ENGL 2112 - World Lit II 11F - Fight the Power

ENGL 2112 - World Lit II 11F - Fight the Power — Syllabus

Course Information

ENGL 2112 - World Lit II 11F:
Fight the Power
CRN 14112
Spring 2023
Online - Asynchronous

Welcome

The University Catalog descibes this course as "A survey of representative works of world literature from the mid-17th century to the present, with emphasis on critical reading and writing skills."

It's essentially a whirlwind tour of some of the best things that have been written from the 18^th century to the present day. Most of these texts are connected thematically through the author's desire to upset the status quo, call people to a different way of living, and imagine a new way of being in the world. Most, if not all of them, point out social ills, the complications of class, race, nation, gender, and sexuality, in order to give readers toosl with which to fight the powers that be.

Everything you need to know for this class is in this syllabus. You might find this syllabus intimidating because of its length, but I made it a one-stop-shop for you in this course. Along with the usual material about course policies and procedures, academic integrity, and accessibility accommodations, it also contains the course schedule, explanations for all your assignments, the prompts for the papers you'll be writing, and the rubrics I'll be using to evaluate your papers and your discussion posts.

The course consists of 24 modules. Each module has a task list in Folio, so you should start and end each module there. Each module contains some background information on the author and/or the work we're reading, a podcast that offers a middle-of-the-road interpretation of the work, a number of discussion questions, and a quiz. You should listen to the podcast after you've finished reading the text, because it won't make sense to you until you are familiar with the text.

Instead of requiring you to buy an anthology that might contain all these texts (the cheapest one out there is about $90), I've made all the texts you'll need to read available for you to download from the course site in Folio.

I introduce myself below, so you can out a name and a face to this collection of verbiage. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have to say about these texts, and how they may relate to your lives.

Course Dates

January 9: Classes begin
January 9-12: Drop-Add period
January 16: MLK Holiday - no classes
March 6: Last day to drop with a "W"
March 13-18: Spring Break
May 1: Last day of classes
May 4: Final Exam

Learning Outcomes / Career Readiness Competencies

Learning Outcomes are the knowledge or skills you should gain (and be able to demonstrate) by the end of a particular course.

Career Readiness Competencies are core competencies developed by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). They address eight areas where employers agree that your abilities and skills signify your readiness to begin and/or extend your career. Below are the skills you'll have the opportunity to practice in this course.

Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of this course, you should be able to:

Analyze works of literature in their historical and cultural contexts, critically examining the values they express.
Demonstrate familiarity with literary language, periods, and genres.

Career Readiness Competencies contained within this course:

Self-Development	Display curiosity; seek out opportunities to learn. Assume duties or positions that will help one progress professionally. Seek and embrace development opportunities. Voluntarily participate in further education, training, or other events to support one’s career.
Communication	Understand the importance of and demonstrate verbal, written, and non-verbal/body language, abilities. Employ active listening, persuasion, and influencing skills. Communicate in a clear and organized manner so that others can effectively understand. Frame communication with respect to diversity of learning styles, varied individual communication abilities, and cultural differences.
Critical Thinking	Make decisions and solve problems using sound, inclusive reasoning and judgment. Gather and analyze information from a diverse set of sources and individuals to fully understand a problem. Proactively anticipate needs and prioritize action steps. Accurately summarize and interpret data with an awareness of personal biases that may impact outcomes. Effectively communicate actions and rationale, recognizing the diverse perspectives and lived experiences of stakeholders.
Equity & Inclusion	Solicit and use feedback from multiple cultural perspectives to make inclusive and equity-minded decisions. Seek global cross-cultural interactions and experiences that enhance one’s understanding of people from different demographic groups and that leads to personal growth. Keep an open mind to diverse ideas and new ways of thinking.
Leadership	Seek out and leverage diverse resources and feedback from others to inform direction. Use innovative thinking to go beyond traditional methods. Plan, initiate, manage, complete, and evaluate projects.
Professionalism	Act equitably with integrity and accountability to self, others, and the organization. Be present and prepared. Demonstrate dependability (e.g., report consistently for work or meetings). Prioritize and complete tasks to accomplish organizational goals. Consistently meet or exceed goals and expectations. Have an attention to detail, resulting in few if any errors in their work. Show a high level of dedication toward doing a good job.
Teamwork	Listen carefully to others, taking time to understand and ask appropriate questions without interrupting. Effectively manage conflict, interact with and respect diverse personalities, and meet ambiguity with resilience. Be accountable for individual and team responsibilities and deliverables. Employ personal strengths, knowledge, and talents to complement those of others. Exercise the ability to compromise and be agile.
Technology	Navigate change and be open to learning new technologies. Use technology to improve efficiency and productivity of their work. Identify appropriate technology for completing specific tasks. Manage technology to integrate information to support relevant, effective, and timely decision-making. Quickly adapt to new or unfamiliar technologies. Manipulate information, construct ideas, and use technology to achieve strategic goals.

These career readiness skills will serve you well no matter what your next steps after graduation might be. Find out more about them on this page of the NACE site.

Required Material

All reading selections for this class are available as pdf files in Folio, in the Texts folder.

Trigger Warning

A “trigger” is anything that might cause a person to experience a strong emotional and/or psychological response. Some triggers are shared by large numbers of people (for example, rape), while others are more idiosyncratic (for example, orange juice).

