Fall 2025 – LIT 354 01 – Middle English Literature

LIT 354 – 01
1 course unit
no prerequisites
Term: Fall 2025
Time: 2-3:20pm TF
Room: Bliss Annex 151		 Prof. Glenn Steinberg
Office: Bliss Hall 216
Office Phone: 771-2106
Office Hours: 2-5:30pm on Mondays
or by appointment
E-mail: gsteinbe@tcnj.edu

TEXTBOOKS:

    • Four Romances of England, ed. Ronald B. Herzman, Graham Drake, and Eve Salisbury (1999), ISBN 9781580440172
    • Four Middle English Romances, ed. Harriet Hudson, 2nd ed. (2006), ISBN 9781580441117
    • The Middle English Breton Lays, ed. Anne Laskaya and Eve Salisbury (1995), ISBN 9781879288621
    • King Arthur’s Death, ed. Larry D. Benson, rev. Edward E. Foster (1994), ISBN 9781879288386
    • Sir Gawain, ed. Thomas Hahn (1995), ISBN 9781879288591
    • King of Tars, ed. John H. Chandler (2015), ISBN 9781580442046
    • the TEAMS web site at https://metseditions.org/texts (glossed, online texts of various works of Middle English literature for free, including all our textbooks above)

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  The official description of this course is available in PAWS.

People often think of the Middle Ages as a very homogeneous time period – controlled by the monolithic Catholic Church, enjoying no social mobility, ruled by arbitrary, all-powerful monarchs.  In fact, medieval English culture was very diverse.  This course is your chance to meet the wild and crazy, complex, conflicted culture that is medieval England.  Knights and ladies, monks and friars, peasants and merchants – they’re not really what you expect, but they’re definitely entertaining (at least as funny and outlandish as Monty Python and the Holy Grail).  We begin the semester by looking closely at one genre (romance) in order to examine the diversity of ways in which medieval English people of various stripes conceived of and used that genre, and then groups of students will choose other genres, authors, or traditions in order to select representative readings for their classmates (and explore the diversity of medieval English culture further).  Readings will all be in the original Middle English (but you quickly get used to it – even start dreaming in it sometimes).

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, 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) 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.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES AND EXPECTATIONS.  The principal learning activities in this course are reading, writing, and discussion.  The readings that I have chosen to assign to you are the foundation of your learning.  If you do not do the readings, you miss out on that foundation, so keeping up with the readings is absolutely essential.  Because the readings for this course are in Middle English, you may find them difficult at first.  Budget your time carefully to allow you to complete the reading assignments for class, especially early in the semester.  As time goes on and you get more practice, reading Middle English will become easier for you (and since we read the texts for class in roughly chronological order, later texts in the semester were written later in time and are therefore closer to Modern English and easier to read anyway).  If you struggle with the Middle English, you may read summaries or Modern English “translations” of the texts for class (online, AI-generated, or in the introductions in your textbooks), but you should always go back and read through the Middle English originals before class.  Summaries and translations (especially those done by AI) can be unintentionally inaccurate and misleading sometimes.  Other resources for reading Middle English include Middle English glossaries of common words (and I have put a couple of these under “Files” in Canvas for you) and the Middle English Compendium (the complete Middle English Dictionary and capability for searches for particular words within a number of Middle English texts).

Upon the foundation of the class’s readings, you build by writing response papers, which are more about writing-to-learn than writing-as-assessment.  Response papers are a safe, low-stress space for you to try out ideas, increase your understanding of concepts, and improve your retention of what you’re learning.  By writing, you reinforce and expand the learning that you’re gaining from your reading.  But in order for response papers to serve this function (helping you think through the readings to increase understanding and deepen learning), you need to actually write them yourself.  Using generative AI to write them defeats the purpose.  For this reason, you are not allowed to use generative AI of any kind for any assistance with the writing of your response papers – not for brainstorming, not for the actual writing, not even for checking grammar and punctuation.  If I suspect in the slightest that you have used AI to write a response paper, I will fail the response paper – no appeals or arguments.  This means that any response paper will fail that includes “hallucinations” (errors concerning the facts, plot, characters, or words of the reading assignment), is excessively vague and general (typical of AI but also just bad writing that would fail even if it weren’t AI-generated), or exhibits a sophistication that you have not shown me in class to be within your wheelhouse.

