The University of Alberta

English 101: Critical Reading and Writing

2002-2003  Section M8 Tues. and Thurs.9:30-11:00

 

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Objectives:  This course will concentrate on the critical reading of representative works selected primarily from both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including essays, novels, plays, poems, and short stories.  Works to be studied will reflect the generic, stylistic, and geographical range of writing (both traditional and experimental) in English. Through instruction in close critical reading and in writing skills, this course aims to help students become better thinkers and clearer writers.

 

Texts:

Stott, et al. The Harbrace Anthology of Literature, 3rd edition  (Nelson)   

Farvolden and Lumsden,  The Prentice Hall Classic Short Prose Reader (Prentice-Hall)

Shelley, Frankenstein (The original 1818 text, Broadview)

Kogawa, Obasan (Penguin)

Hacker, A Canadian Pocket Style Manual (Bedford)

 

Evaluation:

Term Work             70% of final grade

Final Exam            30% of final grade (2 hours; questions for all exams will be drawn both from lecture content and from works covered in tutorial)


 

Distribution of Term Marks

1 - 500 word essay                                       0% 

1 - 750 word essay                                       10% 

1-  1000 word essay                                    10 %

1 - 1500 word essay                                    15%

1 - 2000 word essay                                    25%

Mid-term Exam                                    10 %

Christmas mid-session exam                        15%

In Class Writing                                    5%

Class participation                                       10%

Total term work                                    100%

 

Grading System

9 = 90-100%   A/A+            Excellent

8 = 80-89%    A/A-             Excellent

7 = 73-79%    B/B+    Good 

6 = 65-72%    B-/C+  Good 

5 = 58-64%      C                  Satisfactory

4 = 50-57%    C-/D             Satisfactory (pass)

3 = 46-49%      F               Unsatisfactory (fail)

2 = 35-45%      F             Unsatisfactory (fail)

1 = 0-34%        F             Unsatisfactory (fail)

 

 

 


Instructions and Regulations

1.   Essays are to be handed in at the beginning of class and to be your own. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense (please consult the attached handout).

2.   Absolutely no extensions on assignments without medical certificates.  Late papers will be docked 5% per day.  Essays will not be accepted that are more than one week late.

3.  Class Participation includes attendance, having reading done before class, actively engaging in group and general discussion, completing activities assigned to be done before a specific class, writing of short, impromptu assignments given during a class.


 

Tentative Course Outline for English 101 -- Section M8

This schedule is subject to additions and/or deletions. We will take up the assigned readings on the designated date unless otherwise specified;  you are expected to have the entire work read for the date noted.

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Term 1

 

Sept.    5             Introduction

                        Diagnostic essay assigned

 

10                Key concepts and “Bartleby the Scrivener” (Harbrace)

 

12        Discussion of literary and critical terms,  Atwood’s “Amnesty International: An Address” (Prose Reader)

Diagnostic essay collected

 

            17            Swift, “A Modest Proposal,” (Prose Reader) Politics and Ideology

                       

            19            Discussion, Diagnostic essay returned and distribute topics for Essay 2

 

24            Kogawa, Obasan

 

26            Discussion

 

Oct      1            Kogawa, Obasan

 

            3            Discussion and Essay 2 Due

 

8          Wollstonecraft “A Vindication…” (from the Prose Reader), Gilman “The Yellow Wall-paper,” (Harbrace) and Adrienne Rich, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” (Harbrace)

 

            10            Discussion

 

            15            MacLeod, “The Boat” (Harbrace)

 

            17            Discussion and return essay two and distribute topics for Essay 3

 

            22            Shakespeare, The Tempest (Harbrace)

 

            24            Midterm Exam

 

            29            Shakespeare, The Tempest (Harbrace)

 

            31            Discussion

 

Nov     5            Conrad, “An Outpost of Progress,” (Harbrace) Tennyson “Ulysses,” (Harbrace) and Imperialism

 

            7            Essay 3 Due

 

            12            University closed: class cancelled

 

            14            Nationalism, Yeats, “Easter 1916” (Harbrace) and Joyce, “Araby” (Harbrace)

 

19        First Nations, King, “Borders,” (Harbrace) Dumont, “Letter to Sir John A.” (Harbrace) and “The Rant”

 

21            Web Assignment

           

26                Cyberculture

 

Wendell Berry: “Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer”

http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/%7Etipiglen/berrynot.html;

 

John Perry Barlow: “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” http://www.eff.org/%7Ebarlow/Declaration-Final.html

 

Gertrude Himmelfarb: “A Neo-Luddite Reflects on the Internet”

http://www.uic.edu/depts/engl/projects/tictoc/news/himmelfa.htm

 

            28            Discussion

 

Dec      3            Exam Review, Return web assignment

 

Dec. 17            Midsession Exam, 9:00 am (in class)

 

 

Term 2

 

Jan.      7            Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” “The

world is too much with us,” Keats, “Ode to a Nightingale,” “Ode on a

Grecian Urn,” Shelley, “Ozymandias” (all selections in the Harbrace)

 

            9            Exam Return

 

            14            Library Assignment

 

            16            Topics for Essay 4

 

            21            Shelley, Frankenstein

 

            23            Shelley, Frankenstein, cultural criticism, James Whale’s Frankensteins

 

            28            The Gothic, Poe “Fall of the House of Usher” (Harbrace)

 

            30            Discussion

 

Feb      4            Essay as Narrative: White “Once More the Lake,” David Suzuki, “The

Pain of Animals,” and James Thurber, “University Days” (all selections in the Prose Reader)

 

            6            Essay 4 Due

 

11        Post-colonialism, Clarke, “The Motor Car,” (Harbrace) Walcott, “Ruins of a Great House” (Harbrace)

 

13            Discussion and topics for Essay 5

 

Reading week February 18 and 20

 

25            Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (Harbrace)

 

27            Discussion

 

Mar      4            Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (Harbrace)

 

            6            Discussion

 

11                Lyric poetry and subjectivity: Jonson “On My First Son,” Bradstreet,

Shakespeare, “Sonnet 130” (all selections in the Harbrace)

           

13            Discussion

 

18        Plath, “Daddy” and Dickinson, “The Soul selects her own society,” and “Because I could not stop for Death” (all selections in the Harbrace)

 

            20            Essay 5 Due

 

25        T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock” (Harbrace) and Leonard Cohen, “Closing Time” (Harbrace)

 

            27            Discussion

 

April     1            Mistry, “Squatter” (Harbrace)

 

            3            Discussion

           

8                    Term Review

 

April 14            Final Exam, 9:00 am (in class)