All texts read in this course, all class discussions, and all ancillary materials may contain instances of the following potential triggers, as well as other unanticipated and so unlisted potential triggers: ignorance; willful ignorance; cultural insensitivity; oppression; persecution; swearing, abuse (physical, mental, emotional, verbal, sexual), self-injurious behavior (self-harm, eating disorders, etc.), talk of drug use (legal, illegal, or psychiatric), suicide, descriptions or pictures of medical procedures, descriptions or pictures of violence or warfare (including instruments of violence), corpses, skulls, or skeletons; needles; racism; classism; sexism; heterosexism; cissexism, ableism; hatred of differing cultures or ethnicities; hatred of differing sexualities or genders; body image shaming; neuroatypical shaming; dismissal of lived oppressions, marginalization, illness, or differences; kidnapping (forceful deprivation of or disregard for personal autonomy; discussions of sex (even consensual); death or dying; beings in the natural world against which individuals may be phobic; pregnancy and childbirth; blood; serious injury; scarification; glorification of hate groups; elements which might inspire intrusive thoughts in those with psychological conditions such as PTSD, OCD, or clinical depression.

Unless expressly stated otherwise, the views, findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in the texts read in this course, the classroom discussions, and the ancillary material do not necessarily represent the views of the University or the course instructor.

All texts read in this course, all class discussions, and all ancillary materials may also contain instances of overwhelming beauty, profound truths, and serious reflection on what it means to be human.

By remaining registered in this class, you agree to be exposed to all of the above. As Jenny Jarvie has written,

Structuring public life around the most fragile personal sensitivities will only restrict all of our horizons. Engaging with ideas involves risk, and slapping warnings on them only undermines the principle of intellectual exploration. We cannot anticipate every potential trigger—the world, like the Internet, is too large and unwieldy. But even if we could, why would we want to? Bending the world to accommodate our personal frailties does not help us overcome them.
— Jarvie, Jenny. “Trigger Happy.” The New Republic, 3 March, 2014.

In short, texts and/or discussions in this class may make you uncomfortable. . . . . For many of them, that may be the whole point.

Course Structure

Modules

The course has 24 modules that present information on historical and literary periods, the authors we're covering, and the texts we're reading. Each module contains links to texts, web pages and sites, a podcast about the text or period, a number of questions you should consider as you read the text, and a quiz.

Course modules are located within Folio/D2L. You should begin your work there, within Folio. If the module concerns a particular text or texts, it will also have a link to the text. Primary texts are all pdf files in Folio, and secondary texts will be web pages that contain introductory material about historical periods and intellectual movements.

Modules also contain the following:

Links - These go to external sites for background information and podcasts about the historical, cultural, and biographical information behind each text, and literary and thematic interpretations of each text.
Podcasts - These are in mp3 format. You can either download them or stream them. You should listen to the podcast in each module after you've read the primary text for the module. A page with links to all the podcasts is located at this URL: jpellegrino.com/teaching/ENGL2112/FightthePower/000-Podcasts.html
Quizzes - You'll take a quiz in each module after you've read the material, checked out the links, and listened to the podcast. The number of questions in each quiz varies. At the end of the course, when I'm calculating your grades, I'll drop your lowest three quiz scores.
Discussion Questions - These are questions you might consider as you read the text in each module. Eventually you'll respond to one discussion question of your choosing for each major period we're covering (a total of three questions).

Discussion Forums

Throughout the course, you'll be responding to three discussion questions in the discussion forums, and then offering secondary responses to three initial posts done by other students. The forums themselves are arranged so that you have to post your own response first in order to see what others have said.

Each module contains a number of discussion questions. These serve two purposes. On a day-to-day basis, they should help you direct your reading as you go through the texts. And as we finish each major historical period (the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Modernism/Contemporary), you'll choose one discussion question from any of the works covered in that period and respond to it in a well-considered piece of writing that should be over 500 words. You'll then post your response (this is your "primary entry") to the appropriate discussion forum. After you've submitted your primary entry to the forum, you'll be able to see the entries of others in the class. You should read the primary entries of at least two other students, and respond with substantive comments to two of those entries (these are your "secondary entries"). You can agree, disagree, question someone's interpretation, add your own interpretation, etc., but you can't just say "You're so right! I totally agree!" You have to further the conversation.

Papers

You'll write two short papers for this class, both tied to the course learning outcomes. For these, you'll produce a multi-paragraph document of between 500 and 600 words which addresses the prompt thoroughly and demonstrates your knowledge. These essays should be typed and double-spaced, with a 12-point font, and your name in the upper left corner of the first page. You'll submit them to the appropriate dropboxes in Folio, where they will go through the TurnItIn check for academic honesty.

You may use external sources in your essays, and if you do you will need to acknowledge where you got your information from. And if you use the source's language, put it in quotation marks.

You will get two bites of this apple, because the prompts for each of these essays will be almost exactly the same, and they will directly address the Learning Outcomes for this course.

As a reminder, the learning outcomes for this course are : 1) the ability to analyze works of literature in their historical and cultural contexts, critically examining the values they express, and 2) the ability to demonstrate familiarity with literary language, periods, and genres. In these assignments, you'll show your competence in the second outcome as you specifically address the first outcome. In a nutshell, you'll choose one of the texts we've covered up to a certain point in the class, develop a list of the values you think are expressed within that text, then support your analysis by showing three different places in the text where you see those values expressed. Along the way to proving your point, you'll need to use the appropriate literary language. A more thorough prompt for each paper is below.

See below for an explanation of how I'll mark your papers..

Exams

We'll have two multiple-choice exams, one halfway through the course and one at the end of the course. These will be 33 questions each, with roughly 1/3 of the questions in these three areas: identification of a text, historical and cultural contexts for a text, and thematic concerns within a text.