Building on your reading and writing, discussion is also very important for your learning in this class.  In general, my approach to class discussion is to begin by posing a question or topic, then to have us brainstorm lots of ideas together in response to the opening question/topic, then to move to evaluating the ideas that we’ve brainstormed, and finally to come to a consensus, as a class, about the best answers/conclusions to the opening question/topic.  Your input to the discussion is absolutely critical.  Even if you’re shy and hate to speak up in class, we need your ideas in the mix.  Everyone has a different perspective, and if you don’t speak up, we miss out on yours.  Even though I may have taught the materials in this class many, many times before, no two classes have ever had exactly the same discussion about them.  Different classes come up with different ideas, arrive at different conclusions, offer different perspectives.  As the professor, I’m not looking for one idea or one conclusion or one perspective in particular.  I want us to think things through together – to throw out as many ideas as possible, to test and evaluate those ideas against the evidence of the material in front of us, and to draw the best conclusions that we can.  We all learn so much by working together in a free and open discussion to answer a question or explore a topic.  I learn so much from you, and you learn so much from each other.  But this means that our class discussions always depend on your preparedness (how thoroughly and thoughtfully you’ve done your assigned homework) and on your participation (how willing you are to take risks, to brainstorm, and to share ideas – even when your ideas are only half-baked).  I can’t make a good discussion happen.  Only you all can do that.  I can work to create a classroom space that feels safe for you and pose provocative questions for us to discuss, but a good discussion – along with the incredible learning that comes from a good discussion – only happens if you all come to class prepared and willing to join in.

GOALS.  In this course, you will learn

    1. to grow ever more responsible for and independent in your own learning,
    2. to improve cognitive endurance in order to be better able to complete readings of considerable length and complexity,
    3. to analyze how creative texts, artworks, or performances reflect, shape, exalt, or challenge the values of a culture,
    4. to recognize and interpret a sampling of the texts of Middle English literature,
    5. to be more aware of, question, and enrich your basic assumptions about language, culture, and literature,
    6. to enjoy the richness, vitality, and strangeness of Middle English literature, as well as of medieval English society and culture,
    7. to master the challenges of – and develop a healthy appreciation for – Middle English and its differences from English today,
    8. to recognize, respect, and understand language diversity better, and
    9. to demonstrate greater facility with critical practices and writing conventions in the field of English.

Also, the following goals for the English Department and the School of Humanities & Social Sciences apply in this course:

#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
#7 Interpret Language and Symbol
#8 Intercultural Competence:  The development of understanding of other cultures and/or subcultures (practices, perspectives, behavior patterns, etc.)
#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
#14 Students will be able to identify historically specific elements relevant to a particular text
#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. eight two-page response papers (together worth 15% of your final grade),
    2. a mid-term exam (15% of your final grade),
    3. an academic paper (20%),
    4. a group presentation in class (15%),
    5. a group social media campaign (15%), and
    6. a cumulative, comprehensive final exam (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 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+.

RESPONSE PAPERS.  In the course of the term, you are required to submit eight short, informal papers (about 2 pages each) on the assignments for class.  You may choose for which days you want to write a response paper, as long as you have completed eight response papers by the end of the term.  You must, however, submit at least one response paper before the midterm exam.  If you have not submitted at least one response paper by then, you will receive a zero that you cannot make up as one of your eight response paper grades.

For each response paper, choose one of the following topics and analyze the assignment for the day with respect to the topic you’ve chosen:

