O'connor, Greene, Lewis

ENG100: Literature and Composition I Section A: T/R 1:20-2:35pm Section B: T/R 11:00-12:15pm Prof. Sean Davidson Office: 133D

Office hours: by appt. E-mail: [email protected]

Home #: 756-2222 Work #: 756-3421

Course Outline and Objectives This course will provide an introduction to academic writing and the study of literature with a special focus on the short story and novel. The prospect of having to take a course called “Literature and Composition” can carry with it a variety of emotions ranging from gloomy indifference to a queasy sort of dread. My hope is that our readings in Flannery O’Connor, Graham Greene, and C.S. Lewis will serve to break down our fear of the unknown while opening up horizons that we hardly knew existed. Ultimately, we want to appreciate how the social, psychological, and spiritual realms of life come together in what Northrop Frye once called “the literary universe.” Let’s explore together . . . Required Texts O’Connor, Flannery. The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971. (ISBN: 0374515360) Greene, Graham. The Power and the Glory. New York: Penguin, 1990. (ISBN: 0142437301) Lewis, C.S. Till We Have Faces: a Myth Retold. New York: Harvest Books, 1980. (ISBN: 0156904365) Quick Reference Format Guide (2007-08). Briercrest College, 2007. Recommended Texts Hacker, Diana. A Canadian Writer’s Reference. Third Edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004. Tutorials One of the advantages of this course is that we will meet together not only in a large classroom for lectures, but also in a smaller tutorial group. At first, this may not seem like much of an advantage, but really there’s no way for any of us to learn to read and write better simply by having someone lecture to us from the front of a classroom. What we all need is interaction with others in a variety of learning spaces. There will be occasions when we will discuss and dialogue with each other in the larger classroom, but you’ll discover opportunities for interaction in the tutorial setting that you could find nowhere else. It may be hard to believe, but this kind of

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interactive experience is crucial for learning to read and write better. If you need more convincing, check out the testimonies from former students on reverse in the library. Tutorials will be lead by senior students who have a love for learning and are eager to explore with you the important interconnection between literature and life. Tutorial sections will be assigned in the first weeks of class. Please observe the following schedule: Sections 1-4 Tuesdays, 8-9pm

Sept. 18 Sept. 25 Oct. 9 Nov. 13 Nov. 27 Dec. 4

Section 5 Wednesdays, 8-9pm

Sept. 19 Sept. 26 Oct. 10 Nov. 14 Nov. 28 Dec. 5

Assignments Assignments are due at the beginning of the tutorial period on the assigned day (unless otherwise indicated). Standard penalties for lateness will apply (see Briercrest Student Handbook). All final drafts of essays should be submitted with first drafts in a portfolio (a folder small enough to fit in your student boxes). 1. Participation and Short Assignments (15%) Given the highly participative nature of this class, it will be important for everyone to show up regularly and punctually and be ready to engage in conversation, both in class and tutorial. As I’ve suggested above, learning to read and write well requires interaction and collaboration on a variety of levels. It may sound cliché, but we need each other if we’re going to make some progress this term. In order to help you prepare for class discussion, I am going to provide you with questions at the end of class that will help you to engage actively with your reading and contribute in discussion for the following meeting time. I will collect these assignments periodically throughout the term without warning so be prepared! 2. Midterm Reflection (5%) In her essay “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God,” Simone Weil explores the interrelationship between prayer, compassion, and attentiveness, suggesting that intimacy with God and the love of our neighbor are impossible if we are not developing our “faculty of attention.” We want to build on this insight in our class-time this term. More important than mastering an academic discipline is learning to pay close attention to words, to ourselves, to each other, to God. Perhaps the study of literature is not your thing and you are somewhat reluctant to be in this class. Take heart. If you do not have a natural aptitude or taste for literature, this does not disqualify you from becoming more attentive. In fact, as Weil points out, “it is almost an advantage.” What we need to do, though, is plan our time wisely so that we can slow down, focus, and engage. What I would like you to do midterm is write a short three page reflection on the relationship between your