Exams are available from midnight to midnight on the dates noted in the schedule. You may take the exam at any time on the day that is it available. For your first exam, once you open the exam, you'll have one hour to complete and submit it. For your second exam, since it is the final (but it is not cumulative), once you open the exam you'll have two hours to complete and submit it.

Exams are listed on the syllabus, in the Schedule section. If you miss an exam because you misread the date, or because you didn't check the syllabus, you should not expect to take it at a later date. If, however, circumstances cause you to need to take an exam early, please let me know and we will come to some accommodation.

Course Expectations

Learning Commitment

The "Carnegie Unit" is how universities define credit hours and categorize the amount of work students do for each credit hour. Each credit requires fifteen "contact hours" which are essentially the hours you spend in class during the semester. And each contact hour requires two hours of outside work, or time devoted to the class that doesn't happen in the class. This is a three-credit course, with 45 contact hours. Those 45 contact hours necessitate at least 90 hours of out-of-class work on your part. That's at least 135 hours committed for each three-credit class that you take.

If you're not a self-starter, or you have problems with deadlines, or you just don't think you can commit to this level of work, you should probably look for another section of this class.

Academic Integrity

I expect that you will conduct yourself within the guidelines of the Honor System. All academic work should be completed with the high level of honesty and integrity that this University demands.

I do not tolerate academic dishonesty. Beyond the moral implications, I find it insulting. All instances of plagiarism will be reported to the Office of Student Conduct. Any instance will result in an F in the course and possibly further sanctions. Plagiarism is presenting someone else's work as your own without giving them credit. Someone else is defined as anyone other than you: another student, a friend, relative, a source on the Internet, articles or books. And work is defined as ideas as well as language. So taking someone else's ideas and putting them in your own words—or using someone else's words to express your ideas—is plagiarism. And, in the case of friends and family, it doesn't matter if they give you permission.

A note about group work: I encourage you to read and discuss these texts together outside of class. It is, in fact, the core of our endeavor, to hone our own ideas on these texts through discussions with others. You should also discuss your writing with your classmates, as hearing a number of ideas will help you create and polish your own. However, this does not mean that you should write your papers as a group. While discussion is obviously a group activity, writing is a solitary one, and should be treated as such. Any attempt to subvert this would be an instance of academic dishonesty.

The University has a more extensive definition of Academic Dishonesty (from the Student Conduct Code):

CHEATING

submitting material that is not yours as part of your course performance;
using information or devices that are not allowed by the faculty;
obtaining and/or using unauthorized materials;
fabricating information, research, and/or results;
violating procedures prescribed to protect the integrity of an assignment, test, or other evaluation;
collaborating with others on assignments without the faculty's consent;
cooperating with and/or helping another student to cheat;
demonstrating any other forms of dishonest behavior.

PLAGIARISM

directly quoting the words of others without using quotation marks or indented format to identify them;
using sources of information (published or unpublished) without identifying them;
paraphrasing materials or ideas without identifying the source;
Self-plagiarism: re-submitting work previously submitted without explicit approval from the instructor;
unacknowledged use of materials prepared by another person or agency engaged in the selling of term papers or other academic material.

Should you wish to pursue a case of academic dishonesty through the Office of Student Conduct, I will speak at your hearing and send a copy of this syllabus along with the documents in question to the Hearing Officer, so a plea of ignorance or non-malicious intent on your part will not be valid.

Detecting AI Writing

I'm sure you're aware of the effectiveness of current plagiarism checkers like TurnItIn. When you submit a paper in this class, Folio automatically sends that paper to TurnItIn for an originality check. TurnItIn compares your work to the material in its database, which currently contains over 54 million student papers. It marks the parts of your text that are similar to the material in that database, and then produces a report that both you and I can view. The most recent study on its effectiveness claims that it has reduced plagiarism in papers submitted to institutions of higher education by at least 39%. It's not perfect, but it's an invisible tool that tells me how original your work is before I even consider marking it.

You may have heard of ChatGPT and GPT-3.5, a new technology developed by OpenAI research laboratory, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to enable natural-language conversations. And you may have heard that it can produce college-level essays that are both well-constructed and original. But have you seen GLTR, the Giant Language model Testing Room? It's a tool developed by researchers from the MIT-IBM Watson AI lab and the Harvard Natural-Language Processing Group. Basically, it's TurnItIn on steroids, but for AI-generated text. It is currently 98.65% accurate in identifying text written by AI, and literally getting more accurate every day.

I'll be using GLTR this semester to check your papers. If it returns a positive score for the work you submitted, I'll treat it as I would any other instance of academic dishonesty.

Course Schedule

Since this class is wholly online, you have much greater flexibility in managing the time you put into this course. Rather than assigning a specific date for your completion of each module, I will list the modules due for each week, and you are free to complete them at the times of your choosing during that week. For our purposes here, each week ends on Friday at midnight.

So, for instance, in Week 1, you're responsible for completing the course introduction and Module 1, "Introduction to the Enlightenment." You'll have until 11:59 pm on Friday, January 13, to get through those. In Week 2, you're responsible for Modules 2 and 3, on Voltaire's Candide. You can do those modules any time that week, but they're due at 11:59 pm on Friday, January 20.

Introductory materials about literary or intellectual periods or movements are in green.
Individual authors and their works are in blue..
Discussion posts and papers are in red..
Exams and their availability are in yellow.