    1. Values.  What are the fundamental values of the text?  Does the text value hard work, honesty, wealth, breeding, family, loyalty, physical prowess, beauty, love, intelligence, humility, learning, action, duty, honor, discipline, individual freedom, community, or something else?  How and where do the characters manifest such values?  How and where are they rewarded for following good values (or punished for following bad)?  How exactly does the text define such values as duty, honor, love, family, and loyalty – terms that can mean different things to different people?  How do the text’s values relate to those of previous reading assignments in class?
    2. Gender.  How are men and women portrayed in the text?  What are the characteristics of a good man in the text? a good woman? a bad man? a bad woman?  What does the text imply or say about what roles are appropriate for each gender?  What kinds of behaviors seem to be portrayed as natural for men and women?  What kinds of behaviors seem to be portrayed as proper for them?  Is there flexibility in terms of what is proper to each gender?  What seems to be the attitude of the author toward men and women?  How does the text’s treatment of gender relate to that of previous reading assignments in class?
    3. Religion.  How are religion and religious ideas portrayed in the text?  How Christian is the work in outlook, doctrine, and/or symbolism?  Is it really Christian in its values or is it just Christian in name only (“culturally Christian”)?  Does it explicitly reflect on Christian doctrine?  How is its Christianity similar to or different from Christianity today?  How is organized religion portrayed?  How are Church figures (such as friars, monks, priests, and nuns) portrayed?  Is the text critical of the Church?  How does the text’s portrayal of religion relate to that of previous reading assignments in class?  Click here for a list of some of the most important types of Church figures in medieval England and some brief generalizations about them.
    4. Social Class.  How are members of different social classes portrayed in the text?  What seems to be the attitude of the author toward the king and royal court, the nobility, peasants, townspeople, the guilds, merchants, lawyers, clerks, and professionals?  Does the author use, endorse, or undermine the stereotypes about particular social classes?  Does the author seem to identify with any particular social class or with the values of a particular class?  How does the text’s portrayal of social class relate to that of previous reading assignments in class?  Click here for a list of some of the most important social classes in medieval England and some brief generalizations about them.
    5. World View.  What kind of fictive world does the text portray?  What are the fundamental elements or principles of the text’s world?  Is the world a benevolent place or a dark, dangerous hell-hole without hope?  Is it magical, miraculous, or mundane?  How does the text portray humanity?  What are the fundamental nature and characteristics of humanity in the text’s world?  Does the text seem to view/portray the world and humanity in a basically positive or a basically negative light?  How does the text’s portrayal of the world and humanity relate to that of previous reading assignments in class?
    6. Form.  (NOTE:  You may only write on this topic when the reading assignment is poetry.)  What kind of poetry is involved?  Does it rhyme and/or have stanzas (an imported Continental innovation)?  Does it alliterate (a native English tradition)?  Does it use both rhyme/stanzas and alliteration?  Does it use neither?  How long are the poetic lines roughly (i.e., number of syllables or metric feet)?  Does the author use what we recognize as typical poetic techniques (e.g., metaphor, imagery, symbolism, syntactic inversion, rhythm, poetic diction, enjambment)?  Is its use of poetic form sophisticated, clumsy, professional, amateurish, parodic?  How might the text’s form reflect the values and social class of its author and audience?  How does the form relate to the form of previous reading assignments in class?
    7. Language.  What are the distinctive features of the language of the text?  Do not simply point to various random oddities in spelling or vocabulary.  Generalize about what patterns of features characterize the text’s language.  Are there particular words that are foreign to you but that recur frequently in the text?  Are there unusual grammatical forms that recur frequently (e.g., -and for -ing)?  Are there unusual spellings that recur frequently (perhaps suggesting patterns in pronunciation)?  What are the main elements that seem to characterize the dialect of the text?  How distant, relatively speaking, is the text’s language from our English today?  How does the language of the text relate to that of previous reading assignments in class?
    8. Narrative.  What is the organizing principle or shape of the narrative?  Don’t simply summarize what happens in the story.  Tell me what seems to be the overall arc of the story’s organization.  What are the story’s major sections or divisions?  How do the sections/divisions of the story relate to one another and to an overarching narrative principle?  What patterns are apparent?  Does the main story have a frame of some sort around it or an introduction that sets up the major themes and images of the story?  Are the sections of the story symmetrical, patterned, contrasting, episodic, uncoordinated, random?  Are there any subplots?  Is there a cyclical pattern to the narrative?  Is there a linear pattern and/or a climactic moment?  How does the narrative of today’s reading assignment relate to that of previous reading assignments in class?
    9. Nature.  How is the natural world portrayed in the text?  Is nature awe-inspiring, threatening, restorative, dangerous, innocent, primitive, violent?  How does the text portray the relationship between humans and the natural world?  Are humans part of the natural world or removed from it?  How do humans use or steward the resources of the natural world – thoughtfully, carelessly, sustainably, exploitatively?  Do humans corrupt and destroy the natural world when they enter it?  Does nature need protection from humans?  Do humans need protection from nature?  How does the portrayal of the natural world in today’s reading assignment relate to that in previous reading assignments in class?
    10. Monsters.  How are monsters portrayed in the text?  Monsters are both scary and fascinating because of how they blur and undermine critical boundaries – e.g., between dead and alive, human and animal, male and female, natural and supernatural, real and unreal.  How do the monsters in the text disturb or transgress accepted categories, causing fear or precipitating a crisis for usual ways of thinking and acting?  How does the text resolve the issue of the monsters?  Are the monsters eradicated, safely exiled, assimilated, allowed to run free, celebrated?  Are the monsters ever exciting, appealing, even desirable?  How does the portrayal of monsters in today’s reading assignment relate to that in previous reading assignments in class?

