Welcome to our blog for Eh 200, Approaches to Literature. This website will lead you to all the important information you need this semester. Before we can get started on what is sure to be a very exciting course, there are a few documents you need to read and become familiar with:

Important links:

• Policy and Procedures

• Proposed Course Syllabus

• How to Post to this Blog

Once you have read these documents, you are ready to move on into our course. You can do so by clicking on the proposed course syllabus link above.

Best of luck, and I look forward to working with you all this semester.

Assistant Professor Adam Crowley

This class is going to use a lot of technology to make it easier for you to participate, and hopefully help you become a better writer.

In this course, I will frequently require you to POST your homework assignments directly to this website. All posted material can be read by anyone, anywhere, at any time, so you should do your best to present yourself in a professional manner. This is your work and reputation we are talking about.

The process for doing this should be fairly uncomplicated. If you follow these guidelines, you should not have any trouble.

• Write your assignment as you normally would in a word-processing program, such as Microsoft WORD. Next, SAVE THE DOCUMENT as you normally would. The reason we do this is because, should you try to write it directly on the website, you could become disconnected from the internet while you are typing. This would result in you losing all of your hard work. Consider yourself warned.

• Copy and paste your writing into the COMMENTS BOX at the bottom of the class page for the class you are working on.

• Click on the “submit comments” button. That’s it! You’re done.

Your writing may not show up on the web page right away, as it will be sent to me for moderation first (basically to protect  you from spam).

If you have problems, it is always okay for you to simply e-mail me your homework at crowleya@fc.husson.edu. However, over the course of this semester I do expect you to become proficient in posting to the blog, as you will have to do a lot of this in your professional life.  We should all be able to do this by the end of class six.

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Unit One: The World of Play!

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• Class One

• Class Two

• Class Three

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• Class Four

• Class Five

• Class Six

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• Class Seven

• Class Eight

• Class Nine

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• Class Ten

• Class Eleven

• Class Twelve

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• Class Thirteen

• Class Fourteen

• Class Fifteen

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• Class Sixteen

• Class Seventeen

• Class Eighteen

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• Class Nineteen

• Class Twenty

• Class Twenty-One

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• Class Twenty-Two

• Class Twenty-Three

• Class Twenty-Four

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• Class Twenty-Five

• Class Twenty-Six

• Class Twenty-Seven

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• Class Twenty-Eight

• Class Twenty-Nine

• Class Thirty

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• Class Thirty-One

• Class Thirty-Two

• Class Thirty-Three

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• Class Thirty-Four

• Class Thirty-Five

• Class Thirty-Six

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• Class Thirty-Seven

• Class Thirty-Eight

• Class Thirty-Nine

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• Class Forty

• Class Forty-One

• Class Forty-Two

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Part One: What do the terms lower-income, middle-income, and upper-income mean to you? Be specific. (7 mins) Be sure to be using your basic writing skills from Eh 123/124!

Part Two: How do people from different economic backgrounds relax and have fun, or recreate? Describe how you envision lower-income, middle-income, and upper-income people your age recreating.  What are the similarities and differences? (7 mins)

Journal # 2 (two parts):

Part One: What is your working definition for play?

Part Two: Write about the first meaningful job you held and what it was about that job that you liked the most and least. (7-10 mins)

Mini-Lecture:

Mini-Lecture in action:

Part One:

How is play represented in “The Untold Lie.” Why might play look the way it does here? Write and submit your answers (10 minutes).

Part Two:

How did the reading inform your understanding of the relationship between “play” and “character.”

Homework: Re-Reading Assignment:

Re-read  “The Untold Lie” by Sherwood Anderson

2 page assignment:

Part One:  Identify and comment on specific character details in the story that do not directly relate to the concept of play.

Part Two: Once you have identified important character details that do not directly relate to the concept of play, I want you to describe how these details may be considered against those details that do more obviously relate to play. Explain to me how an understanding of both “sets” of details can broaden your understanding of individual “characters.”