Week (deadline date)	Modules (and their quizzes) Due	Other Material Due
1 (1/13)	Introduction to the Course Module 1: Introduction to The Enlightenment
2 (1/20)	Module 2: Voltaire, Candide 1 Module 3: Voltaire, Candide 2
3 (1/27)	Module 4: Saikaku, from Life of a Sensuous Woman
4 (2/3)	Module 5: Introduction to Romanticism Module 6: Blake, poetry	Discussion Forum 1 primary posts
5 (2/10)	Module 7: Keats, poetry Module 8: Whitman, poetry	Discussion Forum 1 secondary posts
6 (2/17)	Module 9: Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave 1 Module 10: Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave 2
7 (2/24)	Module 11: Tagore, "Punishment"	Discussion Forum 2 primary posts
8 (3/3)	Module 12: Yeats, poetry 3/2: Exam 1 Available	Discussion Forum 2 secondary posts
9 (3/10)	Module 13: Introduction to Modernism Module 14: Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"	PAPER 1
10 (3/24)	Module 15: Akhmatova, "Requiem"
11 (3/31)	Module 16: Négritude Module 17: Senghor, poetry
12 (4/7)	Module 18: Existentialism Module 19: Borowski, "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen" Module 20: Marquez, "Death Constant Beyond Love"
13 (4/14)	Module 21: Mahfouz, "Zaabalawi" Module 22: Walcott, poetry	Discussion Forum 3 primary posts
14 (4/21)	Module 23: Soyinka, Death and the King’s Horseman	Discussion Forum 3 secondary posts
15 (4/28)	Module 24: Heaney, poetry	PAPER 2
5/4	5/4: Exam 2 Available

Instructor

December 2022 — wind chill of -35

Dr. Pellegrino

I'm Dr. Joe Pellegrino, an Associate Professor in the Literature department. I teach lots of different classes. My specialties are Irish literature and postcolonial literature, so I end up doing classes that don't fit into the standard Brit Lit/American Lit model: Irish lit, African lit, etc. For instance, this semester I'm also teaching an introductory course for English majors and a seminar on T.S. Eliot for graduate students. Basically, if other people in my department can teach it, I don't teach it.

It seems like I went to school forever, and went to lots of different schools: Duquesne University, St, Louis University, Mannes College of Music, The New England Conservatory, and UNC-Chapel Hill, which is where I got my PhD. I've also taught at a lot of schools: Duquesne, UNC, Eastern Kentucky University, University of South Carolina-Upstate, Greenville Tech, Converse College, and here at Georgia Southern. I've got some experience in online education; I was a University Director for the (short-lived) Kentucky Commonwealth Virtual University, and have taught online classes for over 20 years now.

Professionally, I also edit an international journal, The International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. I'm interested in a number of fields, but most of my publications are either on Irish studies, postcolonial lit, or teaching.

I have only one item on my bucket list: to see the Northern Lights. One day I'll get there, but in the meantime I'm raising two daughters, making heirloom furniture (pretty much a middle-aged guy cliché), keeping up with new technology, wishing I could spend more time doing music, and trying to keep my head above water.

Contact Information

Email: jpellegrino@georgiasouthern.edu

Phone: 912.478.5853

A WORD ABOUT EMAIL

Please don't hesitate to post to me if you have a question about any of the readings, especially if you're struggling to figure them out. However, please think twice about posting questions where the answer is either in this syllabus or on Folio. If you do, I have two options for a reply: I can copy and paste material from the syllabus or schedule just for you, but that's redundant, since you already have access to the material. Or I can reply with something like "check the syllabus" or "check the schedule," which you should already know to do. Since neither of those are satisfactory, if you ask a question that is already answered in the syllabus or in the schedule, I won't be replying at all.

So if you don't hear back from me, you should know that the answer to your question is in this document, or on the course site in Folio.

CLASS POLICIES

Writing Proficiency

If you need additional work on the surface features of your writing, I'll let you know. Basically, if I can't understand what you're trying to say in your first paper, then you'll have to work at writing more clearly. I'll ask you to schedule sessions at the Writing Center in order to be more successful on your next paper.

The reason professors make students write papers is not because we love to mark them up, or because we somehow enjoy this. I'm willing to bet that every professor you ask would say that marking and grading papers is the worst part of their job. I know it is for me. The only thing that makes it bearable is hoping that I'll be able to engage with your ideas, or see the texts we're covering through your eyes. But if I have to stop after every sentence to figure out what you're trying to say, I'm most certainly not thinking about your ideas.

So do yourself a favor: give yourself enough time to do a good job on these papers. Remember that writing clearly takes far more time than you think it does, because you have to consider your argument from a reader's perspective, not your perspective.

I realize that the grand academic dance of submitting your work, having it evaluated, then responding to that evaluation (either through improving your work in your next paper, or by coming to see me in my office) is essentially a negotiation between us. You want to demonstrate your abilities with X amount of work, an amount that you think deserves a certain grade. You submit your work without knowing how others will see it, and only become aware of their perceptions when your work is returned to you with my comments. But this puts you at a disadvantage, because you're making your first move in this negotiation blindly.