You should submit each response paper by “sharing” it with me as a Google Doc before class on the assigned day.  Be sure to grant me “editing” or “commenting” status when you share the Google Doc with me (so that I can comment directly on the paper).  Please note that, when you do a response paper, you are writing about the assignment for the day on which you’re submitting the paper. So, you’re writing about the assignment before we discuss it in class and submitting the paper before the class meeting for which that assignment is assigned. You can’t submit a response paper about a past day’s assignment.

The purpose of the response papers is

    1. to help you in your preparation for class discussion,
    2. to allow you to try out new and different ideas in a safe, low-stress space,
    3. to help me see where you’re struggling with the concepts and assignments in class,
    4. to help you reinforce and expand on what you’re learning in class, and
    5. to help you develop your intellectual independence and confidence.

Response papers are graded Pass/Fail, so they need not be a perfect, polished product (and you should never use AI assistants, such as Grammerly, to polish them).  Rather, response papers should be just what their name says – a response.  Think about one of the topics  that I have asked you to consider; then write a response.  Don’t worry about typos or comma splices or organization.  Don’t worry about answering every question I ask under a particular topic.  In fact, focus on the one question 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 – as detailed and specific as possible – of the assignment for the day.  But don’t focus too narrowly on just one scene or passage or page from the assignment.  Try to generalize about the assignment and then look at specific examples from all over to support your generalization.

Normally, as long as you submit a response paper of suitable length, detail, and thoughtfulness (and as long as you submit it before class on the assigned day), you will receive all the points that the response paper is worth.  You may submit more than eight 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 eight total (and if you do not submit at least one response paper before the midterm exam, you will receive a zero that you cannot make up as one of your eight response paper grades).  You may not submit more than one response paper for a single day’s assignment, nor may you submit a response paper for a day that you are absent from class.  But you may submit more than one response paper on the same text if there are multiple assignments spread over multiple days for that text.  The response papers should then each be on a different assignment from a different day.

NOTE: You may not submit a response paper for a day without a specific homework assignment for class (e.g., exam days), but you may submit response papers on the days that groups are making the assignment for class and leading class discussion.

ALSO NOTE: Even if you do not submit a response paper on a particular day, you should still come to class prepared to discuss the response paper topics in relation to the assignment for the day, since we will focus on these topics in our in-class discussions all semester.  In other words, the response paper topics above are a great guide for your class prep and studying every day, even when you’re not writing a response paper.

EXAMS.  The exams in this course are an assessment of how well you have learned, understood, and retained the material in class.  The exams assess your retention of important character names, settings, critical terms, and concepts by asking you to identify and describe them.  They also ask you to consider important passages and scenes that we discussed in class and explain what we learned from them.  Finally, the exams offer you the opportunity to draw together the different strands of what you’ve been learning in class in an essay that asks you to look broadly at overarching themes and ideas over the whole semester.

ACADEMIC PAPER.  Read Sir Orfeo (The Middle English Breton Lais, pp. 26-41).  Then read Danielle Howarth, “Making It Through the Wilderness:  Trees as Markers of Gendered Identities in Sir Orfeo,” Medieval Feminist Forum 56 (2020), pp. 84-106 (available under “Files” in Canvas).  Write a paper of 4-6 pages in which you argue a clear, specific thesis about Sir Orfeo in response to Howarth’s essay.  Do not go point by point through the essay, slavishly following Howarth’s argument and focusing more on the essay than on Sir Orfeo.  Instead, respond to just the main point (or one of the main claims) of the essay with a claim of your own, and then use the bulk of your paper to make a case for your claim.  Your claim should meaningfully connect to the main point of Howarth’s essay, either supporting it from a different angle, disagreeing with it, or expanding it in a new direction, but your paper should focus mostly on your claim rather than on the essay.  I recommend that you start with an introductory paragraph (including your thesis), followed by one paragraph that summarizes Howarth’s main point and argument.  Then leave Howarth’s essay behind and launch into your own ideas.  In the rest of your paper, you should argue your claim, looking primarily at new evidence or at evidence used in Howarth’s  essay that you interpret in a new way.  Only very rarely, if the essay made a major point by looking at a passage or scene in a way that is especially helpful to your argument, should you refer back to it and summarize or quote what it said, always making perfectly clear what comes from Howarth and what comes from you.  But you should not continually use the essay to lend authoritative support to the points that you’re making.  Don’t keep quoting lines from the essay that seem to have already said what you’re saying.  Think of your paper as your contribution to a conversation with Howarth’s essay.  You should be moving the conversation forward, adding something new, rather than just rehashing what Howarth’s essay already said and quoting it over and over, as though you’re just going over the same ground that the essay did.  In a real conversation, if you just keep repeating what somebody else says, what impression do you give?  Have confidence in your own ideas, and move beyond the essay to contribute something new and interesting.