EH 200 Approaches to Literature On-Line

Assistant Professor Adam Crowley

Email:                         crowleya@husson.edu

Course Description:

This course, building upon EH 123 and 124, introduces students to the study of literature and the fundamentals of literary research through an investigation of the worlds of work and play. Students investigate short works of American literature for the purpose of determining how social standing bears on various conceptions of professionalism. This writing intensive course leads students to a culturally sensitive understanding of the so-called “real world,” and an awareness of how their expectations of the workforce may or may not be validated by their anticipated career paths.

Class Context:

It is reasonable to ask why one would consider the worlds of work and play through stories. After all, stories are generally regarded as fictional, and the worlds of work and play are made up of the always concrete “real world” that defines our everyday lives. Consequently, one might say that it would be more reasonable to tackle these concepts through presumably more practical life experience. In short, one should “get a job” to learn about what it means to have a job. However, one also recognizes how important it is for employees to be able to effectively communicate the stories of their own work experiences to one another, to their employers, and to their families and friends. Such efforts are absolutely central to one’s basic ongoing assessments of professional life. Thus, one may recognize that the words and ways in which we communicate these observations are crucial to our not only our practical everyday life, but also to our basic understanding of the so-called real world itself. In this course, students learn how to formulate such stories for themselves, and do so by using noted literary efforts concerned with the world of work as templates against which to craft and communicate their unique expectations and potential anxieties about twenty-first century employment.

Required Texts:

The Haves and Have-Nots. Ed. Barbara Solomon. New York: Signet, 1999.

Required Technology:

• Hussom FirstClass email account
• PowerPoint

Attendance Policy:

All work must be submitted to me on time, or you will be marked as absent. When a student is absent for more than 15% of the scheduled class time for a semester, I will award the grade of X and deny course credit for excessive absences.

DUE DATES

Papers are due on the day specified.  They must meet all the requirements listed on the writing prompt, including those of length and format.  Late papers will receive a penalty of one-third of a grade for each class period that passes, assessed from the final grade of the paper. All revisions are due within one week of the receipt of the paper. Late papers can be turned in no later than one week after the due date. Failure to do so will result in a grade of F on the paper, and you will lose the chance to revise.

Grading:

Formal Essays……………..………………………………………………….50%

Writing Assignments…………………………………………………………25%

Engagement……………………………………………………………….15%

Final Presentations………………………………………………………10%

Final Exam………………………………………………………………… Pass/Fail

Grading Policies:

• All assignments will be graded on a standard letter-grade scale.

• Late assignments will be downgraded one letter-grade per business day late

• Once assignments are handed back to students, no further late assignments will be accepted.

• The student must complete all assignments to pass the course.

• All papers must be typed.

• An act of plagiarism or other forms of cheating will result in an F for the course grade.

• Students MUST contact the instructor prior to the due date of an assignment if they have any problems with the assignment.

Writing Center

The writing center is a resource you should use to help you improve your writing. The writing center is not for remediation; both inexperienced and experienced writers are encouraged to take full advantage of the center’s services. The writing consultants the center employs can help you invent, organize, and revise your documents to meet the specific requirements established during class. Take the time to become familiar with this resource and use it regularly. Please note: To improve the effectiveness of the writing consultation, please set up an appointment with a tutor at least 2 days before the assignment is due. Also, bring 2 copies of your paper with you to the tutoring session. Also note that the writing center is not an editing service. When you attend a session, you will sit down with the consultant and have a 15 to 30 minute conversation with him or her about how to improve your writing.

Hours:

Tutors will be available between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. (and by appointment) Monday through Friday. However, hours will be adjusted to meet the needs of the Husson community.

Location:

Peabody 210

Email: writingcenter@husson.edu

Phone ex: 1097

Equal Opportunity Policy

If you require any specific assistance with regard to a physical or mental disability, please provide me and the Dean of Students with documentation right away. I will make every reasonable effort to accommodate your specific documented classroom needs.

