Syllabus, Spring 05

Tuesday, March 29 - Introduction
Homework: Read "Style," chapters 1-3

Wednesday, March 30 - Discuss "Style," chapters 1-3
Homework: Read "Style," chapters 4-6. Post a question for class discussion on the web-log. Be ready to talk and respond to my and your questions.

Friday, April 1 - Discuss "Style," chapters 4-6
Homework: Read "Style," chapters 7-10. Post a question for class discussion on the web-log. As always, be prepared to talk, ask questions, and so forth.

Monday, April 4 - Discuss "Style," chapters 7-10
Homework: Read Rousseau, "Reveries of the Solitary Walker," Walks 1-3. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Wednesday, April 6 - Discuss Rousseau, "Reveries," 1-3
Homework: Read Rousseau, "Reveries," Walks 4-6. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Friday, April 8 - Discuss Rousseau, "Reveries," 4-6
Homework: Read Rousseau, "Reveries," Walks 7-10. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.
Assignment: Will be made to-day. Begin work on First Essay Draft - should be 2 pages - just a start.

Monday, April 11 - Discuss Rousseau, "Reveries," 7-10. Bring two hard copies of your draft to class. Switch with revision partner(s). Begin making comments, suggestions for improvement on the hard copy of the draft. Sign it legibly for return on Friday.
Homework: Read Con Men and Cutpurses, Section 2, "Murderers," (pages 38-58), Mary Toft (pages 229-232), and Holmes and Williams (pages 274-276). Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Wendesday, April 13 - Discuss Con Men and Cutpurses, Section 2, "Murderers," Mary Toft, and Holmes and Williams.
Homework: Read Con Men and Cutpurses, Section 3, "Prostitutes," (pages 59-82). Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Friday, April 15 - Discuss Con Men and Cutpurses, Section 3, "Prostitutes." Bring your copy of corrected partner's draft to return to author. Schedule individual meetings with professor for Thursday, Friday (April 21, 22).
Homework: Read Con Men and Cutpurses, Section 5, "Pirates," and Section 7, "Highwaymen," (pages 123-158, 185-217). Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.
Assignment: Being revising your draft - final draft should be 4 pages.

Monday, April 18 - Discuss Con Men and Cutpurses, Section 5, "Pirates," and Section 7, "Highwaymen"
Homework: Read Mackenzie, "The Man of Feeling," 1-50. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Wednesday, April 20 - Discuss Mackenzie, "The Man of Feeling," 1-50
Homework: Read Mackenzie, "The Man of Feeling," 51-end. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Friday, April 22 - Discuss Mackenzie, "The Man of Feeling," 51-end.
Homework: Read Clara Reeve, "The Old English Baron," through "...profound silence" (45). Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Monday, April 25 - Discuss Reeve, "Old English Baron" 1-45 . First Essay due at the start of class.
Homework: Read Reeve, "Old English Baron," from "The lower rooms..." (45) through "...the penitent to proceed" (91). Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Wednesday, April 27 - Discuss Reeve, "Old English Baron," 45-91.
Homework: Read Reeve, "Old English Baron," from "My kinsman excelled me..." (91) to the end. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Friday, April 29 - Discuss Reeve, "Old English Baron," 91-end.
Homework: Read Le Fanu, "The Familiar." Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.
Assignment: Begin work on Second Essay Draft - should be 2 pages - just a start. Assignment parameters TBA. You may write on selections from Con Men and Cutpurses, Mackenzie, Reeve, or Le Fanu.

Monday, May 2 - Discuss Le Fanu, "The Familiar.
Homework: Read Le Fanu, "Mr. Justice Harbottle." Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Wednesday, May 4 - Discuss Le Fanu, "Mr. Justice Harbottle"
Homework: Read Le Fanu, "Green Tea." Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Friday, May 6 - Discuss Le Fanu, "Green Tea." Bring a hard copy of your draft to class. Switch with revision partner. Begin making comments, suggestions for improvement on the hard copy of the draft. Sign it legibly for return on Monday.Bring your copy of corrected partner's draft to return to author.
Schedule individual meetings for next week - Wed 11, Thur 12)
Homework: Read Johnson, "Rasselas," chapters 1-16. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Monday, May 9 - Discuss Johnson, "Rasselas," chapters 1-16. Return edited draft to revision partner.
Homework: Read Johnson, "Rasselas," chapters 17-33. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.
Assignment: Being revising your draft - final draft should be 4 pages.