One way that you can move beyond Howarth’s essay is to look at Sir Orfeo from a different angle.  If you focus on religion or values or monsters (or one of the other response paper topics that the essay doesn’t discuss much), do you see something new or different in the romance?  Does what you see seem to bolster Howarth’s main point or torpedo it?  Does it make you agree more with Howarth’s essay or disagree more with it?  Can you formulate your (dis)agreement as a thesis?

Another way to move beyond Howarth’s essay is to draw on what you’ve learned from the other readings in this class.  Does looking at Sir Orfeo in the context of the romances that we’ve read this semester make you see something new or different about Sir Orfeo?  Does what you see seem to bolster Howarth’s main point or torpedo it?  Does it make you agree more with Howarth’s essay or disagree more with it?  Can you formulate your (dis)agreement as a thesis?  If you choose to look at Sir Orfeo in the context of our other readings for class this semester, I recommend that you limit yourself to one other romance in comparison to Sir Orfeo in your paper.  If you try to use more than one other romance, you risk making your paper too busy and vague.

You need not use any sources for your paper other than Sir Orfeo, Howarth’s essay, and any romance from class that you choose to use for comparison to Sir Orfeo.  In fact, I would encourage you not to use other sources (because I’d rather hear what you think than what some published scholar, online blogger, or AI thinks).  But if you do use any other sources (whether scholarly, online, or AI) for ANYTHING (an idea, a piece of background information, an overall perspective, a phrase or wording, a grammar check), be sure to cite and document those sources appropriately (in notes or with a “Works Cited” page).  If you use AI to assist you in any way, explain how you used it IN DETAIL in a note at the end of your paper.  If you fail to cite sources or AI that you used, you are violating academic integrity.  You do not need notes or a “Works Cited” page just for Sir Orfeo, the romances from class, or Howarth’s essay if those are the only sources that you use.  Just cite page numbers (for the essay) and line numbers (for the romances) in parentheses at the end of your sentence.

Your paper will be graded according to the following criteria:

    1. Does the paper have a clear and specific thesis?  Does the thesis offer an interesting perspective or “hook” that is provocative without being gimmicky or offensive?  Does the thesis highlight an interesting and illuminating feature of the text(s) discussed?  Does the thesis respond meaningfully to the scholarly essay?
    2. Does the paper’s analysis progress logically, with a clear, consistent focus?  Does the paper have a coherent overall organization that relates all the ideas of the paper together in support of the thesis (rather than simply providing a list of random observations without relation to one another or to the thesis)?  Does the paper have appropriate transitions to aid the reader in seeing and following the logic of the paper (rather than weak transitions, such as “The first…,” “Another…,” and “Also…”)?
    3. Are the paper’s paragraphs properly developed – neither too long and wandering nor too short and deficient?  Are the topics of individual paragraphs suitably narrow and focused on a single claim rather than vague and focused on a broad theme?  Once a paragraph gets specific about anything, does it stay focused on that specific topic to the end?
    4. Does the paper provide relevant, concrete evidence (including brief quotations) and logically persuasive reasons for every assertion?
    5. Does the paper avoid focusing too much on the scholarly essay?  Does it avoid overuse of the essay as a crutch to lend authority to its points?  When summarizing or quoting the essay, does the paper accurately represent the essay’s content and focus?
    6. Does the paper show sensitivity to the concrete historicity of the literary work(s) under consideration (rather than treat texts from the past as timeless museum pieces or reflect on them anachronistically)?
    7. Does the paper exhibit confidence and insight when analyzing literary works or passages not discussed in class?
    8. Does the introduction to the paper offer an interesting, helpful preview of the content, logic, and organization of the paper?
    9. Is factual information in the paper accurate?
    10. Is the writing in the paper clear, effective, interesting, and appropriate to an academic setting?

