Fall 2020 – LIT 201/Approaches to Literature

LIT 201 01
1 course unit
Term:  Fall 2020
Time:  3:30-4:50pm MR
Place:  REMOTE
Prerequisites: None
Prof. G. Steinberg
Office: Bliss 216
Office Phone: 609-771-2106
Office Hours:  by appointment only (remote)
Email: gsteinbe@tcnj.edu

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS.

    • Lois Tyson, Critical Theory Today, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2015), ISBN 9780415506755
    • Cormac McCarthy, The Road (Vintage, 2006), ISBN 9780307387899
    • Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye (Vintage, 1998), ISBN 9780307278449
    • Jack Zipes, ed. and trans., The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, 3rd ed. (Bantam, 2002), ISBN 9780553382167
    • William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, ed. Grace Ioppolo (W. W. Norton2010), ISBN 9780393931716
    • Edward Albee, The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? (Dramatists Play Service, 2003), ISBN 9780822219767
    • Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, ed. Johanna M. Smith, 3rd ed. (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2016), ISBN 9780312463182

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  An introduction to the various approaches and theories employed by professional literary critics and scholars to enhance students’  understanding, evaluation, and appreciation of literary works.

When the College went through a curriculum revision several years ago, the vast majority of undergraduate courses were “transformed” from 3-credit to 4-credit (1-unit) learning experiences.  While most of the classes continued to meet for only 3 academic hours per week (typically 150 minutes on the TCNJ schedule grid), it was understood that the “transformed” courses offered a depth of learning with additional learning tasks unfolding in the equivalent of a fourth hour, including, sometimes, an actual additional hour of class interaction.  As the equivalent of the fourth hour in this course,

F) The students are assigned additional learning tasks that make the semester’s learning experience more deeply engaged and rigorous, and no other additional classroom space is needed.

GOALS.  By the end of the course, I want you

      1. to take ever greater responsibility for your own learning,
      2. to appreciate that literary theory can help us to see and interpret texts more richly,
      3. to know the fundamentals of various literary theories and schools of thought,
      4. to be able to apply literary theories and schools of thought to literary texts independently,
      5. to be able to find, use, and respond to literary criticism, and
      6. to write interesting, original, persuasive literary analysis.

More officially, this course contributes to the following goals for the School of Humanities & Social Sciences and the English Department:

#1 Written Communication
#5 Critical Analysis and Reasoning:  Ability to critique the arguments of others in the discipline and the construction of one’s own arguments in the discipline, using data/evidence are a focus of instruction and/or the ability to analyze linguistic and cultural patterns
#6 Information Literacy:  Evaluating the validity and/or reliability of a source
#7 Interpret Language and Symbol
#12 Students will be able to demonstrate familiarity with a range of critical, generic, and literary traditions (including recent theoretical approaches) that shape – and are shaped by – literary discourses and texts of particular periods or movements
#15 Students will be able to read a literary work and characterize its main aesthetic, structural, and rhetorical strategies in an argumentative, thesis-driven essay or in a writing workshop

REQUIREMENTS.  For this course, you must complete the following graded assignments:

      1. 8 two-page response papers (10% of your final grade all together),
      2. a documentation exercise (5% of your final grade),
      3. PAPER 1 (15%),
      4. PAPER 2 (15%),
      5. a mid-term exam (20%),
      6. PAPER 3 (15%), and
      7. PAPER 4 (20%).

Your final grade will be based on the following scale:  A = 93%-100%, A- = 90%-92%, B+ = 87%-89%, B = 83%-86%, B- = 80%-82%, C+ = 77%-79%, C = 73%-76%, C- = 70%-72%, D+ = 67%-69%, D = 60%-66%, and F = below 60%.  This scale is absolute.  Because the response papers and the documentation exercise are in a sense a form of extra credit built into this course from the start, I do not give extra credit at the end of the semester to help students raise their grade even a whisker.  So, even if, at the end of the semester, you are just .0001 points away from an A-, your final grade will be a B+.

