular wording of a concept or idea?
Does your argument break down at all? Is there a gap between what you have and what you need to demonstrate?
How does your organization help you make your point? What could be improved in this regard?
Are there proofreading or editing mistakes? Is your language clear and concise?
- What went missing? What can you point to that you did not include in your essay the first time around? What would have made it clearer, more compelling, etc.? This could be a quote, an argument, a line of reasoning/questioning, or even something as simple as a more specific verb in your thesis. Often hindsight is the best editor, so think about how you might have taken a different approach or brought in different sources to argue your point. In your edits, make sure to demonstrate your understanding of these mistakes by providing the missing links you identify in this section.
Miscellaneous:
Late Policy: Unexcused late assignments will be marked down 5% for every day they are not submitted to Canvas after the due date. If you are concerned about being late on an assignment, please do not hesitate to ask for an extension. I am incredibly lenient about giving students a few extra days to complete work, as there are very few literature emergencies, but I cannot do so unless I am contacted beforehand. Extenuating circumstances will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Food Policy: Drinks are fine if they are covered and if you clean up and dispose of/recycle garbage afterward. Food is fine as long as you can eat it quietly and unobtrusively.
Students with Disabilities: The University of California, Davis, is committed to ensuring equal educational opportunities for students with disabilities. An integral part of that commitment is the coordination of specialized academic support services through the Student Disability Center (SDC). I encourage students who believe they need such accommodation to contact the SDC early in the term. Detailed information on policies, procedures, and resources related to disabilities can be found at this link: https://sdc.ucdavis.edu/Links to an external site..
Resources for Citing Works: Consult the UC Davis library guide on citation practices for directions on citing sources in the humanities: http://guides.lib.ucdavis.edu/citations. You may also find the Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) site helpful in this regard. Avoid plagiarism: all material from other sources, whether quoted directly or paraphrased, must be attributed in all written products submitted under your name. Please consult me if you need help determining what is or is not plagiarism.
UC Davis Code of Academic Conduct: I take academic integrity seriously and will report cases of academic dishonesty to Student Judicial Affairs: All members of the academic community are responsible for the academic integrity of the Davis campus. Existing policies forbid cheating on examinations, plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty. Academic dishonesty is contrary to the purposes of the University and is not to be tolerated. Examples of academic misconduct include:
Receiving or providing unauthorized assistance on examinations
Using or having unauthorized materials out during an examination
Plagiarism - using materials from sources without citations
Altering an exam and submitting it for re-grading
Fabricating data or references
Using false excuses to obtain extensions of time
Course Reading and Assignment Schedule: Students are responsible for reading the texts in Bold for each scheduled class meeting. Additional texts (in italics) will be used for comparison in class discussions and are available as extra reading at students’ convenience.
Week 0: 9/22
Tuesday 9/20
Thursday9/22
No Class
Introductions- no reading
Week 1: 9/27-9/29
Tuesday 9/27
Thursday 9/29
Beowulf
Beowulf
Short Response Due Sunday by midnight, October 2nd
Week 2: 10/4-10/6
Tuesday 10/4
Thursday 10/6
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Fits I and II
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Fits III and IV
Week 3: 10/11-10/13
Tuesday 10/11
Thursday 10/13
William Shakespeare- A Midsummer Night’s Dream Acts 1-3
William Shakespeare- A Midsummer Night’s Dream Acts 4-5
Short Response Due Sunday, October 16th by midnight
Week 4: 10/18-10/20
Tuesday 10/18
Thursday 10/20
Selections from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
Selections from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
Week 5: 10/25-10/27
Tuesday 10/25
Thursday 10/27
Selections from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
Selections from Bocaccio’s The Decameron
Week 6: 11/1-11/3
Tuesday 11/1
Thursday 11/3
Selections of Romantic Poetry
No Reading
Midterm Essay due Sunday November 6th by midnight
Week 7: 11/8-11/10
Tuesday 11/8
Thursday 11/10
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Week 8: 11/15-11/17
Tuesday 11/15
Thursday 11/17
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Short Response due Sunday, November 20th by midnight
Week 9: 11/22-11/24
Tuesday 11/22
Thursday 11/24
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Thanksgiving Holiday- No Class
Week 10: 11/29-12-1
Tuesday 11/29 Thursday 12/1
Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness
TBD
Self-Review Due Friday, December 2nd by midnight
Midterm Essay Resubmission due Friday, December 2nd by midnight
Final Essay due during Finals Week