I encourage you, a week before the paper is due, to submit a thesis paragraph (a draft of the first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) by “sharing” it with me as a Google Doc (making sure to give me “editing” or “commenting” status, so that I can comment directly on your paragraph). If you do so by the date noted in the course schedule below, I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis.  If you submit a thesis paragraph later than the date noted in the course schedule, I will try to get you feedback and will do so as quickly as possible, but I cannot guarantee that it will be fast enough to be of use to you before the essay itself is due.

GROUP PRESENTATION.  About halfway through the semester, you will sign up for a group presentation.  I will assign each group to lead class discussion for one class meeting in the last few weeks of the semester (on a date chosen by me).  I will also assign each group, as the topic of their presentation, a literary genre, work, or author from medieval England (e.g., Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, the Pearl-poet, The Cloud of Unknowing, Margery Kempe, mysticism, Piers Plowman, love lyrics, dream visions, or saints’ lives).  Using the TEAMS web site at https://metseditions.org/texts and other sources (e.g., the library’s holdings on medieval English literature), the groups will research and read their assigned genre/work/author, deciding which text(s) seem most important for their classmates to read.  Based on their research and reading, the groups will assign one or more readings to their classmates for the class meeting on which they will lead class discussion.  They will send the assignment(s) to their classmates via Canvas at least one week before leading class.  On the group’s assigned day, I recommend that the group spend around 15 minutes on background about their genre/work/author and spend the rest of class time facilitating substantive discussion with their classmates.

You may use appropriate technology or props to facilitate discussion, but note that I recommend that you not use a PowerPoint.  As soon as you start a PowerPoint, everyone will focus on the PowerPoint slides rather than on a free and open discussion.  Class discussion falters, and you just fill time with more and more slides.  Instead of a PowerPoint, think about group work or an activity for the whole class that will help your classmates talk about the reading assignment.  Come prepared to talk about two or three topics (perhaps based on the response paper topics), and don’t just skim the surface.  Make your classmates delve deeply into the topic, talking it through thoroughly and looking at passages and details closely.  Don’t pose a simple question, get one answer, and move on.  Open with a complex question or problem, have your classmates brainstorm about it, and then evaluate the ideas that have been proposed.  Have the class come to a consensus and reinforce what your classmates concluded by repeating the result of their consensus at the end.

Each person in the group will be graded individually according to the following criteria:

    1. Did your group make logical, interesting choices in terms of what it assigned for class?
    2. Did you yourself contribute meaningfully to the group’s facilitation of discussion and to the activities in class?
    3. Did your group think creatively about how to engage classmates in discussion?
    4. Was the discussion substantive (rather than superficial)?  Did you engage your classmates in a serious exploration of topics relevant to the assignment?  Did you engage your classmates in a serious exploration of topics relevant to the course overall?
    5. Did you look (and have your classmates look) closely and carefully at concrete details in the assignment (rather than simply generalize broadly or talk abstractly)?
    6. Did your group effectively integrate each individual group member’s contribution into a coherent overall presentation?  Did the group share the overall organization of their presentation with their classmates at the start?

SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN. In the same group as your group presentation, put together a social media campaign on a topic related to the assignment that you gave your classmates on the day that you led class discussion.  The campaign should be designed to be used by the English Department on its Facebook or Instagram account.

You are responsible, with your group, for planning the campaign, generating original content of your own, and providing curated content from other sources.  Your social media campaign will be due exactly one week after your group presentation (submitted in Canvas by 11:59pm that night).  On or before the day of your group presentation, I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to submit a draft campaign plan to me (by sharing it as a Google Doc with “editing” or “commenting” status), including

    1. Who is your target audience?  Be as specific as possible about the kind of person that you’d like to reach (including age, gender, hobbies and interests, etc.).
    2. What is your strategy for reaching your target audience and helping it to find and follow your campaign?
    3. What is the goal of your campaign?  What would you like to accomplish with your audience?  Given your goal, what should be the topic(s) and focus of your campaign’s content?
    4. Which of the English Department’s social media platforms would best reach your target audience?
    5. What kinds of postings would be most likely to interest your target audience initially?  What kinds of postings would be good for follow-up once your audience is following your campaign?  Prepare a calendar of appropriate postings over a specific period of time (e.g., 6-8 postings over the course of a semester).  In the calendar, indicate what kind of content each posting would have (whether original content created by you or curated content linked from other sources) and what the topic of each posting would be?  You do not need to have the content ready yet — just indicate what topics and what kind of content would be good to post when.

