Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session

Attendance and Participation

This is a discussion course in which your attendance and participation in class are vital to your success and that of the group. If you must miss class because of a medical or family emergency, you should notify me beforehand of the fact by phone, email, in person, or a note slipped under my door or in my mailbox - and get the information you missed. More than two unexcused absences may result in failure. Repeated latenesses count as an absence, as does sleeping in class. If you have a conflict, like a recitation, sports commitment, or a job that meets during part of this class, you should not take the class. One more note: I frequently give short factual quizzes at the beginning of class to insure that all students are keeping up with the reading; if you are late, you cannot make up the quiz. Plan to attend every class, having thoroughly read the assigned works.

Tutorials

In order to receive full credit for written work, you will be required to meet the writing tutor assigned to this class before submitting each essay, as well as before the required revision. Failure to do so will result in a drop of a half letter grade for the essay. You will sign up for regular times, generally on Tuesday, Thursday, or Friday afternoons. All of the comments under Attendance and Participation above apply equally to tutorials. Come to your tutorials prepared with ideas, questions, drafts, and of course, texts.

Written Work

You will write five essays of varying lengths during the semester. I will distribute questions and topics for each assignment; if you prefer to write on a topic of your choice, you must get my (or the writing tutor's) OK first. Late essays will be graded down a half grade for every day (not class) they are overdue. I encourage you to rewrite as many essays as you have the time and/or inclination to; you must, however, revise one of your first two essays. All rewrites must be accompanied by the original returned essay and-except for the required one-must be submitted within a week of the original's having been returned to you. Because revisions must do more than incorporate my editorial suggestions, you must include a statement in which you comment on how you attempted to improve the essay.

Keep your essays when I return them to you. At the end of the semester you will hand in a complete portfolio including all of your returned essays, along with a written statement in which you reflect on the changes in your reading and writing abilities during the course of the semester. If you want your final portfolio returned to you, you must provide a self-addressed stamped envelope.

Essays must be typed or word-processed (12 point!), double-spaced (both within and between paragraphs), with proper margins, and the must have page numbers. They should have a carefully considered title and observe the conventions of grammar and spelling. Proofread very carefully. Read aloud: you'll catch more mistakes if you do.

Papers will be graded on the quality of the ideas and argument, the organization, clarity, and style of writing, and the use of evidence from the text.

Final note: You will not need to consult any outside works (including published criticism, essays posted on websites, Cliff Notes, old course essays) for these essays and are, in fact, discouraged from doing so. If, however, you do read outside sources, you must cite them in your essay using correct format (refer to the MLA Handbook). For your convenience, I am including the department's statement on plagiarism.

Plagiarism - use of another's intellectual work without acknowledgement-is a serious offense. It is the policy of the Literature Faculty that students who plagiarize will receive an F in the subject, and that the instructor will forward the case to the Committee on Discipline. Full acknowledgement for all information obtained from sources outside the classroom must be clearly stated in all written work submitted. All ideas, arguments, and direct phrasings taken from someone else's work must be identified and properly footnoted. Quotations from other sources must be clearly marked as distinct from the student's own work. For further guidance on the proper forms of attribution consult the style guides available at MIT Online Writing and Communication Center and MIT Academic Integrity.

Oral Presentations

Each student will have the opportunity to research a specific historical or literary reference in one of the assigned works and prepare a factual oral presentation of no more than five minutes. Please see assignments for more details.

Monthly Progress Reports

I will distribute monthly progress reports on which I record basic facts: class and tutorial attendance, latenesses, essay grades, rewrites submitted, participation in discussions, and oral presentations.

Final Grades

I will determine your final grade more or less as follows:

Calendar