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use of time and the quality of your learning experience in your reading/writing to date and draw up a plan for how you hope to continue developing your faculty of attention to the end of term. Your reflection can be written in the first person, but you must follow the standard rules of good essay writing (i.e. complete sentences, paragraph breaks, etc). Evaluation will be based on both content and style. 3. Two Essays (50%) a. Assigned Topic for Essay #1: The Prophetic Imagination of Flannery O’Connor. For the first essay, I’d like you to consider one of the assigned short stories by O’Connor with this quotation from a critical essay and the following questions in mind: O’Connor sought to give new life to what she believed to be significant religious truths that were once a living reality but which the modern mind has tended to either distort or reject. Her stories, which are in a sense, grotesque parables, dramatize the existence of evil. Satan’s greatest triumph, her works seem to suggest, lies in the fact that he has convinced the world that he does not exist. (Bob Dowell “The Moment of Grace,” 239) In the story you have chosen, how does O’Connor “give new life” to long neglected “religious truths”? What’s her way of highlighting the distortion or rejection of these truths in modern life? In what sense is your story “a grotesque parable” that “dramatize[s] the existence of evil”? Perhaps the best way to develop an essay around these questions is to focus on the protagonist of the story that you’ve chosen and consider the spiritual struggle that s/he undergoes. In each of the assigned stories, the protagonist assumes a modern outlook on life and at some point in the story comes to experience a crisis of worldview. What had seemed normal or natural to her/him at the outset comes to be viewed as a distortion by the end. How does O’Connor use this reversal in her stories to “give new life to . . . significant religious truths” and critique the “modern mind” which “has tended to either distort or reject” them? As you develop your essay, make sure to keep rooted in the text and be as specific as you can. The first essay will be comprised of the following three components: i. Provisional thesis statement (complete/incomplete; 1-2 sentences) ii. First draft (10 marks; 5-7 pages) iii. Final draft with a brief summary of improvements (20 marks; 6 pages) NOTE: Shortly after you submit your first draft for marking, you’ll find a short essay on reserve in the library. Please read it carefully. You will be required to quote from this source in the final draft of your essay.

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b. Assigned Topic for Essay #2: Saints and Sinners in Graham Greene’s Power and the Glory. At the end of Power and the Glory, the narrator tells us that the protagonist of the story, the whiskey priest, “felt only an immense disappointment because he had to go to God empty-handed, with nothing done at all.” Beaten down and defeated, he comes to see that “only one thing counted – to be a saint.” In what sense has the priest read his situation right? In what sense has he got it dead wrong? Focusing on the whiskey priest and the encounters he has had with other characters, write an essay that helps to clarify not only the truth behind the priest’s disappointment but also the lie. In the course of your essay it will be important for you to consider the title of the novel and what bearing it has on your overall argument. The second essay will be comprised of the following two components: i. Provisional thesis statement (complete/incomplete; 1-2 sentences) ii. Final draft with a brief summary of improvements (20 marks; 6 pages) NOTE: There will be an optional first draft (5-7 pages) for the second essay. I would strongly encourage you to take advantage of this non-compulsory assignment. Your instructor and tutorial leaders will give you the same kind of feedback that they gave for the first draft of the first essay. Also, those who complete a first draft will receive an automatic 5% bonus on their final draft. Additional instructions for both essays will be provided in class. 4. Final Exam (30%) The final exam consist of a sight passages (section one) and an essay (section two) and will be on based on all readings, lectures and discussions from the term with special emphasis on C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. . Bonus: Reflections on Tutorial (5%) This assignment is for bonus marks and is available to those students who have missed no more than one tutorial and no more than two regular classes. In a three page essay, I’d like you to reflect on your strategy for engaging in tutorial over the course of term and explore how your participation has contributed positively not only to your own learning, but also to the learning of your peers. Please be specific and make sure that you follow all the conventions of good essay writing. Due Dates Note below that 20% of your overall grade is based on participation and short assignments with an additional 5% bonus available for a reflective assignment based on faithful attendance in class and tutorial. You may find yourself on a steep learning curve with the composition requirement

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and this may make it difficult to achieve the kind of marks you’d like on your formal essays, but you can make up for this by showing up regularly, reading attentively, participating actively, and generally fostering a good attitude throughout the course. Keep this in mind as you go! Assignment or Exam Participation and Short Assignments Midterm Reflection Essay #1 Provisional thesis statement First draft Final draft with outline Essay #2 Provisional thesis statement First draft (optional) Final draft with outline (5% extra w/ first draft) Final Exam