PROFESSOR’S AVAILABILITY.  My office is Bliss Hall 216, but my office hours this term are by appointment and remote only.  You may contact me by email (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu) to arrange a virtual or phone “meeting.”  You may also call my office phone (609-771-2106) and leave a message (if I do not answer), but email is by far the best way to get in touch with me.

ATTENDANCE.  This course is being taught remotely (because of the coronavirus pandemic), but we will “meet” synchronously online during the scheduled time for our class on each of the regular class days of the semester (unless otherwise noted in the course schedule below).  You are expected to “attend” all these class meetings.  The links for joining the synchronous online class meetings are available in Canvas under “Zoom.”  If you have technology issues or needs during the semester, please contact the IT Helpdesk at 609-771-2660 or helpdesk@tcnj.edu.

In general, I will not take or record attendance for our virtual class meetings, but regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of class. Class activities will constitute important, useful preparation for your graded work. If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day’s contribution to your preparation, since it is never really possible to reproduce or recapture the dynamics and flow of a missed class meeting (even if you get notes from someone). If, however, you positively must miss a class, I expect you to find out what you missed and to come fully prepared – without excuses – to the next class meeting. For information on the College’s attendance policy, please go to https://policies.tcnj.edu/?p=77.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY.  Academic dishonesty is any attempt by a student to gain academic advantage through dishonest means, to submit, as his or her own, work which has not been done by him/her or to give improper aid to another student in the completion of an assignment. Such dishonesty would include, but is not limited to, submitting as his/her own a project, paper, report, test, or speech copied from, partially copied, or paraphrased from the work of another (whether the source is printed, under copyright, or in manuscript form). Credit must be given for words quoted or paraphrased. The rules apply to any academic dishonesty, whether the work is graded or ungraded, group or individual, written or oral. TCNJ’s academic integrity policy is available on the web at https://policies.tcnj.edu/?p=130.

ACCOMMODATIONS.  The College of New Jersey prohibits discrimination against any student on the basis of physical or mental disability or perceived disability. The College will also provide reasonable and appropriate accommodations to enable students with disabilities to participate in the life of the campus community. If you require special accommodations, I will make every reasonable effort to accommodate your needs and to create an environment where your special abilities are respected. For more information, please go to https://policies.tcnj.edu/?p=145 and https://arc.tcnj.edu/.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION. We are all enriched by greater diversity, and we all bring different perspectives to this class. I want to create a learning environment that supports diversity and honors your identities and perspectives (including your race, gender, class, sexuality, religion, mental and physical health, differing abilities, politics, etc.). If you go by a name and/or set of pronouns that differ from those that appear in your official records, please let me know. If you feel that your performance in class is being impacted by experiences related to your identity outside of class, please don’t hesitate to come and talk to me. If something is said or posted in class (by anyone, including me) that makes you feel uncomfortable, targeted, misunderstood, or disparaged as a person, please talk to me about it. I will expect our whole class (including me) to strive always to honor every form of diversity. To see TCNJ’s official diversity statement, please go to https://diversity.tcnj.edu/campus-diversity-statement/.

LANGUAGES ACROSS THE CURRICULUM. A ¼ unit (one credit) Languages Across the Curriculum independent study (LAC 391) may be added to this course for those students who have intermediate level proficiency in another language and who wish to complement the work in this course by utilizing their language skills. LAC 391 (P/U grading only) will be noted on the student’s transcript. Please contact Professor Potter at potter@tcnj.edu for more information. Students must contact Professor Potter to enroll in the LAC independent study by Tuesday, September 2, 2020. More information can be found at https://internationalstudies.tcnj.edu/languages/ or by emailing Professor Potter.

FINAL EVALUATION.  As required by the College’s Final Exam/Evaluation Policy (https://policies.tcnj.edu/?p=266), this course has a final evaluation in the form of a final paper that is comprehensive and integrative in nature and counts for at least 15% and not more than 50% of your final grade.

RESPONSE PAPERS.  In the course of the term, you are required to write 8 short, informal papers (about 2 pages each) on the readings for class.  You may choose which days you want to write a response paper, as long as you have completed 8 response papers by the end of the term.  You may only submit response papers on days that have a literary reading assigned.  For each response paper, apply one of the literary theories that we have read about up to that point in the semester to the literary reading assigned for the day.  Please note that, when you do a response paper, you are writing about the literary reading assigned for the day on which you’re submitting the paper. So, you’re writing about the literary reading before we discuss it in class and submitting the paper on the day for which that reading is assigned. You may not submit a response paper about a past day’s literary reading assignment.

