2112 Syllabus, Fall 2009 Online

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World Lit 2

“No one shall know our joys, save us alone, / And there’s no evil till the act is known; / It’s scandal, Madam, which makes it an offense, / And it’s no sin to sin in confidence.” 82094 ENGL 2112.03 Tues 8:15-10:45a PSC-107 Online Considerations An online course has particular difficulties that you should consider before undertaking it. Consider your enrollment carefully. Page 3

Requirements What is expected that you complete in order to pass the course. All of these requirements must be completed successfully for a student to pass the course. Page 2

Dr. Gerald R. Lucas Policies These are the rules of the class that all students are expected to follow, from attendance to technological literacy. These policies are always the final word. Page 3

Schedule

The reading, assignment, and exam schedule. Page 4

Text Lawall, Sarah, et al. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature, Volume 2. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.

Computer

This section of World Literature, ENGL 2112, explores the genesis and maturity of modern thought and literary expression from the latter-seventeenth century until the present

World Literature 2 explores texts — poems, novels, novellas, plays, and short stories — in their historical and cultural contexts (particularly the scientific and intellectual movements of Enlightenment, Romanticism, and Modernism) as well as consider how those texts still inform our views of ourselves today.

Fall 2009 Online

Contact Where and how to contact me, your professor for the course, Dr. Lucas. Page 4

Materials

Modern Literature World Literature 2 examines national literatures other than those of Britain and America from the Renaissance to the present. Particular emphasis is placed on western literature, especially continental, Russian, and Latin American fiction of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Procedure Each class meeting will follow a certain procedure. From quiz to questions, from lecture to discussion, the procedure will be followed daily. Page 2

Since this is an online course, you must have access to a newer computer with a reliable Internet access. As a part of this requirement, your computer should have a current web browser, like Safari or Firefox, and Adobe Acrobat installed.

“The Wanderer above a Sea of Fog” by Caspar David Friedrich (1818)

Since we have only a limited time in this survey, we will concentrate on both diversity of texts explored and the detail of that exploration. Authors include Voltaire, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Ibsen, Mann, Borges, Kundera, and Calvino, among others.

http://litmuse.net/

There are computers available for open-use on campus, but you should not rely on these. The work for this course is too much for you to accomplish in the ARC.

LitMUSE You are required to have an account on LitMUSE, the server that will support all of your work in this class. You should login to the server at least once a day to receive any announcements or changes that are made to the class.

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Requirements There are three major requirements for World Literature 2, each of which must be successfully completed to pass the course. Assignments are weighed on a point system, depending on their importance. For example, a reading quiz might have 10 points while the final exam might have 200.

Final Exam A final cumulative exam will be given that will test your knowledge of the subject matter (texts, lecture material, and vocabulary), your ability to synthesize this material, and your creativity in going beyond the discussion and lecture materials. The final exam will include vocabulary, identification, and interpretation. All exam grades will be based upon objective knowledge of the material, thoroughness, depth of insight, precision, and originality.

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Web Site Three times (see Schedule) during the semester, you will have to contribute the class web site. For this, you will pick your best forum and/or daily work, revise it, and submit it in a more formal way (including citations) to a class web site.

Daily Work Regular class attendance, question posing, and active participation in classroom discussions are required. Participation, effort, and attitude will count significantly in this course. Quizzes, other class activities, and homework assignments not explicitly outlined above will be considered daily work.

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Course Procedure Every week will follow a similar procedure for your work and reading. Be sure you keep up with the syllabus and turn your work in regularly and on-time. All of your coursework will be done on the LitMUSE Moodle server.

Primary Reading Each week you will have assigned reading that you should complete before doing anything else. As you read, take thorough reading notes; be sure you are familiar with the plot, characters, and major concerns of the text.

Reading Quiz After finishing your reading, you should take a brief reading quiz. These quizzes will test you on the facts of the text, like characters, plot details, and other obvious aspects of the narrative. These are just to test your literal knowledge of the text(s). There will not always be a quiz assigned.