Due Date N/A Oct. 18 Sept. 24 (by email) Oct. 2 Oct. 30 Nov. 12 (by email) Nov. 20 Dec. 11

Weight 15% 5% 30%

Dec. 15, 1-3pm

30%

Bonus: Reflections on Tutorial

Dec. 11

5%

20%

Schedule of Readings and Assignments Date Sept. 6 11

13 18 20 25 27

Readings Introduction and Welcome O’Connor: “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”; “The Lame Shall Enter First”; “The Displaced Person” O’Connor: “Revelation”; “Parker’s Back”; “Everything That Rises Must Converge” O’Connor: “The Enduring Chill”; “Good Country People” O’Connor: Review

Class Activities -

Assignments -

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-

Tutorial (S18/19) (interest letter) -

-

Thesis Workshop Tutorial (S25/26) -

Provisional thesis statement due no later than Sept. 24 (by email) -

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Oct.

2 4 9 11 16 18 23 25 30

Nov.

Dec.

1 6 8

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Greene: Power and the Glory, Part One

Greene: Power and the Glory, Part Three

Greene: Power and the Glory, Part Four Greene: Review

29

Lewis: Till We Have Faces, Part One, Chapters I-VII Lewis: Till We Have Faces, Part One, Chapters VIII-XIV Lewis: Till We Have Faces, Part One, Chapters XV-XXI Lewis: Till We Have Faces, Part Two

6 11

First draft due -

Greene: Power and the Glory, Part Two Midterm Refection Modular Class / Midterm Break

13 15 20 22 27

4

Tutorial (O9/11) -

Syllabus Fall 2007

-

Final draft w/ outline due

Day of Prayer -

-

Thesis Workshop Tutorial (N13/14) Tutorial (N27/28) -

Provisional thesis statement due no later than Nov. 12 (by email) Optional first draft due -

Tutorial (D4/5)

-

-

-

-

Final draft w/ outline due Reflections on Tutorial (bonus)

Bibliography There is no reason for you to consult secondary sources for this course and in fact I would caution you from doing so. It is all too easy to misuse secondary sources when learning to read primary texts closely. There will come a time when secondary sources will be essential for research, but for this course I’d like you to focus on primary texts alone. Note on Plagiarism My point in the previous section leads naturally to this one. Of course, you will not need to worry about plagiarism if you steer clear of secondary material, but if you decide to consult other works and borrow ideas or words from them, make sure that you do so correctly. Just so we’re clear, you are plagiarizing if you submit “the work of others, published or unpublished, in whole or in part without acknowledgement or proper documentation” (BC Student Handbook, 6). To

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avoid charges of plagiarism, make sure to cite your sources throughout the body of your work, remembering to include the proper bibliographic information for each citation in your reference list. For further information on documentation see the Quick Reference Format Guide, pp. 10-23. For further information on plagiarism, see the BC Student Handbook, pp. 6-7. http://www.briercrest.ca/college/prospective/academics/handbook/handbook.pdf NOTE: Penalties for plagiarism can range from a zero on an assignment to failure in the course.

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Reference Format for ENG100 Quotations and Parenthetical Notes For this course, please use parenthetical notes instead of footnotes. After the end of each reference include the following within a pair of parenthesis: author’s last name, date of publication, and page number. The contents of your parenthesis should look like this: (Name Date, page #). Note that there is no punctuation between the author’s name and the date. Note also that quotation marks come before the parenthesis, the punctuation after. Example: Orual experiences significant relief at the “first notion of her being mad” (Lewis 1984, 122). If you have already given the author’s name in your text and the reference is clear, you may simply put the relevant page number(s) in parentheses. Example: In Flannery O’Connor’s conception, the Holy Spirit is not only a comforter, but also an agent of “purifying terror” (382). Quotations should be typed exactly as in the original, including wording, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation. It will be appropriate on occasion to alter the original wording of a passage for the purposes of integrating into your own essay. Use square brackets to indicate what you have altered or added to the original: Example: The Underground Man admits that he is “exaggerating because [he] know[s], as well as twice-two, that it is not the dark cellar that is better, but something else, something else altogether” (127). If you omit part of the material you are quoting, insert an ellipsis. Ellipses before or after quotations are unnecessary. Only use ellipses when omitting material from the middle of a passage that you are citing. Example: “All day . . . I was recalling every passage of the true story,” confesses Orual as she “write[s] . . . quickly before the gods found some way to silence [her]” (247-48). When inserting an ellipsis after a full sentence, include the period along with an ellipsis. Example: The Underground Man declares his desire for something more in life out of an experience of profound frustration and disappointment: “I know that I shall never be content with a compromise, with an everlasting recurring zero. . . . Destroy my desires, eradicate my ideals, show me something better, and I will follow you” (125). Quotations shorter than four lines are to be incorporated into the text and enclosed in double