Wednesday, May 11 - Discuss Johnson, "Rasselas," chapters 17-33
Homework: Read Johnson, "Rasselas," chapters 34-49. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Friday, May 13 - Discuss Johnson, "Rasselas," chapters 34-49.
Homework: Read Voltaire, "Candide," chapters 1-10. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Monday, May 16 - Discuss Voltaire, "Candide," chapters 1-10. Second Essay due at the start of class.
Homework: Read Voltaire, "Candide," chapters 11-20. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Wednesday, May 18 - Discuss Voltaire, "Candide," chapters 11-20
Homework: Read Voltaire, "Candide," chapters 21-30. Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.

Friday, May 20 - Discuss Voltaire, "Candide," chapters 21-30
Homework: Read Charles Lamb, "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig" (handout) and Lamb, "Letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge" (handout). Post a question or questions to the web-log for discussion.
Assignment: Begin work on Final Essay Draft - should be 2 pages - just a start. Assignment parameters TBA. You may write on selections from Con Men and Cutpurses, Mackenzie, Reeve, Le Fanu, Johnson, or Candide. You may not write on a text you have written on before.

Monday, May 23 - Discuss Charles Lamb, "A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig" (handout) and Lamb, "Letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge" (handout). Bring two hard copies of your draft to class. Switch with revision partner(s). Begin making comments, suggestions for improvement on the hard copy of the draft. Sign it legibly for return on Friday.
Homework: Read Charles Lamb, either "Old and New Schoolmasters" or "Distant Correspondents" (handouts)

Wednesday, May 25 - Discuss Lamb, "Old and New Schoolmasters" and "Distant Correspondents"
Homework: Read Charles Lamb, "Confessions of a Drunkard" (handout) or "A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People" (handout).

Friday, May 27 - Discuss Lamb, "Confessions of a Drunkard" (handout) and "A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People." Bring your copy of corrected partner's draft to return to author. Schedule individual meetings with professor for Reading Week.
Assignment: Being revising your draft - final draft should be 4 pages. May 31-June 3 - Reading Week. Final individual meetings with professor.

Monday June 6 - Final Portfolio due. In a small binder or hole-punched folder, turn in all of your written work for the course. First Draft w/partner's correction, First graded Essay; Second Draft w/partner's correction, Second graded Essay; Third Draft w/partner's correction, Third Essay. There should also be a preface. The preface can be anything that expresses either something you've learned in the class (a kind of reflection), or be more creative - draw a picture, submit some photos, a compact disc - whatever pleases you. The preface must be turned in with the portfolio, but is not a huge deal. It should be something fun.

English 105, Section 21: Cosmopolitanism and Composition Professor: Melvin Peña email: melvin@northwestern.edu Office Hours: Wednesday, 12-1pm. Friday, 2-3pm. And by appointment Course web-site: http://pidgeonenglish.blogspot.com/ - Bookmark it, or make it your home page, because it is going to be an integral part of the course. Class meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in Parkes Hall, 222.

I. Goals
The subject of this course is reading and writing about literature. We have several goals: 1. To help you read more carefully – to enjoy whatever you are reading by finding and focusing on what interests you.
2. To help you write more clearly – to build on what is useful to a writing assignment, and to eliminate what is not.
3. To help you learn how to write and revise under pressure. I totally understand that much of what is written in college is written in haste. What we want to do in this course is to slow the process down a bit, to learn how to make a paper readable, and how to make our prose more concise and interesting.
4. To help you learn how to express yourself while attempting to meet someone else's expectations. Everything you write or turn in or perform in college is graded by someone. How do you balance your enjoyment of a given assignment or a given course while being graded for it?
5. To learn how to talk to and write about each other freely and respectfully. This course involves a number of works from the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Though they are very different from each other, they are all in some way concerned with how the author, or the main character(s) view themselves, others, and the world they live in. Like the world of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, our world is one of unbelievable commerce and travel between different lands, and exchange between cultures. By focusing on works centered on these themes, maybe we can gain a better understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.