Writing

Secondary Reading

To get you thinking more critically about the major works, you are required to respond to class readings in writing both formally and informally. All writing should be thoughtful, refer to specific portions of the text, use the critical vocabulary, and cite correctly using MLA citation method.

Since you do not have the benefit of class lecture, I will assign additional reading for you to do each week that concerns the primary text. This criticism will give you background information and assist you in getting your head around the various interpretations of the text.

Forum Discussion Finally, you should put what you learned together into a forum discussion with your classmates. Your total word count for the forum should add up to a minimum of 350 words, including threads started and responded to.

Forum For all of the major works we study in this class, you are required to respond informally in writing. These responses will be posted in an online forum on LitMUSE, so the entire class can benefit from reading your thoughts. The forum will also give you a chance to respond to others’ ideas. Your writing in the forum should total at least 350 words per week.

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Each forum discussion will be worth 10 or 20 points. Each post (whether beginning a thread or responding to one) is only worth a maximum of 5 points. Therefore, you should make at least two strong posts or comments (or more) to assure that you earn the maximum credit. Finally, as a bonus, consider making an account on eNotes and posting a question to be answered in their public forums. See “Forum” under Requirements.

http://litmuse.net/

Fall 2009 Online

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Assignments

Late work is not acceptable and will receive a zero. Technical, computer malfunctions are not acceptable excuses for late work. Quizzes and in-class activities cannot be made up for any reason.

Email The best and quickest way of contacting me is via email. Only use the email address that I provided on this document for class business: <[email protected]>.

Grades Letter grades are based upon a traditional ten-point scale. If you would like to know your official grade, you should see me during my office hours or make an appointment.

Plagiarism Any time you use ideas that are not your own — be they paraphrased or copied verbatim — in anything that you write, you must supply a citation in an identifiable citation method, e.g., MLA, Chicago, etc. Willful plagiarism will result in automatic failure of this class and will be submitted to the Dean for further potential consequences. Remember two things: 1. If you use the language of your source, you must quote it exactly, enclose it in quotation marks, and cite the source using MLA citation style in all my courses. A paraphrase employs source material by restating an idea in an entirely new form that is original in both sentence structure and word choice. Quotations and paraphrases must be cited to avoid plagiarism. 2. If you use ideas or information that are not common knowledge, you must cite a source. Unsure as to what to cite, when to cite, and how to cite? Check your handbook for the best information. The professor reserves the right to use Turn It In, a plagiarism prevention service, to evaluate any written work submitted for this course. As directed by the professor, students are expected to submit or have their assignments submitted through the

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Time: You may believe that because this course is offered online, that it will not require as much time as a traditional classroom course. Well, you should plan on spending at least twice the amount of time working on your own to make up for what you would not receive from class discussions and lecture. This includes doing extra secondary research, something you may not be used to doing.

You will be accountable for knowing and practicing each of these policies. Consider them like the law: the excuse “I didn’t know” will carry no weight.

Deadlines

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Here are some additional aspects that you should consider:

Policies Your work represents you. Therefore, I expect everything you turn into me to exemplify the very best of your professional self. Please proofread all writing before submission.

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Detail of “The Disappearing Bust of Voltaire” by Salvador Dalí (1941)

service in order to meet requirements for this course. The papers may be retained by the service for the sole purpose of checking for plagiarized content in future student submissions.

Special Needs Any student who has special needs should contact Ann E. Loyd at the Counseling and Career Center (478-471-2714) and fill out the appropriate paperwork. The student should then see me with the documentation so that the necessary accommodations can be made.

Technology Competency Computer competency is an integral skill in any discipline. Students should be familiar with the general uses of a computer, particularly using a web browser. Students should be willing to put forth the effort to learn what they need to in order to succeed in the course. Please see me for additional assistance when necessary.