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quotation marks. Quotations that are four or more lines long should be set off in a block quotation. A single blank line should separate the regular text from the block quotation. Block quotations are single-spaced and offset ½ inch from the left-hand margin. If there is a paragraph indention in the original text, show it by indenting the first word of the block quotation another ½ inch. Do not enclose a block quotation in quotation marks. Do not use right justification or right indention with block quotations. Document your block quotation with a parenthetical note after the punctuation. NOTE: If you paraphrase your source, you are still required to document the author and text in parentheses. Reference List When typing your reference list on a new page after the body of your paper, type REFERENCE LIST in capital letters, centered, and 2 inches from the top of the page. Entries start on the third line below this. All entries are single-spaced, with a blank line between entries. The first line starts at the margin, all other lines of the entry are indented ½ inch (usually 5 spaces) from the left margin. Your reference list should continue the paper’s pagination. Reference list entries are listed in alphabetic order according to the author’s last name. Examples: Greene, Graham. 1990. The Power and the Glory. New York: Penguin. Lewis, C.S. 1980. Till We Have Faces: a Myth Retold. New York: Harvest Books. O’Connor, Flannery. 1971. The Complete Stories. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Page Setup Please DO NOT include a title page (see format guide for the new formatting of first page). Set the left margin to 1½ inches and all other margins to 1 inch. Use Times New Roman, 12 point font. Do not use page breaks. Double space throughout (except block quotations). No extra spaces between paragraphs. All page numbers should be centred and placed ¾ of an inch from the bottom of the page. The first page of the main body of your paper begins with the Arabic number 1. Pagination should continue to the very end of your paper—your bibliography or reference list should continue your paper’s pagination. Important note: All pages should have a 1 inch top margin except for your reference list and outline. In these cases, the title is positioned 2 inches from the top of the page and the text begins on the third line after the title.

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Marking Symbols with Descriptions and Examples Symbol TS dev plot rev ? awk ss shift inc agr

Description Problem with thesis statement Inadequate development of argument Avoid plot summary Revise or proof-read Confusing, unclear, doubtful, or unreadable Awkward or confusing sentence Problem with sentence structure Shift in logic or point of view Incomplete construction Error in agreement

apos

Indicate possession or add apostrophe

frag cs fuse or run-on

Sentence fragment Comma splice Fused sentence or run-on sentence

dm

Dangling modifier

pass clic

Overuse of the passive voice Cliché or colloquial wording

sp

Spelling error

rep

Repetitive

wrdy

Too complex and wordy

wc ¶ trans

Word choice New paragraph Better transition between paragraphs needed Insert Parallel construction needed

^ // O / quote integ doc

Circle indicates a problem that should be relatively obvious Delete Supporting evidence lacking or inadequate Better integration of quotation needed Error in documentation

Example A writer must not shift your point of view. As far as incomplete constructions, they are wrong. Make sure each pronoun agrees with their antecedent. Verbs has to agree in number with their subjects. To ensure everyones understanding its important to use apostrophes. About sentence fragments. Avoid comma splices, they are incorrect. Avoid fused sentences your essay will receive a higher grade. The same goes with run-on sentences you have to use punctuation. Being bad grammar, a writer should not use dangling modifiers. It has been said that the passive voice lacks assertiveness. In reviewing the style of your essay, check to see that jargonwise it’s A-OK. Last but not least, lay off clichés. Be caerful to spell all words correctly. Spell checkers are knot always reliable. About repetition, the repetition of a word might be effective repetition, and then again, it might not. In my opinion, I think that when he is writing an author should definitely not get into the habit of making use of too many words that are unnecessary in that he does not really need them in order to put his message across. Choosing the best word is respectable. Use parallel construction not only to be concise but also to clarify. See above for examples of good integration of quotations See above for proper formatting of quotations.