So in the spirit of openness, let me try to level the playing field by giving you a few tips:

This is academic writing, where clarity and concision are essential. If your work isn't clear, if every sentence doesn't hang together, you're losing the negotiation. What you have written may make sense to you, but it needs to make sense to your readers as well.
At the post-secondary level, your work isn't evaluated in terms of the amount of work you put into it. Just like any other skill, the amount of effort necessary to master academic writing varies from person to person. I am sure that it would take me far more effort than most of you to get back to playing football. But even if I did ten times the work you did, when we both showed up on the field we'd be evaluated on our skills, not on the time it took us to gain them.
If you pay attention to what the prompt is asking you to write about, and keep that in mind as you think about your paper, you're making a good start.
if you look at the rubric, especially the distinctions between the levels of performance in content and form, you should get a good idea of how successful your paper will be.
If you're wondering if your "X amount of work" is enough, it isn't.
And one last personal comment:
Before we had things like TurnItIn and other automatic checkers on academic integrity, I was the guy other faculty members went to to track down cases of suspected plagiarism. When Google was just getting off the ground, I was a beta tester for them (one of 25 in the country). I've also been teaching English for over 40 years now. So if you're thinking that you've changed enough of that material that you've copied and pasted to make it look like your own work, think again. If writing and evaluating papers is a negotiation, then presenting someone else's work as your own is a gamble, and you're betting your academic career that you can get away with it. I've just told you what I bring to the table, so if you really think you can get away with it, my only advice is to do it as early as possible, so you can spare yourself the work for the rest of semester, because you'll already be gone from this class.

Course Work

You should submit your papers into the appropriate dropbox in the Learning Management System (Folio).

I DO NOT ACCEPT LATE ASSIGNMENTS. NO EXCEPTIONS, NO EXCUSES. A late assignment is any work that is not turned in by the deadline, when the dropbox closes. This means that you must anticipate any problems that will occur. In other words, a computer / printer / drive / car / arm being broken at the last minute is not an excuse. To avoid last-minute catastrophes (which always occur), DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE TO DO YOUR WORK.

Accessibility Accommodation

I'm a strong advocate for those who are differently abled, so of course I want to be in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). I'll honor any request for reasonable accommodations made by those with disabilities or demonstrating appropriate need for learning environment adjustments. However, I can only make those accommodations if they're accompanied by an accommodation letter from the Student Accessibility Resource Center (SARC) before academic accommodations can be implemented.

If you don't have that letter from the SARC, I can't offer you any accommodations for the class.

For additional information, please call the SARC office at (912) 478-1566 on the Statesboro campus, or at (912) 344-2572 on the Armstrong and Liberty campuses.

Papers & Posts

Extended Prompt - Paper 1

Cultural values are what shape society, and shape and influence the people who live within that society. They are abstract concepts promoting the idea that certain kinds of behaviors are good, right, ethical, moral, and therefore desirable. They're usually considered as existing on a spectrum, where the ends of that spectrum are two oppositional ways of being in the world. Here are some examples of some common cultural values, expressed as opposing forces:

open	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	insular
being	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	doing
individualism	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	collectivism
indulgence	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	self-control
minimalist	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	plentiful
comfortable with ambiguity	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	need for certainty
materialist	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	spiritual
gender equality	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	rigid gender roles
other-focused	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	self-focused
future-oriented	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	present- or past-oriented
youth-oriented	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	age-oriented
monocultural	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	diverse

NOTE: The list above is made up of pairs of opposites. Each pair IS NOT a cultural value. Rather, what a culture values falls somewhere along the line connecting those opposites. So, for instance, a culture could value gender equality, but if it did so, it would not also enforce rigid gender roles. Or a group of people could value rationality when they make their life decisions, but they would not at the same time privilege making life decisions based on your emotions.

In this first essay, you will offer an analysis of the cultural values presented in any of the works we've covered up to this point. So you can write on Candide, Life of a Sensuous Woman, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, "Punishment," or the poetry of Blake, Keats, or Yeats. However, I'm not looking for a discussion of a character's personal values; that's a completely different subject. Rather, you should address the overarching values that the text is putting forth, and perhaps demonstrate how the author is either reflecting the values of the times, or pushing against those values.

The texts that you can write on for this paper are either from the Enlightenment, the Romantic period, or the Edo period in Japan. So looking at the Introduction to the Enlightenment the Introduction to Romanticism, or Yoshiwara — The Floating World will help you sort out what the cultural values were in these periods.

You should produce a multi-paragraph document of between 500 and 600 words which addresses this matter thoroughly and demonstrates your knowledge. This essay should be typed and double-spaced, with a 12-point font, and your name in the upper left corner of the first page. You'll submit it to the “Paper #1” dropbox, where it will go through the TurnItIn check for academic honesty.

You may use external sources in your essay, and if you do you will need to acknowledge where you got your information from. If you use the source’s language, put it in quotation marks.

In case all of the above isn’t clear enough, here’s a paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown of what your paper should look like:

Paragraph 1: Introduce the text and explain how the text addresses the prevailing cultural values present at the time of its composition. Do not just list those values; explain what they mean.
Paragraph 2: Demonstrate how and where the first cultural value can be seen in the text you have chosen. Quote the text at the appropriate spots and explain how those quotations illustrate the value.
Paragraph 3: Demonstrate how and where a second cultural value can be seen in the text you have chosen. Quote the text at the appropriate spots and explain how those quotations illustrate the value.
Paragraph 4: Demonstrate how and where a third cultural value can be seen in the text you have chosen. Quote the text at the appropriate spots and explain how those quotations illustrate the value.
Paragraph 5: Wrap it up.

Your TurnItIn Score

After you submit your paper and TurnItIn has completed its analysis, you are able to see your TurnItIn Originality Score. In general, lower numbers are better here, unless you're quoting a lot of material from the text. Your score will also have a color attached to it. If the color you see is anything other than green, check your paper again to see that you have cited all your sources correctly. If you have, then you're good. If you haven't, then you can revise your paper and resubmit it. I will evaluate only the most recent version of your paper in the dropbox, but you can submit as many versions of it as you feel necessary.

