ENGL648 Course Info

Times & Locations: Thursdays, 3-5.30pm, Annapolis High School, English Dept., Room 210C, 2700 Riva Rd. (410.266.5240)
Instructor:Dr. Sandra Shattuck
Email: shattuck@umbc.edu
Office Hours: Mondays, 7-9pm & Tuesdays, 9-10pm, on OldPuebloMOO
Course Website: http://research.umbc.edu/~shattuck/engl648.html

Required Books - At the moment, I'm assuming that everyone will be able to purchase the required books through their favorite online book provider or local bookstore. If you have any difficulties, please let me know. Also, please be sure to buy the correct edition so that we'll all work from the same text.

Bressler, Charles E. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice, 2nd ed. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999. ISBN: 013897422-5

Murfin, Ross C., ed. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. NY: St. Martin's Press, 1989. ISBN: 0312007612

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. NJ: Prentice Hall, 1994. ISBN: 0385474547

Coursepack - a combination of online and xeroxed materials (availability to be announced)

Description & Goals

This course on literary theory and criticism is the first in a two-part series making up part of the program called "M.A. ISD-Experienced Teacher Track with an Emphasis in English." By the end of the spring semester, participants will be conversant with the major schools of contemporary literary theory and criticism. Rather than becoming accolytes of one school or another, participants will most likely reflect the broader community of literary critics, who often engage an eclectic approach to interpretation. A central goal of this course is for participants to discover and develop their own theoretical and critical practices. Specifically, this course aims to

• introduce participants to a range of literary theories and critical practices
• further participants' fluency with literary theory by applying critical practices to certain texts
• encourage participants to more fully articulate their individual theoretical and critical affiliations

Certain aspects of this course are already fixed (emphasis on contemporary criticism and choice of required texts, for instance). However, I have designed the course with enough flexibility so that as we progress, we can decide collectively to shift focus or revise the kinds of intellectual material we intend to produce. As a community of English teachers, I expect that we'll have no shortage of opinions and talk.

We'll end the spring semester by focusing in a more in-depth manner on postcolonial theory and criticism as a segue into the summer course on world literature. Putting our theory more fully into practice, we will use the summer course to study a variety of texts suitable for high school English curriculum. Participants will spend some time after the two-week summer course completing projects; the nature of those projects will be determined collectively.

Assignments & Grading Policies - or How We Study, What We Produce, and How We Evaluate

I'd like us to think about how we intend to work as a group by talking and writing together. Here are some of my ideas:

• I'd like each person in the class to be responsible for presenting some of the supplemental material in the coursepack; we'll need presenters each time we meet.
• I'd like shorter critical papers rather than longer ones, and I'd like them to be peer reviewed and revised.

We will spend some class time discussing what kinds of intellectual production best fit our collective goals. And we will decide collectively on methods of evaluation.

Update: As a class, we decided on the following:
50% - showing up - this includes punctual, consistent, and engaged attendance, as well as weekly postings (on time and done in good faith) to the class list
15% - critical analysis
35% - group project

first published: 18 january 2002
last revised: 25 february 2002
webspinner: s.d.shattuck