Pimomo Office: L&L 408F; Phone: 963-1553; email: pimomop@cwu.edu
Office hours MTWTh: 11:00-12:00 & by appointment
Class days: Monday through Thursday.
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Text:
R. S. Gwynn, Literature: A Pocket Anthology. 3rd ed., Penguin, 2006
The Course:
This course offers a selection of stories, poems and plays from chiefly North American and British
writers in English. These works are compelling records of human experience and imagination that
have the power to delight and instruct or annoy and frustrate in meaningful ways, or to do all of
these things at the same time.
Goal:
We shall try to think and feel our way through these texts so that we can say with Gloucester in
Shakespeare’s King Lear: “I see it feelingly.” In other words, we shall approach these samples of
good literature as invitations to seeing and feeling, as addresses to our heads and hearts.
Learning Method: Participatory.
The course will proceed mostly on a class discussion format. The purpose of the course is to
make you better readers, thinkers and writers. This is more likely to happen, I think, with all of us
contributing constructively to our goal than with my lecturing away to glory. This class is an
interactive, collaborative community. Every member’s participation is absolutely necessary. Since
we will be responsible--individually and as a class--for generating and developing ideas, I may
single you out to speak up. When that happens, enjoy the spotlight.
Attendance Policy:
Attendance and consistent effort are crucial to success in this class. Hence regular attendance is
required.
The 4th absence lowers your grade by a full letter (example: B = C)
The 5th or more equals F for the class.
Outcomes:
1. Read and understand basic formal features and contents of literary works.
2. Recognize figurative language and see the ways in which it shapes literary meanings and colors
our response to the content.
3. Relate texts to relevant historical and contemporary circumstances.
4. Participate in class discussions and write thoughtfully about literature in the ways that reflect
the three outcomes described above.
Plagiarism:
Using someone else’s paper as your own, or having someone else write for you, or lifting parts of
other people’s work without properly acknowledging them, is a serious intellectual offense and
can result in your failing this class, or worse, including disciplinary action by the Student Affairs office.
Grading:
Quizzes………..............................................................................................…………… .30%
Mid-term exam ……………........................................................................………….. …30%
Essay on what you learned from the course (instructions below) ………..……………40%
No make-up work is given, except for university-approved reasons.
There may be slight changes in the requirements and schedule as we work into the quarter.
Readings:
F I C T I O N (quizzes and discussions) The numbers refer to pages in the textbook.
June
22 Introduction
23 Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour, 59 &
Introduction to Literature & Introduction to Fiction 1-25.
24 James Joyce, Eveline 146 &
J. Kincaid, Girl (class handout);
25 Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat 138 &
Alice Walker, Everyday Use, 319
29 William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily, 149
30 Katherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, 129 &
Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek, 343
July
01 Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, 240 &
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? 286
02 John Cheever, Reunion, 191 &
Richard Wright, The Man Who Was Almost a Man, 180
06 Chinua Achebe, Dead Men’s Path, 247
D R A M A
07 Introduction to Drama, 779-801 &
Susan Glaspell, Trifles, 1031
08 Trifles/A Jury of Her Peers (Film)
09 Quiz and discussion on Susan Glaspell, Trifles
13 Sophocles, Oedipus the King, 802
14 Sophocles, Oedipus the King contd…
15 Sophocles, Oedipus the King contd…
16 Quiz on Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and discussion &
Midterm Questions and Instructions
20 Midterm Exam (in class: bring a blue book for it)
P O E T R Y
21 William Wordsworth, She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways (class handout) &
Claude McKay, The Harlem Dancer (class handout)
22 Shakespeare, 434-437
23 John Donne 440-442.
27 William Blake, 468-470; And video
28 Emily Dickinson, Because I Could Not Stop for Death, 532 &
Thomas Hardy, Neutral Tones, 538.
Wilfred Owen, Dulce Et Decorum Est, 593 &
W.H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen, 609.
29 Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues, 602; Countee Cullen, Incident, 603;
Natasha Trethewey, Domestic Work, 773; Suji Kwok Kim, Occupation, 774.
30 X. J. Kennedy, September Twelth, 2001, 674; Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, 619. Course Evaluation.
Essay (Journal) is due.
Note: The Personal Essay (journal) on what you learned from the class will be a review of a select number of readings (fiction, poetry, and drama) from the course. The review will consist of a descriptive summary of the works and your evaluative commentary, including what you learned from the works themselves or from the discussions and instructor’s promptings in class.
You are encouraged to use your own voice in the essay, but it will be a formal essay, which means that you will be graded for quality of ideas, language and organization. I will have theme-based questions on sets of works for you to write on. Examples: The challenges in children’s lives; Male/female relations; Aging and death; Questions and challenges of social and personal justice, etc. Length: 5 double-space typed pages Due: the last day of class.
Note:
In-class Manners: Cell phones must be turned off. No text messaging, emailing, or engaging in other forms of diversionary and irreverent activity in this sacred intellectual space. I will be zealously performing my sacerdotal duties, including exorcism!
The very best wishes to each and every one of you!