Bristol Community College

Spring 2006

Writing About Literature,

ENG 12, Section A2W

Distance Learning

Assistant Professor: Debra Anderson                                 

Phone: (508) 678-2811 x2445

E-mail Address: danderso@bristol.mass.edu      

Office: B214

Office Hours:  Mondays at 2 p.m. and Fridays at 11 a.m. or by appointment face-to-face or in cyberspace.

Course Description: (Taken from the 2005-2006 BCC Catalog)

Students will read and respond to diverse literary texts while continuing to build on critical thinking and writing skills developed in English 11. This course will provide a foundation for the study of literary genres, including poetry, drama, the novel, and the short story. Students will apply literary terminology and theory and use evidence to support their responses through a variety of writing assignments. In doing so, they will make connections between their lives and the world. Prerequisite: English 11. Three class hours per week. Instructional Support Fee applies.

Required Textbook:

Abcarian, Richard and Marvin Klotz, eds. Literature: The Human Experience. Shorter Eighth

Edition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. (including Literactive CD)

Objectives:

You will:

1.    learn the fundamental elements of fiction, poetry and drama;

2.   make connections between literature and your own experience;

3.   analyze thematic elements in literary works;       

4.        move through the processes of writing: inventing, composing, revising, and editing according

5.        to the conventions of Standard Written English;

6.        critically read and respond to a variety of literary texts;

7.        compose in a voice appropriate to the audience and the purpose of the writing;

8.        formulate a thesis and support it with evidence;

9.        compose coherent and cohesive essays and other texts; and

10.     evaluate, integrate, and document primary source materials to support a position

Instructional Methodologies:  Instruction will be delivered through email messages, website materials, threaded discussion, and assigned readings.

Participation Policy: 

·         Attendance at three on-campus class meetings is required. The times and places for these meetings are as follows:

o         Tuesday, January 24^th from 10 a.m. – 10:50 a.m. in E207A. (Orientation)

o        Tuesday, March 7^th from 10 a.m. – 10:50 a.m. Location TBA (Midsemester Exam)

o       TBA- sometime between May 12  and May 17th (Final Exam)

Students who miss the first meeting must schedule an appointment with me, within the first week of classes, or they will be withdrawn. (Students who miss the on-campus midterm or final exams may be allowed to make up the exam, but only if we make arrangements ahead of time.)

• WebCT allows me to see the first and last time you log on to the site and the total number of times you’ve accessed the site. If you do not submit assignments within any two week period, you will be withdrawn from the course.
• There are no requirements for how often you should access the site as long as you have responded to all online discussions and submitted all assignments on time.  However, I will be posting information and assignments for each week by Wednesday at midnight (unless otherwise noted), so make sure that at least every Thursday you check in for anything new.
• All formal assignments will be submitted to me as MS-Word documents via WebCT email. If you do not have MS Word, please save documents in Rich Text Format (.rtf).
• For course calendar information, see the Calendar section of your WebCT site. I will post assignments there each week, as well as in the Course Materials: Assignments area.
• I will access the site daily, Monday through Friday, and will respond to your email within 24 hours in most cases. I may not access the site on Saturdays, Sundays or holidays.
• I will read your discussion entries within 24 hours of your posting them, but will not respond to every discussion posting every time.
• You will receive feedback on your rough drafts within 48 hours (Monday-Friday) and will receive graded response on final drafts at least a day or two before the rough draft of your next essay is due.

Policy for Late Assignments:  If circumstances require you to submit a final draft late, I will give you an extension (no questions asked) until the next weekday.  In order to get an extension, you must leave me a voice mail or email message sometime before midnight on the night before the essay is due, and you must be in class the day the paper is due. After that extension is used up, late assignments will be graded down one grade per class period, i.e. a "B" becomes a "B-"; a "B-" becomes a "C+".  All essays will be collected at the beginning of class. 

Grading:      

Online Writing Assignments and Quizzes - 20%

Three formal essays – 20% each (60% total)

Two exams – 10% each (20% total)

Online Writing Assignments

Exploring the Literature Emails: You will send me an email about each piece of literature you read. In this email you will write 150-200 words (more is OK, less is not) about your impressions of the piece. Unless I ask you to respond to specific question, you will be responding to one or two (at the most) of the following questions and prompts:

• What appeals to you?
• What emotional or intellectual impact does the piece have on you? (How does it make you feel and/or what does it make you think about?)
• What questions do you have or what’s confusing to you about the piece?
• Does this relate to your own experience? If so, how?
• What motivates the characters to make the choices they make? Do you respect their choices? Why or why not?
• What is one possible theme for this piece? Explain with support from the piece.
• Do you find this piece effective? Why or why not?

Make sure that when you refer to specific passages in these emails, you use quotes to set evidence from the text apart from your own voice. I will often take passages from these emails to post to the discussion board and ask the class to respond to certain issues that are raised in them.

VirtualLit Tutorials:

I will ask you to do a few online tutorials about some of the pieces we read. These tutorials will pose questions that require you to apply literary terminology to the texts.  You will also need to use the Literactive CD packaged with your textbook to access some of these assignments.

Discussion Board Postings:

Discussion board postings will be an important part of this course, as it is one of the ways that we will interact with each other. Like other online assignments, it will provide you with an opportunity to do further exploration of the literature and topics you may want to pursue for formal essays. I will begin one or two threaded discussions per week and you will be expected to respond to me and other students by the stated deadline.

All online writing assignments will be scored as follows:

3= Your writing shows a mastery of thematic issues and/or you have expressed a number of insights or connections that demonstrate an excellent effort to make meaning.

2= Your writing shows that you read the piece and are making reasonable connections and observations.

1= Your writing  suggests that you read the piece, but wrote little or kept your response fairly superficial, i.e a plot summary, rather than a thoughtful response or attempt to make meaning

0=You did not do, or barely attempted, the assignment.

Essays and exams:

You will write three formal essays using MLA documentation.  Topic choices and evaluation criteria for these essays will be posted at the appropriate time. 

You will take a midsemester exam that assesses your mastery of topics, readings, terminology, and skills covered during the first half of the course, and a final exam that assesses your mastery of topics, readings, terminology, and skills covered during the second half of the course.

Student Accountability Statement:  Plagiarism is defined as "stealing and using the ideas or writings of another as your own."  Any student found plagiarizing or cheating on an assignment will fail the course.