Reading Schedule

WEEK 1 // INTRODUCTION TO FORM, POINT OF VIEW, LANGUAGE

Tuesday, January 24

  • “20/20” by Linda Brewer (p. 15 in the Norton Introduction to Literature; all readings are from this anthology unless noted otherwise)
  • “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid (pp. 456-457)

Wednesday, January 25

  • Professor Kristin Samuelian: “How We Read”

Thursday, January 26

  • “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver (pp. 20-30)

WEEK 2 // THINKING ABOUT POETIC FORM

Tuesday, January 31

  • External Form (pp. 777-780); “Nuns Fret Not” by William Wordsworth (p. 781); “My Lady’s Presence Makes the Roses Red” by Henry Constable (p. 782); “When I consider how my light is spent” by John Milton (p. 786); “London, 1802” by William Wordsworth (p. 785); “Range-Finding” by Robert Frost (p. 785); “Joy Sonnet in a Random Universe” by Helen Chasin (p. 789); “Sonnet” by Billy Collins (p. 789)
  • Response Paper #1 assigned; Response Paper #5 (on a T&C film) assigned

Wednesday, February 1

  • Professor Robert Matz: “Literary Form: The Example of the Sonnet”

Thursday, February 2

  • Stanza Forms (p. 790); “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas (p. 791); “Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish (pp. 794-795); The Way a Poem Looks and [l(a)] by e.e. cummings (p. 795-796); [Buffalo Bill’s] by e.e. cummings (pp. 797-798); “The Red Wheelbarrow” and “This Is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams (pp. 694-695)
  • Response Paper #1 Due

WEEK 3 // TECHNOLOGY AND FORM

Tuesday, February 7

  • Situation and Setting (p. 657); “Cherrylog Road” by James Dickey (pp. 658-661); “The Flea” by John Donne (pp. 661-662)

Wednesday, February 8

  • Professor Mark Sample: “From Scrolls to Scrolling: The Technology of the Text”

Thursday, February 9

WEEK 4 // THE FORMS OF STORYTELLING

Tuesday, February 14

  • The Short Short Story (pp. 448-449); “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin (pp. 449-451); “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel García Márquez (pp. 451-455); “The Use of Force” by William Carlos Williams (pp. 459-462)

Wednesday, February 15

  • Professor Margaret Yocom: “‘Have you heard the one about the babysitter who . . . ?’: Folklore, Contemporary Legends, and Oral Tradition”

Thursday, February 16

  • Narration and Point of View (pp. 120-123); Theme (pp. 264-266); “Gorilla, My Love” by Toni Cade Bambara (pp. 418-422); “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri (pp. 284-298)

WEEK 5 // THINKING ABOUT POINT OF VIEW AND SUBJECTIVITY

Tuesday, February 21

  • “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin (pp. 88-110)

Wednesday, February 22

  • Professor Keith Clark: “‘A beat beneath the beat’: Point of View in ‘Sonny’s Blues'”

Thursday, February 23

  • “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (pp. 513-524); “How” by Lorrie Moore (pp. 132-138)
  • Essay #1 Due

WEEK 6 // “THE DEAD”: A CASE STUDY

Tuesday, February 28

  • Biographical and Historical Context to “The Dead” (pp. 3-20 in Schwarz); “The Dead” by James Joyce (pp. 21-59 in Schwarz)

Wednesday, March 1

  • Professor Jessica Scarlata: “Point of View in Film”

Thursday, March 2

  • A Critical History of “The Dead” (pp. 63-84 in Schwarz); Psychoanalysis and “The Dead” (pp. 85-124 in Schwarz); Scenes from John Huston’s The Dead (1987)

WEEK 7

Tuesday, March 7

  • A Reader-Response Perspective on “The Dead” (pp. 137-149); New Historicism and “The Dead” (pp. 150-177 in Schwarz); Feminist Criticism and “The Dead” (pp. 178-205 in Schwarz)
  • Response #3 Due

Wednesday, March 8

  • Professor Rick Davis: “Producing James Joyce’s The Dead”

Thursday, March 9

  • In-class Peer Review
  • Rough Draft of Essay #2 Due

SPRING BREAK // NO CLASS TUESDAY, MARCH 14 AND THURSDAY, MARCH 16

WEEK 8 // LANGUAGE AND PERFORMANCE

Tuesday, March 21

  • Act I of Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (pp. 1556-1586)

Wednesday, March 22

  • Professor Steven Weinberger: “Alien Language”

Thursday, March 23

  • Act II and Requiem of Death of a Salesman (pp. 1586-1621)

WEEK 9 // POETIC LANGUAGE

Tuesday, March 28

  • “The Word Plum” by Helen Chasin (p. 729); “Dirge” by Kenneth Fearing (p. 732); “Dear John, Dear Coltrane” by Michael Harper (pp. 751-752); “123rd Street Rap” by Willie Perdomo (pp. 752-753)
  • Final Version of Essay #2 Due

Wednesday, March 29

  • Professor Jennifer Atkinson: “Poetry and Language”

Thursday, March 30

  • “Thinking about Bill, Dead of AIDS” by Miller Williams (p. 819); “Blackberry Eating” by Galway Kinnell (pp. 995-996); “The Dance” by William Carlos Williams (pp. 767-768); “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath (pp. 948-950)

WEEK 10 // TEXT AND COMMUNITY

Tuesday, April 4

Wednesday, April 5

  • Professor Kyoko Mori: “The Narrator in Nonfiction”

Thursday, April 6

  • Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (pp. 1-23)

WEEK 11

Tuesday, April 11

  • Into the Wild (pp. 23-60)
  • Final Version of Paper #2 Due

Wednesday, April 12

  • Time off to attend a Text and Community or Earth Day event

Thursday, April 13

  • Into the Wild (pp. 61-97)
  • Selections from Matter of Fact: Reading Nonfiction over the Edge by Daniel Lehman (e-reserve)

WEEK 12

Tuesday, April 18

  • Into the Wild (pp. 98-156)
  • “The Wild, Wild North: Nature Writing, Nationalist Ecologies, and Alaska” by Susan Kollin (American Literary History 12, Spring-Summer 2000, pp. 41-78)

Wednesday, April 19

  • Professors Mike O’Malley (History), Julia Nord (New Century College), Eric Anderson (English): Interdisciplinary panel on Krakauer’s Into the Wild

Thursday, April 20

  • Into the Wild (pp. 157-207)
  • Response Paper #4 Due

WEEK 13

Tuesday, April 25

Wednesday, April 26

  • Professor Alok Yadav: “What is English”

Thursday, April 27

WEEK 14

Tuesday, May 2

  • In-class peer review
  • Rough Draft of Into the Wild critical essay due

Wednesday, May 3

  • Professor Jennifer Atkinson: Poetic Language

Thursday, May 4

  • Synthesis of major course themes
  • Into the Wild Critical Essay Due

EXAM WEEK

Tuesday, May 9

  • Course Portfolio due by 5 PM