Academic Integrity:

Simply put, I will absolutely flunk you for plagiarism. Academic honesty is expected of all students. Any work that is not the student’s own is a violation of Husson University policy and of the student’s own integrity.  Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated.  The penalty for cheating or plagiarism will be failure of the course.  Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Copying from another student’s papers, quizzes, exams or reports

• Copying sections from books or articles or any other source without proper citation

• Allowing work to be copied by another student

• Submitting work for other classes

Written Work Preparation:

Students’ papers should meet the following guidelines:

• ALL work should be typed

• Font size should be 12

• Margins should be 1” (do not justify the right margin)

• Text should all be double spaced

• First page should include students’ name and assignment identification

• Citations to material must be in MLA Style

11.  GRADING SYSTEM:

The system of evaluating a student’s achievement at Husson is by letter grade with the following percentage equivalents:

A                     95-100                         C                     73-76

A-                    90-94                           C-                    70-72

B+                   87-89                           D+                   67-69

B                     83-86                           D                     63-66

B-                    80-82                           D-                    60-62

C+                   77-79                           F                      Below 60

Other grades you may encounter include:

E          Exited without withdrawing (student disappeared from class during first four weeks of semester)

WW     Withdrew before midterm (no grade is given)

WP      Withdrew Passing

WF      Withdrew Failing

X         Credit Denied for Excessive Absences

WA     Administrative Withdrawal

I           Incomplete

Q         Audit

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Class One

Unit One: The World of Play

Part One:  Our Foundation

• Policy and Procedures

Let’s review the Policy and Procedure Page

• Introductions

Who are you?

Please write a brief bio about yourself. Submit it to me through the submission box at the bottom of this page. (Take no more than 5 minutes)

Who is your Professor?

• English 123/124 Reminder:

This course will require you to exercise all the skills you acquired in English 123/124.

From the outset, you need to understand that your writing in this course must follow the composition requirements of EH 123/124.

It is NOT the Professor’s job to remind you of these requirements, or to “grade you easier” until you remember them. You must know them “now.” By virtue of the fact that you earned a grade of C or higher in Eh 123 /124 — or in equivalent courses –  it is presumed by the Professor that you are familiar with these requirements.

If you have forgotten this information, please re-visit your Eh 123 and 124 portfolios, as they will contain all the important examples you will need. You should also speak with your Professor during his or her office hours, as he or she may be able to help jog your memory.

For example, your writing must adhere to these basic guidelines, as well as others:

1. Only complete sentences will be considered in submitted work.
2. All paragraphs must be approximately 6-8 sentences in length and develop a single idea.
3. All prose should be formal. Slang and colloquial language will be ignored, generally.
4. Only heavily-proofread work will be considered by the Professor. Sloppy work will simply be handed back to you, and you will not receive any credit for it – period.

Now that we have covered all of that, we can begin our work together.

In-Class journal:

In your journal, explain to me what is the difference between work and play is to you. Where do we learn about work? Where do we learn about play? How are the ways in which you work and play different from the ways your parents work and play? Submit this — and all other requested written work for this class — through the submission box at the bottom of the page when you have completed it. (10-15 minutes)

Journal Entry #2:

How has your understanding of work and play changed over the last academic year? Come up with several paragraphs of advice you would share with someone coming to Husson University as a first-year student on this topic.

(10 minutes)

• Paragraph structure

• “I think” language

• Define: Play, lower-inclome, middle-income, upper-income, then also define CLASS, then get into your discussion of The Untold Lie. It will make it much easier for you to point towards evidence that supports your claims!

• Many of you did not have conclusions.

• You will need to fix all of these issues, and add the new parts to the paper that I will be outlining over the next two classes.