You should submit each response paper by “sharing” it with me as a Google Doc before class on the literary reading’s assigned day.  Be sure to grant me “editing” or “suggesting” status when you share the Google Doc with me (so that I can comment directly on the paper).

Response papers will be graded Pass/Fail.  They need not be a perfect, polished product.  Rather, response papers should be just what their name says – a response.  Think about the literary reading assignment in relation to one of the theories that we’ve covered in class; then write a response.  Don’t worry about typos or comma splices or organization.  Focus on one theoretical question or idea that seems most interesting to you, and be as specific as you can, getting down as much as you can, as quickly as you can.  Treat response papers more like a journal entry than like a formal paper.  I don’t want a five-paragraph theme.  Rather, I want an exploration of the literary reading assignment for the day – as detailed and specific as possible, considered from a particular theoretical perspective.

Normally, as long as you submit a response paper of suitable length, detail, and thoughtfulness (and as long as you “share” it with me as a Google Doc before class on the assigned day), you will receive all the points that the response paper is worth.  You may not submit more than one response paper on a single day, nor may you submit a response paper for a day that you are “absent” from our synchronous online class.  The purpose of the response papers is

      1. to help you prepare for class discussion,
      2. to help me see where you’re struggling with the theoretical approaches and readings for class,
      3. to help you develop your intellectual independence and your confidence as a reader, and
      4. to practice literary analysis (in preparation for the formal papers).

You may submit more than 8 response papers in the course of the semester (to make up for any response papers that do not pass), but no matter how many extra response papers you turn in, you will not receive credit for more than 8 total.

PAPER 1.  In a paper of 4-6 pages, do a Marxist, feminist/gender, or reader-response reading of The Goat:  Or, Who Is Sylvia?  For this paper, as long as you are not using any other sources besides the text of the play, you do not need a “Works Cited” page or footnotes, but note the page numbers for your paper’s quotations of the play in parentheses in the text of your paper.  I encourage you, about a week before the paper is due, to submit a thesis paragraph (a draft first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) to me by email; if you do so by the date noted in the course schedule below, I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis.

Your paper will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

      1. Does the paper have a clear, specific thesis?  Does the thesis offer an interesting perspective or “hook” that is provocative without being gimmicky or offensive?  Does the paper’s thesis incorporate appropriate literary theory and show a thorough understanding of that theory?
      2. Does the paper’s analysis progress logically?  Does the paper have a clear and consistent overall organization that relates all the ideas of the paper together in support of the thesis with appropriate transitions to aid the reader (rather than simply a list of random points without relation to one another or to the thesis)?  Does the paper have appropriate transitions to aid the reader in following the paper’s logic (rather than weak transitions, such as “The first…,” “Another…,” and “…also…”)?
      3. Does the paper provide relevant, concrete evidence and logically persuasive reasons for every assertion?
      4. Does the paper exhibit confidence and insight when analyzing literary works not discussed in class?
      5. Does the introduction to the paper offer an interesting, helpful preview of the content, logic, and organization of the paper?
      6. Is factual information in the paper accurate?  Is the paper’s use of theory appropriate and sufficiently sophisticated?
      7. Is the writing in the paper clear, effective, and appropriate to an academic setting?

PAPER 2.  In Canvas, you will find a copy of “A Rose for Emily” under “Files.”  In a paper of 4-6 pages, do a psycholanalytic, structuralist, or deconstructive reading of “A Rose for Emily.” For this paper, as long as you are not using any other sources besides the text of the short story, you do not need a “Works Cited” page or footnotes, but note the page numbers for your quotations from the short story in parentheses in the text of your paper.  I encourage you, about a week before the paper is due, to submit a thesis paragraph (a draft first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) to me by email; if you do so by the date noted in the course schedule below, I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis.  Your PAPER 2 will be evaluated according to the same criteria as PAPER 1.