Extended Prompt - Paper 2

open	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	insular
being	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	doing
individualism	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	collectivism
indulgence	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	self-control
minimalist	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	plentiful
comfortable with ambiguity	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	need for certainty
materialist	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	spiritual
gender equality	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	rigid gender roles
other-focused	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	self-focused
future-oriented	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	present- or past-oriented
youth-oriented	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	age-oriented
monocultural	«—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—»	diverse

In this second essay, you will offer an analysis of the cultural values presented in any of the works we've covered since the first essay. So you can write on Death and the King's Horseman, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," "Requiem," "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen," "Death Constant Beyond Love," "Zaabalawi," or the poetry of Senghor, Walcott, or Heaney. However, I'm not looking for a discussion of a particular character's personal values; that's a completely different subject. Rather, you should address the overarching values that the text is putting forth, and perhaps demonstrate how the author is either reflecting the values of the times, or pushing against those values.

The texts that you can write on for this paper are either from the Modernist period, or are part of the Négritude movement, or are informed by Existentialism. So looking at the Introduction to Modernism the Négritude, or theIntroduction to Existentialism will help you sort out what cultural values were important in those time frames.

You should produce a multi-paragraph document of between 500 and 600 words which addresses this matter thoroughly and demonstrates your knowledge. This essay should be typed and double-spaced, with a 12-point font, and your name in the upper left corner of the first page. You'll submit it to the “Paper #2” dropbox, where it will go through the TurnItIn check for academic honesty.

You may use external sources in your essay, and if you do you will need to acknowledge where you got your information from. If you use the source’s language, put it in quotation marks.

In case all of the above isn’t clear enough, here’s a paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown of what your paper should look like:

Paragraph 1: Introduce the text and explain how the text addresses the prevailing cultural values present at the time of its composition. Do not just list those values; explain what they mean.
Paragraph 2: Demonstrate how and where the first cultural value can be seen in the text you have chosen. Quote the text at the appropriate spots and explain how those quotations illustrate the value.
Paragraph 3: Demonstrate how and where a second cultural value can be seen in the text you have chosen. Quote the text at the appropriate spots and explain how those quotations illustrate the value.
Paragraph 4: Demonstrate how and where a third cultural value can be seen in the text you have chosen. Quote the text at the appropriate spots and explain how those quotations illustrate the value.
Paragraph 5: Wrap it up.

Your TurnItIn Score

Discussion Posts

Throughout the course, you'll be responding to three discussion questions of your choosing in the discussion forums, and then offering secondary responses to three initial posts done by other students. The forums themselves are arranged so that you have to post your own response first in order to see what others have said.

Every module contains a number of discussion questions. As we finish each major historical period (the Enlightenment, Romanticism, Modernism/Contemporary), you'll choose one discussion question from any of the works covered in that period and respond to it in a well-considered piece of writing that should be over 500 words. You'll then post your response (this is your "primary entry") to the appropriate discussion forum. After you've submitted your primary entry to the forum, you'll be able to see the entries of others in the class. You should read the primary entries of at least two other students, and respond with substantive comments to two of those entries (these are your "secondary entries"). You can agree, disagree, question someone's interpretation, add your own interpretation, etc., but you can't just say "You're so right! I totally agree!" You have to further the conversation.

You need to write in complete sentences and paragraphs, with a level of care for the academic code so that your classmates will not be puzzled by your post.

Good posts are substantive in content. While it’s nice give brief feedback like “thanks” and “good idea” to your classmates, they do not count toward your graded contributions.

Good posts back up their examples and opinions with sufficient evidence, so your readers will believe what you say.
Good posts are thoughtful and well-composed. And spelling and grammar both count.
Good posts are responsive either to the initial question or to someone’s primary entry.

Plagiarism in the Forums
The material from the Student Code of Conduct outlined above applies also to your work in the discussion forums. Don't cut and paste from another site. Don't alter every fifth or sixth word from another site and claim the work as your own. Don't attempt to hide the fact that you're using someone else's ideas. There's nothing wrong with using other sites, other critics, or other commentaries on the texts, as long as you give them credit.

Your work will be evaluated with the rubric included below, so take a look at it before you post.

Marking & Rubrics

My Process

When I mark your papers, here's my process: I read your papers at least three times. The first time, I just go through them looking for your argument and if you addressed the prompt in your essay. In my next reading, I apply the following Minimum Standards Rubric, which comes from the Technical College system in South Carolina. This rubric is applied to papers from students at two-year schools, and it defines the minimum acceptable standards there. Once I've applied the Minimum Standards Rubric, I then read through your paper again, asking the questions here and evaluating it with the Essay Rubric below. This reading is where I mark your paper.

Questions I ask while grading

For each sentence in your paper, I ask the following questions:

What are you saying?
At a basic level, I’m trying to decode the meaning of each sentence. If I cannot understand what you’re trying to say, everything that follows is problematic. If your sentence is confused, convoluted, or contradictory, you make it difficult, or even impossible, for me to answer this basic question.
Is what you’re saying accurate?
Does this sentence demonstrate that you understand the text or the critic you’re addressing? For instance, if you’re summarizing someone else’s argument, I need to assess if you’re being true to the original author's intent. In your response, I’m assessing your evidence and examples.
Is what you’re saying well-expressed grammatically and mechanically?
This assumes that your grammar and mechanics aren’t so bad that I’ve been stymied back up at Question #1.
Does the writing have appropriate flow?
Does each idea link up with the one previous to it and the one to follow in a way that meets audience needs, attitudes, and knowledge?<

If I can answer all four of these questions positively for every sentence, you’re doing well. But when the answer is no, complications ensue. If I can’t understand what you’re saying, I have no way to engage with your ideas, and so I have additional questions.:

Do you not understand the original text you’re addressing?
Do you understand the original text, but your writing leaves a gap between that understanding and what is written on the page?