Journaling:

Now that you have read about and thought about different understandings of “play,” I would like you to take the next few moments and write on the following subject:

What is something that someone you know finds to be entertaining, but that you do not find to be entertaining. What is it? And why, specifically, do you think you do not find it to be fun? (10 mins)

Journaling:

What does it mean to be bored? Is it possible to be bored while you are playing? If so, how and why? If not, how and why not? Come up with a definition or definitions for this term. How can an understanding of character and setting be used to back up your answers, do you think? (10 mins)

Journaling:

What does the word “plot” mean to you when it is used in reference to how a story is told?  What makes up a plot, and how can an understanding of plot inform our understanding of character and setting in a story like “The Untold Lie?”

Mini-Lecture:

Homework:

Prewriting (one page): Break down your average day into its “plot.” What are the major CONNECTED events – not the minor disconnected events – that define a general day for you.

Read:

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry (157-163)

Post-Writing (one page): We have discussed the importance of attending to specific details when discussing character and setting in a story. Now I want you to paraphrase the plot ofThe Gift of the Magi by O. Henry by noting the major CONNECTED events that define the story’s underlying structure.

(10 minutes)

In Eh 123 and 124, you learned about Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. For the first ten minutes today, I would like you to first define what these concepts are to me, and then I would like you to tell me how you imagine how ethos-based or pathos-based or logos-based approaches to literature may be different from one another.

Journal:

(10 minutes)

Come up with a group statement on what the potential value of these different approaches may be when you are trying to make a literary argument. What might an exclusively  ethos-based, pathos-based, or logos based approach to story like “The Untold Lie” look like? What role would a discussion of character play in such arguments? What role would a discussion of setting play?

Mini-Lecture:

(10 minutes)

One of the most frustrating things people who know nothing about literature say is that “Literature has no meaning.” What they usually mean — but do not know to say — is that they can find no evident meaning in literature that corresponds with their own personal rhetorical predispositions. That is to say, there is nothing in the literature that immediately appeals to them….

There are many ways to approach literature. One way to approach it is to begin by asking questions. The answers we come up with will depend heavily on the rhetoric we use to articulate our answers.

We might write these questions down and then categorize them under the general registers of ethos, pathos, and logos, and then we might attempt to answer them with ethos-based, pathos-based, or logos-based responses.

Mini-lecture in action

(10 minutes )

Let’s look at our work for today, can be identify the ethos, pathos, and logos in our individual paragraphs: how might we characterize these paragraphs? Do they evince distinct kinds of rhetoric? If so, how does this rhetoric contribute to the overall message we are trying to communicate?

Reflection on draft one of Paper One. What do you like most about this current draft, and what do you like least?

Part 2

Compile as comprehensive a listing as possible of the specific details in The Untold lie story that inform your specific understanding of an individual’s character. (5-7 mins)

Once this listing has been compiled, comment on which details appear to be the most important and which details appear to be the least important. Be ready to defend your observations! (5-7 mins)

Mini-Lecture (5-7 mins):

Important:  When we are talking informally about our own lives,  we might bring in evidence from any number of anecdotal sources. However, when we are talking about a specific object like a story, our conversation needs to stay focused on what is actually in the text – stuff that can be actually quoted and found in the story.  Why is this important, do you think?

Journal: (10 mins)

Identify at least three important character details you could incorporate into your current draft.  The purpose of this activity is to give you a chance to swap out prejudiced points in your writing and replace them with actual evidence from the story.  We will be undertaking similar activities throughout this unit.

Homework:

Pre-Reading Assignment (1 page):

How do the things you do for fun impact your life? How do they shape who you hang out with, how you structure your “free time” (define the term), or your expectations of your future life?

Reading Assignment:

Re-Read “The Untold Lie” by Sherwood Anderson

Post-Reading Assignment (1 page):

Part One:

What does the word “setting” mean to you when it is used to describe the place where something occurs?

Part Two:  Keeping in mind our conversation about evidence, I want you to describe to me first the setting in which play occurs in “The Untold Lie,” and then I want you to tell me how the setting can inform our understanding of what play is and how it might bear on the lives of the people who play in this story.