PAPER 3.  In Canvas, you will find a critical essay on The Goat:  Or, Who Is Sylvia? under “Files.”  Choose one of the theoretical approaches that we have studied this semester.  In a paper of 4-6 pages, do a reading of The Goat:  Or, Who Is Sylvia? using your chosen theoretical approach and responding to the to critical essay in Canvas.  You must include a “Works Cited” page with this paper and use proper MLA documentation format.  I encourage you, about a week before the paper is due, to submit a thesis paragraph (a draft first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) to me by email; if you do so by the date noted in the course schedule below, I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis.  Your PAPER 3 will be evaluated according to the same criteria as PAPER 1, plus

      1. Does the paper respond meaningfully to the critical essay(s) but at the same time focus foremost on its own argument and thesis?  Do references to the critical essay(s) fit neatly into the logic of the paper’s argument?  Does the paper enter into conversation with the critical essay(s) and make a significant contribution to that conversation?  Does the paper avoid the pitfall of slavishly agreeing with the critical essay(s)?  Does it avoid the pitfall of belligerently disagreeing?
      2. Does the paper summarize the argument of the critical essay(s) accurately, fairly, concisely, and logically?  Does the paper focus on that argument’s main points (rather than on minutia or throwaway comments that are not central to the argument)?
      3. Does the paper use proper MLA documentation format?

PAPER 4.  Choose one of the theoretical approaches that we have studied this semester.  In a paper of 4-6 pages, do a reading of Measure for Measure using your chosen theoretical approach and responding to at least two critical essays (published since 2000) that you have researched and found yourself.  You must include a “Works Cited” page with this paper and use proper MLA documentation format.  I encourage you, about a week before the paper is due, to submit a thesis paragraph (a draft first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) to me by email; if you do so by the date noted in the course schedule below, I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis.  Your PAPER 4 will be evaluated according to the same criteria as PAPER 3, plus

      1. Do the critical essays used in the paper represent good choices in terms of their scholarly credentials and the relevance of their arguments to the paper’s own thesis?

DOCUMENTATION EXERCISE.  Below is an exercise that asks you to create in-text citations and bibliographic entries in MLA format for various kinds of sources.  You are to submit the completed exercise by “sharing” it with me as a Google Doc.  Be sure to grant me “editing” or “suggesting” status when you share the Google Doc with me (so that I can comment directly on it).  If your submission is not 100% correct, I will ask you to revise it.  If your revision is not 100% correct, I will ask you to revise again.  You will continue to revise the exercise and resubmit it (as a shared Google Doc) until it is 100% correct – as many times as it takes.  It is your responsibility to submit the assignment in a timely fashion and to revise and resubmit it as necessary.  Once you have succeeded in getting the exercise 100% correct, you will receive all the credit that the assignment is worth (100% or A+ for 5% of your final grade).  If you do not succeed in getting the exercise 100% correct by the last day of class, you will receive a zero for 5% of your final grade.

Here is the exercise that you must complete:

TASK 1:  Examine the three situations described below.  For each situation, retype the sentence exactly as it should appear in a paper, complete with the parenthetical citation appropriate to the situation (if a citation is needed).  You should use the MLA Formatting and Style Guide.

        1. The following sentence appears in a paper:
          Again, a study performed by Grennan, concentrating on male and female police officers’ confrontations with citizens, revealed that the inborn or socialized nurturing ability possessed by female police workers makes them “just as productive as male officers in the handling of a violent confrontation.”

          The quotation comes from page 84 of an article published in Journal of Police Science and Administration in 1987 and written by Samuel Grennan.  The article appeared on pages 78-84 of the first issue of volume 15 of the journal.  The article’s title was “Findings on the Role of Officer Gender in Violent Encounters with Citizens.

        2. The following sentence appears in a paper:
          In a 1987 study by Vega and Silverman, almost 75% of male police officers felt that women were not strong enough to handle the demands of patrol duties, and 42% felt women lacked the needed assertiveness to enforce the law vigorously.