Minimum Standards Rubric

Minimum Standards Rubric (from Greenville Technical College)
The following errors are serious, and therefore warrant special consideration as your papers are being graded:

FUNDAMENTALS	These errors in grammar and usage are unacceptable in college-level academic writing: sentence fragment comma splice and/or fused sentence agreement (subject/verb and/or pronoun/antecedent) incorrect verb form (tense or person) Any paper having a combination of four or more of these serious errors will automatically receive a failing grade (F).

SPELLING	Any paper having six or more different misspelled words will automatically receive a failing grade (F). (Misspellings include mistakes with the use of the apostrophe.)

COMBINATION	A combination of the above-mentioned serious errors and misspellings, even though not sufficient to fail a paper, will lower the grade substantially.

OTHER ERRORS	A paper can fail for other reasons as well, such as weak content, poor organization, confused sentence structure, not addressing the assignment requirements, or plagiarism.

Essay Rubric

ENGL 2000-LEVEL ESSAY RUBRIC
GRADE	CONTENT	FORM
A	All elements of the paper clearly contribute to the writer’s purpose, which is maintained throughout the paper and appropriate for the assignment. The writer addresses the appropriate topic and goes beyond the assignment by significantly developing each aspect of the requirements. Collectively, the ¶ topics offer compelling support which clearly advances the argument of the paper. Compelling details provide supporting statements, credible evidence, or the examples necessary to explain or persuade effectively. All points are supported by a sufficient number of details.	Level of discourse is consistent and addresses the appropriate audience; the paper keenly and accurately anticipates the audience’s needs and expectations. All sentences are grammatically and mechanically correct. Each ¶ is unified around an idea that relates to the main idea of the paper. All ¶s support the main idea, are thoroughly developed, and are ordered logically. Sentences vary in complexity, length, and variety when appropriate, with an appropriate degree of complexity for the audience and purpose. Word choice is consistently varied, accurate, and rich, and reflects a nuanced grasp of the language appropriate to the audience. Transitional words, phrases, sentences and ¶s smoothly connect the paper’s elements, ideas and/or details, allowing the reader to follow the writer’s points effortlessly. MLA 9 format is used consistently and accurately throughout the paper.

B	The writer’s purpose is present, appropriate for the assignment, and maintained throughout the paper. The writer addresses the appropriate topic and clearly fulfills each aspect of the assignment requirements. Collectively, the ¶ topics offer relevant support which clearly advances the argument of the paper. Details provide supporting statements, credible evidence, or the examples necessary to explain or persuade adequately. All points are developed, but some may need additional details.	Level of discourse is appropriate, but the paper has rare lapses in anticipating the needs of its audience. Rare grammatical and mechanical errors exist but do not affect clarity or readability. ¶s support the main idea of the paper and are ordered logically. ¶s are thoroughly developed, but an occasional ¶ may not be unified around a single idea. Variances in sentence complexity, length, and variety are successfully achieved, although these may be limited. Degree of complexity is appropriate for the audience and purpose. Word choice is consistently varied and accurate, and reflects a strong grasp of the language appropriate to the audience. Transitional words, phrases, sentences and ¶s are effective and rarely missing. MLA 9 format is used throughout the paper, with few exceptions.

C	The writer’s purpose is present and appropriate for the assignment, but not all elements clearly contribute to the purpose. The writer addresses the appropriate topic and meets the assignment requirements. Collectively, the ¶ topics offer adequate support for the argument of the paper, but the argument remains unclear or incomplete. Details are related to the elements of the text but inconsistently provide supporting statements, credible evidence, or the examples necessary to explain or persuade adequately. Additional details are needed to develop some points.	Level of discourse is appropriate, but the paper has lapses in anticipating the needs of its audience. A limited variety of grammatical errors exists, and may occasionally affect clarity and readability. ¶s are related to the main idea of the paper, but a limited number may be misplaced or include more than one idea. ¶s are adequately developed. Sentence length and variety is limited, but complex structures are attempted with some success. Any fragments are used intentionally for effect. Word choice is generally accurate, but reflects a partial or inconsistent grasp of the language appropriate to the audience. Transitional words, phrases, sentences and ¶s appear throughout the paper, but additional and appropriate connectors would enhance the flow. MLA 9 format is used, with multiple lapses.

D	The writer presents multiple conflicting purposes, or the purpose is inappropriate for the assignment / prompt. The writer addresses the appropriate topic but only superficially addresses the assignment requirements. Collectively, the ¶ topics offer apparent support for the argument of the paper, but the argument is weak. Details are loosely related to the elements of the text. Many do not provide supporting statements, credible evidence, or the examples necessary to explain or persuade adequately. Additional details are needed to develop most points.	Level of discourse is confused, or the paper addresses the audience on an inappropriate level. A variety of grammatical errors appears throughout the paper, possibly affecting clarity and readability. ¶s are attempted, but breaks or ¶s may be misplaced. Several ¶s are not adequately developed, include multiple ideas, or ideas that are unrelated to the main idea of the ¶. Sentence structure is typically simplistic, and complex structures are attempted with little success. Several sentences are unintentionally fused, run-ons, or fragments. Word choice is vague, limited, or repetitive, reflecting a weak grasp of the language appropriate to the audience. Transitional words, phrases, sentences and ¶s are attempted, but are often ineffective. MLA 9 format is attempted but inaccurate, or multiple style guidelines are mixed.