II. Course Requirements
Attendance: Regular attendance is required. You are expected to come to class having completed the assigned reading and/or writing and prepared to discuss the texts and your own work. Absences will only be considered excusable if they are presented to me in advance. Dire illnesses will also be considered, but you must still alert me.
Assignments: You can expect to write and revise three essays during this term, as well as to participate in regular in-class writing, reflective writing, and informal writing. The three major essays will be turned in at the end of the quarter, bound together, and count toward your final grade. The final portfolio will also include a preface, as explained in the final assignment on the syllabus.
Web-log posts: Posting to the web-log is an integral part of the design of this course. Since we are in an English classroom, when you post a comment you must follow formal, standardized English grammar rules (avoid lowercase letters in place of capitals; all caps; abbreviations; and substitutions for punctuation or letters). Write in complete sentences. Support your answers with reasons, examples, and explanations.

III. Plagiarism: Plagiarism means using the exact words, opinions, or factual information from another source without giving that source credit. Writers give credit through the use of accepted documentation styles, such as parenthetical citation, footnotes, or end notes; a simple listing of books, articles, and websites is not sufficient. Plagiarism is the equivalent of intellectual robbery and will not be countenanced. Any paper verified as plagiarism will receive a failing grade, with no opportunity for revision.

IV. Grading 25% First Essay 25% Second Essay 25% Third Essay 25% Participation Participation includes, but is not limited to:
1. Talking in class. This course will be heavily discussion-oriented. You must be ready to talk about the day's reading when class begins. I fully expect that each of you will discuss the readings with the class, and to talk about your writing with each other.
2. Web-log postings.
3. Mandatory scheduled meetings with the professor.

Welcome to English 105, Spring Style

Hello all! My name is Melvin Pena. Such as I am, I am to be your professor for English 105: Cosmopolitanism and Composition. Feel free to peep around the weblog entries from last quarter to get a kind of idea for the kind of thing we'll be looking for. Starting with Friday's class, you'll be required to post a question to incite and inspire discussion and conversation.

I encourage you to look at my CTECs from the Winter Quarter. I want to make super clear, as I believe I did in the email I sent to all of you a couple of weeks ago, that if you are looking for a blowoff class, or one that conforms to your ideas of an expository writing class - you are looking under the wrong stone here.

This class is not just writing, but intensive reading, thinking, and discussing of literature from the 18th and 19th centuries. We'll be reading a number of different styles of writing - essays, novels, satires, philosophical tales, personal musings, an early gothic novel, and some later really messed up gothic stories, to name a few.

We'll be starting the quarter with three classes on Joseph William's "Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace." We will be meeting this week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday - our classroom is Parkes Hall 222. Tuesday we will be introducing ourselves, and Wednesday we'll begin our discussion of "Style." Just to give you the heads up, please read Chapters 1-3 for Wednesday's meeting. Come to class ready to ask questions and to discuss, with each other, and with me.

Texts (in the order we'll be reading them):

Joseph Williams, "Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Reveries of the Solitary Walker"
Lucy Moore, ed., "Con Men and Cutpurses: Scenes from the Hogarthian Underworld"
Henry Mackenzie, "The Man of Feeling"
Clara Reeve, "The Old English Baron"
Joseph Sheridan LeFanu, "In a Glass Darkly"
Samuel Johnson, "Rasselas"
Voltaire, "Candide"

There will also be hand-outs which I will photocopy when the time comes.
A fuller syllabus to follow.

The Jew in the Thorn Bush

I really enjoyed this reading, and not only because it was short! Though I did not exactly see how one could call it a fairytale ( which I usually think along the lines of Cinderella), I do like reading fiction, as I did Candide. How quick they are to make convictions is comical, death is just around the corner. Again, the stereotypes of Jewish people are highlighted, as the jew is portrayed as a money swindling thief. I don't really know how much analysis I have of this other that the assumptions that are made in the end. I think you just have to take it for what its worth.

Correspondence

I enjoyed the structure of this reading. I liked the journal entries to and from Rahel toVeit. The reader is able to see just how a person feels and or is affected by being Jewish (in this case). Rahel talks candidly about feeling inferior by being both Jewish and a woman. I thought it was interesting how she compares her Jewish birth to that of a curse/physical deformity. Some of the things she wrote in her letters led me to compare her language to that of a feminist. On page 57 she says, "A powerless being that is supposed to sit at home like this without it mattering...to stay nicely at home...and has to swallow all sorts of reproaches that are made with raisons." In this time period I know women were expected to just be housewives and not comment on situations, etc. Being Jewish may add to that in making her feel even more deprived.