          Would you need a parenthetical citation for this information?  Matthew Vega and Immanuel Silverman wrote the article used here, called “Female Police Officers as Viewed by Their Male Counterparts.”  It was published in the first issue of volume 5 of Police Studies in 1987.  It appeared on pages 31-39 of the journal, and the percentages in the sentence above appear on page 32.  Police Studies is published in Chicago.

        3. The following sentence appears in a paper:
          Who returns a questionnaire can affect results, as happened, for example, with one study in which “78% of the former students in the top percentile of their class returned the questionnaire, while only 28% from the bottom percentile returned the questionnaire.”

          This quotation came from a 1999 article by R. L. Griffey, called “The Personalization of Questionnaires” with the subtitle, “A Longitudinal Study.”  The article appeared on pages 83-93 of volume 14, issue number 2, of the Journal of Survey Techniques.  The quotation is on page 83.

TASK 2:  A paper uses the following sources, plus the ones in #1, #2, and #3 of TASK 1 above:

        1. our textbook for The Bluest Eye,
        2. our textbook for The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, and
        3. the article by David Collings in our textbook for Frankenstein.

Create the appropriate “Works Cited” page exactly as it should appear at the end of the paper (with all six sources).  You should use the MLA Formatting and Style Guide.

COURSE SCHEDULE.  This schedule is subject to revision at the discretion of the professor.  Changes in the schedule made after the first day of class will be shown in red.

Dates Assignments
R Aug 27 Introductions
M Aug 31 Critical Theory Today, pp. 1-10, 51-78
The Road, pp. 1-48
R Sep 3 Critical Theory Today, pp. 129-160
The Road, pp. 49-93
M Sep 7 NO CLASS (Labor Day)
T Sep 8 MONDAY SCHEDULE (makeup for Labor Day)
The Road
, pp. 94-198
R Sep 10 The Road, pp. 199-287
M Sep 14 Critical Theory Today, pp. 79-128
The Bluest Eye, pp. 1-32
R Sep 17 Critical Theory Today, pp. 161-197
The Bluest Eye, pp. 33-58
M Sep 21 The Bluest Eye, pp. 59-131
R Sep 24 The Bluest Eye, pp. 132-206
Thesis paragraphs for PAPER 1 due by email before midnight
M Sep 28 MLA Formatting and Style Guide
R Oct 1 OPTIONAL CLASS (drop in if you have questions)
PAPER 1 DUE in Canvas before midnight
M Oct 5 Critical Theory Today, pp. 11-50
The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, #60-#65
R Oct 8 Critical Theory Today, pp. 198-234
The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, #66-#70
M Oct 12 Critical Theory Today, pp. 235-266
The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm
, #12, #15, #21, #26, #37, #50, #53, #55
R Oct 15 The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, #4, #17, #20, #22, #29, #33, #42, #71, #87, #93, #99, #101, #108, #136, #189
M Oct 19 The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, #1, #11, #13, #25, #34, #46, #49, #56, #77, #89, #94, #113, #128, #161, #188
Thesis paragraphs for PAPER 2 due by email before midnight
R Oct 22 Frankenstein, pp. 19-64
M Oct 26 OPTIONAL CLASS (drop in if you have questions)
PAPER 2 DUE in Canvas before midnight
R Oct 29 Frankenstein, pp. 64-127
M Nov 2 Frankenstein, pp. 128-189
R Nov 5 OPTIONAL CLASS (drop in if you have questions)
MID-TERM EXAM DUE before midnight
M Nov 9 Frankenstein, pp. 360-380
R Nov 12 Frankenstein, pp. 469-480
Thesis paragraphs for PAPER 3 due by email before midnight
M Nov 16 library search, JSTOR, Project Muse, and MLA Bibliography
Thesis paragraphs for PAPER 3 due by email before midnight
R Nov 19 OPTIONAL CLASS (drop in if you have questions)
PAPER 3 DUE in Canvas before midnight
M Nov 23 NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Break)
PAPER 3 DUE in Canvas before midnight
R Nov 26 NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Break)
M Nov 30 Acts 1-3 of Measure for Measure
R Dec 3 Acts 4-5 of Measure for Measure
Thesis paragraphs for PAPER 4 due by email before midnight
R Dec 10 PAPER 4 DUE in Canvas before midnight