When you submit your final social media campaign content, also submit the answers to the questions above as your “Final Social Media Campaign Plan.”  Also at the time that your group submits the final campaign materials, each member of the group must individually submit a personal narrative in Canvas that describes (in one or two paragraphs) what you contributed to the social media campaign as a whole.  In your personal narrative, give as much detail as you can about exactly what you contributed – in terms of brainstorming ideas, generating original content, researching curated content, and formatting the final product.

Please note that, if you use images in your project’s final content (as you should), the images should be photos that you took yourself or should be in the public domain. You should not “steal” images that are copyrighted or owned by other people. If you’re unsure whether an image is in the public domain and available free for use, cite the source of the image by adding a full and proper citation to the image itself or by providing the citation in a caption to the image.

You are not responsible for actually executing your campaign (although good campaigns may in fact be executed by the English Department) or for tracking performance or assessing the effectiveness of the campaign (if you were in fact to execute it on your own).

For information about how to put together a social media campaign, I recommend the following resources:

Each person in the group will be graded individually according to the following criteria:

    1. Did you as an individual contribute meaningfully and thoughtfully to the campaign’s content?  Did you contribute meaningfully to its overall planning and shape?
    2. Does the campaign have a clear, specific, and reasonable audience, topic, goal(s), platform, and calendar?  Do the audience, topic, goal(s), platform, and calendar make sense on their own and in relation to each other?  Are they well thought out and explained in a concise, focused, persuasive manner?
    3. Is the campaign’s content presented in a way that is creative and appealing?  Would the format of the content’s presentation be likely to engender interest in the target audience and to achieve the campaign’s goal(s)?  Is there a creative, interesting “hook” to the campaign’s presentation strategy that is inviting and provocative without being gimmicky or offensive?
    4. Does the campaign both use original, newly-created content and provide curated content from other sources?  Is the campaign’s curated content reliable and valuable?  Is the campaign’s original content interesting and insightful?
    5. Is factual information in the campaign’s content accurate?
    6. Is the writing in the campaign’s content clear, effective, and appropriate to a social media setting?

PROFESSOR’S AVAILABILITY.  My office is Bliss Hall 216.  My in-person office hours this term are 2-5:30pm on Mondays.  If you have questions about class (or just want to talk about stuff), feel free to stop by during these hours (no appointment necessary).  I can also meet over Zoom during my office hours if that’s more convenient for you; let me know, and I’ll send you a Zoom invitation.  If you cannot meet during my scheduled office hours, talk to me about meeting at another time, and we can set up an appointment.  Outside of class, you may contact me by email (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu) or by calling my office phone (609-771-2106) and leaving a message (if I do not answer), but email is usually the best way to get in touch with me.  You may also leave a written message for me in my box at the English Department offices in Bliss Hall 124.

ATTENDANCE.  Regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of this class.  Class discussion constitutes 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 information for 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 from a classmate what you missed and to come fully prepared – without excuses – to the next class meeting.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY.  Academic dishonesty is any attempt by a student to gain academic advantage through dishonest means, to submit, as your own, work which has not been done by you, 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 your own a project, paper, report, test, or speech copied, partially copied, or paraphrased from the work of another (whether AI-generated, in print, on the Internet, or another student’s work). Credit must always be given for words quoted or paraphrased and for ideas or information taken from somewhere else. The rules apply to any academic dishonesty, whether the work is graded or ungraded, group or individual, written or oral.

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 such accommodations, I will make every reasonable effort to meet your needs and to create an environment where your special abilities are respected.  Go to the website of the Accessibility Resource Center (ARC) for more information about how to arrange for accommodations.

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, sexuality, social class, religion, mental and physical health, differing abilities, politics, etc.). If, for example, 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 outside of class by a hostile environment related to your identity, please don’t hesitate to talk to me. If something is said or posted in class (by anyone, including me) that you consider hostile or offensive to your identity, please talk to me about it. I will expect our whole class (including me) to strive always to honor every form of diversity.

SCREENS.  Unless required as an accommodation for a physical or mental disability, you may not use screens (laptops, phones, or ipads) during this class.  In the last ten years, there has been a ton of research that shows that screens are bad for learning – that you are less likely to remember what happens in class if you take notes on an electronic device rather than with pen and paper, that you are less likely to comprehend and remember what you read if you read it on a screen rather than in a printed format, that you are more likely to be distracted and miss things in class if you use an electronic device during class time.  I am not a Luddite (someone who despises all technology); I love my screens and use them a lot.  But I have watched a lot of students, especially over the last few years, perform much worse in my classes than they could (or should) have performed, because they used screens for taking notes and reading.  And my anecdotal experience with students over the last few years is nothing in comparison with the towering tsunami of research that shows just how bad screens are for learning in the classroom.

