Fall 2018, Section 012
Class times: MW 1:30-2:45
Location: Enterprise Hall 174
Prerequisite: ENGL 101 or equivalent
Last day to drop: 30th September (9th September for no tuition liability)
Selective withdrawal period ends: 27th October

You must own the following:

Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller (Penguin)
Hamlet by William Shakespeare (Pelican)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner Classics)
A good dictionary
A writer’s handbook

You must purchase the editions I have ordered. The anthology is one I have published specifically for this course. Different editions of Hamlet contain quite different versions of the play and different footnotes. The Great Gatsby is a hardcover with the corrected text, whereas the paperback now being published has a number of errors in it. Also, whenever one person (whether myself or one of you) refers to a passage, we all need to be able to find it instantly. I make every attempt to hold down textbook costs where possible.

I will distribute other materials either through web-pages I have created for that purpose, which will be linked from the class calendar, and through Blackboard. I strongly advise you to print these documents and bring them with you to class.

A financial note: I know the bookstore is pushing the renting of textbooks, and that even with books you buy, it tells you that you will get back money if you do not write in your books. But think of it this way: you are spending tens of thousands of dollars to attend college and acquire an education. The best way to make use of books you are studying is to gloss them heavily. Indeed, you cannot get the full benefit from them if you do not do so. Does it make sense to get less than the full value of your education so that you can someday get back enough money for two or three lattes or one mediocre pizza? (Maybe the situation is different with a biology textbook that costs $375, but not with a $12 paperback.) And if that does not convince you, consider this: do you think Barnes & Noble, which owns our bookstore, is really trying to do you a favor with those offers? Fact is, the company makes more money on used textbooks than new ones, and even more money on rented textbooks. Write in your books!

For this course you must own a good dictionary. I know you are all used to using the dictionaries built into your computer or available on the web; I often use OneLook.com, which accesses several dictionaries at once. However, dictionaries built into computers tend to be relatively feeble, and web-based dictionaries are inconvenient when reading. An actual text dictionary is more useful. Be careful, though, because anybody can call a dictionary “Webster’s”; the name is now in the public domain and means nothing. The best reasonably-priced dictionaries available are the Merriam-Webster Tenth Edition, The American-Heritage Dictionary, and The Concise Oxford English Dictionary. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary is even better, though more pricey ($175). My favorite inexpensive dictionary is the Little Oxford English Dictionary, which is hardcover but only about six inches by four inches, quite portable, lists for $15, and can be purchased for about $10 on Amazon. Of course, the complete Oxford English Dictionary is the greatest dictionary in the world, though unwieldy in its two-volume Compact edition ($400) and prohibitively expensive ($1045) in its full-sized version. You may access the complete OED through the Mason library databases, though again web-based dictionaries are much less convenient than a book.

Also, you must own a writer’s handbook. When you make grammatical and stylistic errors, I will point them out and expect you to look them up in a handbook. Some of the better handbooks are Diane Hacker’s Rules for Writers and A Writer’s Reference, Muriel Harris’s Prentice-Hall Reference Guide to Grammar and Usage, and Andrea Lunsford’s The Everyday Writer. Many others are available. I do not care which handbook you own, as long as it is relatively recent. If you do not own any of them, buy one. The primary difference between them is the way they are organized; the material is mostly the same. However, if you are looking to improve your writing, I strongly recommend John Trimble’s Writing with Style: Conversations on the Art of Writing, which is short, easy to read, filled with excellent advice, and as the subtitle claims conversational in tone. Some of you may own the classic The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White, which is even shorter and filled with good advice (although some is idiosyncratic or even a little weird), but it does not deal with grammar in any comprehensive way, so you should consider it supplemental to these others.

Because this is a course in reading texts, keeping up with the readings is your primary obligation to the class after attendance. We will be reading drama, poetry, fiction, and occasional supplemental works. You will find that reading fiction or drama generally goes much more quickly than reading textbooks, and most of the poetry readings are relatively short in terms of page length. Still, I know that overall there is quite a lot of reading. Here are some tips to make your reading more productive:

When reading drama: Keep in mind the meanings of words such as acting, action, and play. Drama is more inherently visual and dynamic than other forms of literature. It lacks the narrative information on which you have learned to rely when reading. Some plays have extensive stage directions, and when they are available you should take careful note of them. Even so, you can become confused if you do not pay close attention to who is saying what, and if you are not careful to keep the characters distinct in your mind. Take the time to construct a mental picture of each character at the beginning of the play, or when the character first appears. Give them faces, clothes, voices, whether of people you know or actors with whom you are familiar from movies or television. Always remember that characters in a play never simply speak (except in a radio-play). They are always moving, or standing, or sitting; they have physical presence.