F	The writer’s purpose is not evident in the paper. The writer is off topic and/or omits most or all of the assignment requirements. The connection of the ¶ topics to the main idea of the paper is weak, leaving the argument unclear. Details are superficial or do not develop the elements of the text. Virtually no details are present.	Level of discourse is inappropriate for the audience, or the intended audience is unclear. Most sentences exhibit multiple grammatical and mechanical errors, negatively affecting clarity and readability. There are no ¶ breaks, or ¶s are not adequately developed. Ideas presented may be unrelated to the main idea of the paper and/or be presented illogically. Sentence structure is simple and repetitive. Complex structures are uniformly unsuccessful. Many sentences are unintentionally fused, run-ons, or fragments. Word choice is consistently inaccurate or inappropriate to the audience; many words are notably misused. Transitional words, phrases, sentences and ¶s are absent, or, if attempted, are ineffective. MLA 9 format is not attempted.

Marks on your papers

When I return your papers to you, they'll have marks on them, but almost no comments. Only in very rare cases, where errors aren’t immediately obvious, will I write a short comment. For the most part, your errors or issues are underlined and marked with a letter representing one of four categories:

MARK	EXPLANATION
A = ARGUMENT	These are errors or issues with the points you’re trying to make. They could be inconsistencies, the use of quotations that don’t do what you need them to do, fundamental contradictions in your macro structure, or a number of other things concerning how you’re moving your argument forward.
C = CLARITY	Usually sentence-level matters where you either need to be more clear and specific, explain yourself better, or resolve a contradiction.
F = FORMAT	You should use MLA 9 formatting for your paper. You'll follow it to set up how your paper looks on the page (your header, your margins, your page numbering) and how you handle things like titles of works, using quotations in your text, and creating a Works Cited page. You have The English Major’s MLA 9 Formatting Cheat Sheet available to you in Folio. “I used an online citation generator” is one of the most damning criticisms of your own abilities you can offer. If I suggested you weren’t capable of looking up and following a simple set of discipline-specific rules, you would be offended. So why would you admit that about yourself, especially since I'm telling you here that they are all, to varying degrees, inaccurate?
M = MECHANICS	Errors in sentence construction, usage, punctuation, spelling, etc. In general, there’s a reason why English has at least 64 different prepositions: they all mean something different. Oh, and burn your thesauruses. Using an elevated word that you think you might know the meaning of works doubly against you: it could be the wrong word for the situation, and it’s not the clear and concise word, which is what you want. Brackets [. . .] usually indicate errors with sentence construction.

But wait! There's good news . . .

You'll have a chance to revise each paper for a higher score. No matter the grade marked on your original submission, you can revise it for an additional 10 points (that's a full letter grade).

If you'd like to do that, you'll have one week after I return your papers to do the following:

In a separate document, explain what the error is for each underlined area of your paper. (The A, C, F, or M will be your initial guide to figuring this out.)
Revise your paper, correcting EVERY error.
Submit a) your original document (the one that is marked), b) the document you produced explaining the errors, and c) your revision, to the same dropbox where you submitted your initial attempt.

Discussion Post Rubric

Your contributions to the class discussions will be graded according to this rubric:

Very Good 10 Points	Satisfactory 8 Points	Needs Work 6 Points	Unsatisfactory 0 Points

Entries are in complete sentences or paragraphs.	Entries are in complete sentences or paragraphs.	Entries are in complete sentences or paragraphs.	Entries are not in complete sentences or paragraphs.

Entry distinguishes between your thoughts and the thoughts of others,	Entry distinguishes between your thoughts and the thoughts of others,	Entry distinguishes between your thoughts and the thoughts of others,	Entry does not distinguish between your thoughts and the thoughts of others.
AND	AND	BUT
is predominantly made up of your own thoughts,	is predominantly made up of your own thoughts.	is predominantly made up of the thoughts of others.
WHILE
the thoughts of others are used to support your ideas.

3 entries (primary and two secondary) are posted in the discussion board area,	2 entries (primary and secondary) are posted in the discussion board area,	2 entries (primary and secondary) are posted in the discussion board area,	Fewer than 2 entries are posted in the discussion board area.
AND	AND	HOWEVER
750 or more words total are posted (500+ for primary, 250+ for secondary).	500-750 words total are posted (500+ for primary).	Each entry is posted but is brief (less than three sentences).
PLUS (a or b)	PLUS (a or b)	OR
(a) Each entry contains thoughtful, substantive ideas concerning the assignment or content related to it.	(a) Each entry contains thoughtful, substantive ideas concerning the assignment or content related to it.	(a) Each entry has little in the way of thoughtful, substantive ideas concerning the assignment or content related to it.
OR	OR	OR
(b) Your entries are responsive to two peers, with detailed remarks about their writing or discussion response.	(b) Your entries are responsive to one peer, with detailed remarks about his or her writing or discussion response.	(b) No entries respond to your peers, or your response to a peer is just a personal remark, not a substantive reply (e.g., "Good. I really liked your comment.").
PLUS (c or d)
(c) Your primary entry includes an outside resource, or a relevant, specific real-life application.
OR
(d) Your responses to your peers clearly indicate your position on what they posted (e.g., agreeing, disagreeing, adding to, modifying, extending or questioning), all while explaining yourself thoroughly.

Evaluation

ASSIGNMENT	WEIGHT
Quizzes	20%
Discussion Posts	20%
Exam 1	15%
Exam 2	15%
Paper 1	15%
Paper 2	15%
TOTAL	100%