For that reason, you may not use any electronic devices during this class.  Note that, if we ever need to look at a text together for which we do not have print copies, we will project what we need on the large screen at the front of the room.  You will not need your own screen to view it.

CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT AND COMMITMENT TO STUDENT SUCCESS, SAFETY, AND WELL-BEING.  The TCNJ community is dedicated to the success, safety, and well-being of each student. TCNJ strictly follows key policies that govern all TCNJ community members’ rights and responsibilities in and out of the classroom. In addition, TCNJ has established several student support offices that can provide the support and resources to help students achieve their personal and professional goals and to promote health and well-being. You can find more information about these policies and resources at the “TCNJ Student Support Resources and Classroom Policies” webpage at https://academicaffairs.tcnj.edu/tcnj-syllabus-resources/.

Students who anticipate and/or experience barriers in this course are encouraged to contact the instructor as early in the semester as possible. The Accessibility Resource Center (ARC) is available to facilitate the removal of barriers and to ensure reasonable accommodations. For more information about ARC, please visit https://arc.tcnj.edu/.

COURSE SCHEDULE.  The schedule below 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.

Date Assignment/Topic
T Aug 26 Introductions
F Aug 29 King Horn (Four Romances of England, pp. 17-56)
T Sep 2 NO CLASS (follow your Monday schedule instead)
F Sep 5 Havelock the Dane, lines 1-1445 (Four Romances of England, pp. 85-123)
T Sep 9 Havelock the Dane, lines 1446-3001 (Four Romances of England, pp. 123-159)
F Sep 12 Lay le Freine (The Middle English Breton Lais, pp. 68-78) and Sir Isumbras (Four Middle English Romances, pp. 11-29)
T Sep 16 Bevis of Hampton, lines 1-1694 (Four Romances of England, pp. 200-246)
F Sep 19 Bevis of Hampton, lines 1695-3116 (Four Romances of England, pp. 246-283)
T Sep 23 Bevis of Hampton, lines 3117-4621 (Four Romances of England, pp. 283-321)
F Sep 26 Sir Degaré (The Middle English Breton Lais, pp. 101-129)
T Sep 30 The King of Tars (pp. 23-52)
F Oct 3 MIDTERM EXAM
T Oct 7 NO CLASS (Fall Break)
F Oct 10 Octavian (Four Middle English Romances, pp. 45-88)
T Oct 14 Stanzaic Morte Arthur, lines 1-1466 (King Arthur’s Death, pp. 11-51)
F Oct 17 Stanzaic Morte Arthur, lines 1467-2769 (King Arthur’s Death, pp. 52-86)
T Oct 21 Stanzaic Morte Arthur, lines 2770-3970 (King Arthur’s Death, pp. 86-123)
W Oct 22 ACADEMIC PAPER due in Canvas by 11:59pm
F Oct 24 Emaré (The Middle English Breton Lais, pp. 153-182) and Sir Launfal (The Middle English Breton Lais, pp. 210-239)
T Oct 28 Alliterative Morte Arthure, lines 1-1438 (King Arthur’s Death, pp. 131-175)
LAST DAY TO WITHDRAW FROM CLASS WITH A W OR TO REQUEST UNGRADED OPTION
F Oct 31 Alliterative Morte Arthure, lines 3176-4346 (King Arthur’s Death, pp. 227-261)
T Nov 4 Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle (Sir Gawain, pp. 85-103) and The Avowyng of Arthur (Sir Gawain, pp. 119-150)
F Nov 7 NO CLASS (conferences for GROUPs 1 and 2)
T Nov 11 Sir Cleges (The Middle English Breton Lais, pp. 377-393) and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle (Sir Gawain, pp. 47-70)
F Nov 14 The Awntyrs off Arthur (Sir Gawain, pp. 178-201) and Sir Gowther (The Middle English Breton Lais, pp. 274-295)
T Nov 18 NO CLASS (conferences for GROUPs 3 and 4)
F Nov 21 GROUP 1’s ASSIGNMENT and DISCUSSION
T Nov 25 GROUP 2’s ASSIGNMENT and DISCUSSION
F Nov 28 NO CLASS (Thanksgiving Break)
T Dec 2 GROUP 3’s ASSIGNMENT and DISCUSSION
F Dec 5 GROUP 4’s ASSIGNMENT and DISCUSSION
TBA (in PAWS) FINAL EXAM