Motivation: Since you will be required to budget your time, you must also be self-motivated. You will not have the benefit of having a professor's presence compelling you to do your work each week; you will have to take on the responsibility. The reality of this is more difficult than it may seem. Procrastination will put you behind and make it very difficult for you to recover. Course Work: If you have not successfully completed an online course before, I recommend that you do not begin with this one. If you have not successfully completed a college-level literature course before (like making at least a B in ENGL 1102), you should not begin with this one. Literature courses benefit from in-class discussion; many find the literature challenging, so without the benefit of a professor's in-class guidance, many find the challenge too difficult. The bottom line is that online literature courses are challenging, which unfortunately produces high attrition rate because many students are just not ready for them. I do not want to discourage anyone from taking it, and I'm willing to discuss this further with anyone during my office hours or by appointment. However, I ask that you consider this carefully; do not sign up for the class with the expectation that it will be easy. If anything, it is more difficult than taking the course in-class.

Online Considerations So, you're thinking about taking an online literature or composition course? Please read the following carefully before committing to a very challenging course. When registration begins each semester, online courses are the first to fill up for some reason. Subsequently, I get numerous phone calls and emails asking me about this course. Let me begin by saying that I cannot add you to the course if it is closed. Period. I get several requests a week, and I cannot accommodate them all, so I cannot accommodate any. Sorry about that. Also know that if you sign up for the course, the first meeting is mandatory; if you miss it for any reason, your final grade will suffer by one letter and you will find it very difficult to get started in the course on your own. After this first meeting, we will not meet in a classroom again. All evaluation, discussion, and lecture will take place online.

http://litmuse.net/

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Course Schedule This schedule represents the ideal outline for our semester, but it is tentative and subject to change. It reflects only an overview of readings and assignments, but does not always indicate other specific class session assignments or activities. All work is due on Tuesdays by 11am. Week 1 (8/18)

Week 7 (9/29)

Week 11 (10/27)

Week 15 (11/24)

NOTE

Course Introduction LitMUSE Account Creation

Goethe Faust

Goethe Faust continued

Selections from the Symbolist poets: Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Verlaine, and Rimbaud

Week 9 (10/13)

Week 12 (11/3)

Pushkin “Queen of Spades” Dostoyevsky “The Grand Inquisitor”

Mann Death in Venice

Borges “The Aleph” Rulfo “Talpa” Fuentes “The Doll Queen” Calvino “The Distance of the Moon Kundera “The Hitchhiking Game”

Some of these texts are not in your Norton anthology. Those that are not may be downloaded as PDFs off of the LitMUSE web site. If the story is not in your book, check the web site.

Week 13 (11/10)

Week 16 (12/1)

Week 8 (10/6)

Week 2 (8/25) Molière Tartuffe

Week 3 (9/1) Molière Tartuffe continued

Week 4 (9/8)

Week 10 (10/20)

Pope Essay on Man Voltaire Candide

Week 5 (9/15) Voltaire Candide continued

Gogol “The Overcoat” Turgenev “First Love” Chekhov “The Lady with the Pet Dog”

Week 6 (9/22) Rousseau from Confessions

Kafka The Metamorphosis

Dead Week (Catch up)

Week 14 (11/17)

Exam Week (12/9)

Borges “The Garden of the Forking Paths” Burowski “Ladies and Gentlemen, to the Gas Chamber” Mishima “Partriotism”

LitMUSE

Gerald R. Lucas, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of English

http://litmuse.net/

Email: [email protected] Office: Macon Campus, H/SS-117

This sever contains all the information presented in this document. It also houses resources that go far beyond this syllabus. I would recommend that you spend some time familiarizing yourself with these. They are designed to help you help yourself to produce stellar work both in this class and those you will subsequently attempt.

Office Hours Macon Campus: MW 11a-12p; by appointment

The information presented on this syllabus is current as of August 12, 2009 11:57 AM. For the most accurate and up-to-date information, please consult the LitMUSE web site.

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Exam online; due 11am

http://litmuse.net/

Humanities Department Main Phone: (478) 471-5792 Please email me rather than trying to call. I will answer email much more quickly than I will return a call.

100 College Station Drive Macon, GA 31206

Fall 2009