When reading poetry: Take your time. Even though in most cases the poetry assignments will be much shorter in terms of number of pages, you should spend the same amount of time on each poetry assignment as you do on the assignments for the drama or fiction. Reading poetry requires a different approach than reading prose. Most poems require that you read them several times. They are usually densely packed with meaning and often rich in symbolism. Poetry typically emphasizes power of expression over logical clarity. Nevertheless, good poetry is not needlessly obscure. Most poetry obeys the basic rules of grammar: punctuation is there for a reason, pronouns refer to the nearest possible antecedent, and so on. Don’t be misled by line breaks — the basic unit of meaning in most poems is still the sentence. Finally, because poems typically have far fewer words in them than works of prose, it is especially important to look up any word you don’t know in a dictionary.

You must — MUST — read poetry aloud to get the full effect. Find some place away from other people and get used to doing it. After you have read a poem silently and think you have figured it out, recite it. Again, pay attention to punctuation and respect enjambment (in other words, you should not pause at the end of a line unless the punctuation or syntax suggests it). Try to get a sense of the rhythmic pattern (cadence) of the lines. Some of the poetry we are reading this semester is in a formal meter. If it is, respect the meter but do not overemphasize it; avoid being too sing-song in your delivery. If the poem is not in a formal meter, you should still pay close attention to its rhythms. Also, poetry should not, except in rare instances, be read in a monotone. Allow your emotions free but realistic play. In other words, avoid reading like a robot without hamming it up.

When reading fiction: This is obviously going to be the most familiar to you, so in some ways it will seem easier. Yet you should still read actively. Authors have incredible freedom when writing a story. Ask yourself why the author wrote the story or book you are reading in exactly this way, with this narrator, in this style, beginning it here and ending it there, putting in these particular scenes and details but leaving out others you might imagine. Remember that all of these components represent choices the author made, and in those choices lies the art. Of course, putting faces to characters is helpful here as well, and looking up words you don’t know is a must.

There will be a final examination; see the Class Calendar for the day and time. Taking the examination when it is scheduled is mandatory. Why give examinations at all? I believe examinations are important in literature courses, not only to help me evaluate your performance, but to allow you to demonstrate (to yourself as much as to me) how much you have learned. Typically, students underestimate how much they have learned until they are tested. We will discuss in class the form my examinations take. Don’t panic: the intent is to test your ability to express yourself clearly on what you may reasonably be expected to recall, not to make you spend endless hours cramming your head with minutia (see the Sample Examination Questions). Indeed, if you keep up with the reading and listserv assignments, attend class, and pay attention, you should not need to spend more than a few hours studying for the exam. If you don’t do these things, I suspect all the cramming in the world won’t help you much.

I believe that learning requires an active engagement on the part of both the students and the teacher. You cannot simply sit back and expect to receive knowledge passively. Moreover, I have no desire to stand up at the front of the class and lecture for an hour and fifteen minutes every day. At minimum, you must participate by paying close attention to everything that goes on in class. Ideally, you should also ask questions and risk exposing your ideas to your classmates. Testing your ideas, even or especially when they prove erroneous, is worthwhile, so you do not lose credit in my eyes if I or someone else corrects you about something. (The one rare exception is if something you say reveals that you are unprepared for class, for example if you have not done the necessary reading.)

A healthy percentage of success in life depends simply on showing up where and when you are expected. This is especially true for literature courses, which do not have a textbook in the same way a history or chemistry class does. The works you read in this class more closely resemble what rocks are to a geology class: they are what you are studying, but do not by themselves tell you what you need to know. I guarantee you that you will learn far more by showing up and participating than by reading on your own at this stage of your life, and what you could learn on your own you will only truly know you know by being in class and testing your assumptions and conclusions against mine and those of your peers. If you are the kind of student who has trouble showing up, this is not the course for you. On the other hand, students who never miss a class tend to do well in my classes.

Although absences are always bad, if you know ahead of time that you must be absent, you should tell me. I can arrange to meet with you beforehand or afterwards so that you do not fall behind. Regardless, you are absolutely responsible for finding out what happened in class (given you have e-mail addresses for your classmates, this should not be a difficult task) and for submitting any assignments due that day (most assignments will be submitted electronically). Note that except for univerisity commitmentes (athletic competition, forensics tournaments, and the like), I do not distinguish between excused and unexcused absences. Of course, I’m more sympathetic if you are in the hospital for surgery than if you are at Nordstrom’s for a shoe sale or hanging out in your dorm room playing World of Warcraft, but I don’t need to see doctor’s notes or e-mails from concerned parents. If you tell me you have been sick, I will believe you. But it doesn’t change any requirements.

A class, like a society, requires that all participants observe a certain code of civilized behavior. The following are the minimum standards I ask you observe (some of these are pretty obvious, but believe it or not every one of them is here as a result of past experience):

Be on time. Arriving late is disruptive. Running a class is like driving a stick-shift: it takes time to shift up to cruising speed. When you walk in after the agreed upon starting time, you stop the class and make it start out again in first gear. It is rude. Of course, if you are late, you should come in and settled as quickly and quietly as possible. But don’t make a habit of it.

The outside world should not intrude on our class. Please disable any cellular telephones, text messaging devices, pagers, and wrist watches with alarms, or leave them behind.

Think twice about using laptop computers and tablets in class. Recent studies have shown that taking notes on a computer actually results in poorer comprehension and retention than either taking notes by hand — or even not taking notes at all. That is true even if students disable distractions such as messaging and social media. The best approach appears to be taking a few minutes after class to write a quick paragraph summarizing what you think were the most important points covered in class.

Wait until the class actually ends to pack up. Few things are more annoying than having to raise my voice at the end of class because people are sliding their books off the desks and unzipping and zipping their backpacks.

While I know that you have other obligations, our class is not the time to fulfill them. Doing work unrelated to the course during class is uncceptable.

At any moment, one of three things will be happening in the class: either I will be talking, a student will be talking (asking or answering a question, participating in a class or smaller group discussion), or everyone will be concentrating silently on the task at hand. In every case, courtesy demands that you pay attention, and not engage in your own private conversations. But please feel free to ask questions and express your ideas — that kind of talking demonstrates your involvement and is generally a good thing.

The class is only seventy-five minutes long. You should seldom, if ever, need to leave the classroom. If the need arises, and you can’t wait, by all means go in peace. I trust you will return quickly, and not abuse my patience and generally kind disposition.

George Mason University’s Honor Code requires all members of this community to maintain the highest standards of academic honesty and integrity. Cheating, plagiarism, lying, and stealing are all expressly prohibited. In fact, the list of offences is redundant: cheating is fraud; plagiarism is theft. These are the two clear felonies of the academic community.

Plagiarism means using judgments, opinions, research, or phrasing from another source without giving that source credit. Common knowledge does not fall into this category, but knowledge researched, compiled, or organized by a particular person does. Writers give credit through the use of accepted documentation styles, such as parenthetical citation; a simple listing of books, articles, and websites is not sufficient. Students must take responsibility for understanding and practicing the basic principles of good scholarship. To avoid plagiarism, meet the expectations of a U.S. academic audience, give their readers a chance to investigate the issue further, and make credible arguments, writers must

1) put quotation marks around, and give an in-text citation for, any sentences or distinctive phrases (even short, two- or three-word phrases, if they are distinctive) that writers copy directly from any outside source: a book, a textbook, an article, a website, a newspaper, a movie, a song, an interview, an encyclopedia, a CD, a baseball card — whatever

2) completely re-write (not just change a few words) any information they find in a separate source and wish to summarize or paraphrase for their readers, and also give an in-text citation for that paraphrased information

3) give an in-text citation for any facts, statistics, or opinions which the writers learned from outside sources (or which they just happen to know) and which are not considered common knowledge for the target audience (this may require new research to locate a credible outside source to cite)

4) give a new in-text citation for each element of information — meaning not rely on a single citation at the end of a paragraph, because that is not usually sufficient to inform a reader clearly of how much of the paragraph comes from an outside source

5) include a Works Cited list at the end of their essay, providing full bibliographic information for every source cited in their essays.

That said, let me be clear. Any act of academic dishonesty will result in my reporting you to the honor committee and recommending failure of the course (not merely the assignment). In every case in which I have done this, the honor committee has accepted my recommendation, and in several cases has imposed additional penalties. This may sound harsh, but you will find similar guidelines at every college in the country. It does not get any more serious than this. I will use available online plagiarism-finding tools to check your essays as I see fit.

The official English Department statement on Academic Dishonesty is as follows: “Plagiarism means using the exact words, opinions, or factual information from another person without giving the person credit. Writers give credit through accepted documentation styles, such as parenthetical citation, footnotes, or endnotes; a simple listing of books and articles is not sufficient. Plagiarism is the equivalent of intellectual robbery and cannot be tolerated in the academic setting.”

Students with documented disabilities should present me with a contact sheet from the Disability Resource Center as soon as possible so that together we may plan appropriate accommodations. If you are a student with a disability and you need academic accommodations, please see me and contact the Office of Disability Resources at 703-993-2474. All academic accommodations must be arranged through that office.