Course description
Modernity depends on opposing fact and fiction: 21st-century globalism would be nowhere without an understanding of scientific fact. Pre-modern societies like Rome, on the other hand, differentiated knowledge (scientia) from wisdom (sapientia). Stories were thought to carry knowledge in its many forms, and a recent theory contends that narrative - story -- is the foundation of language itself (see Mark Turner, The Literary Mind, Oxford UP, 1996).
Since the western Enlightenment, however, story has been "mere story" -- so Francis Bacon called it in 1626. Modernity makes history story's opposite: history gives us fact rather than fiction, story gives us imagination rather than reality. Aren't facts more important than fiction?
Reading pre-modern texts with attention to discovery, interpretation, and use can help us understand the value of narrative and our own positions within a sea of story. We'll use travellers' tales (a tale is also a "mere story," according to the OED) and their "translations" (meaning "to carry, to transfer") to grapple with representations of self and other, and with the value of imagination and emotion. We'll let the root of education - educare, to lead forth - lead us to new sorts of intellectual and emotional understandings as we consider the ways a reader's necessary empathy can shade into appropriation. Close reading is vital; interpretive muscle grows from it.
Your own writing is, of course, both formally and contextually situated. HC 221 H Honors College Literature integrates writing analysis (composition) with the study of literature. Please be advised of two resources: the University Composition Program's resources, and the Teaching and Learning Center in the basement of PLC.
Requirements
- First writing assignment, due Wednesday, September 29. One to two pages, 250 to 500 words. Towards the end of Tablet One of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh recounts to his mother Ninsun two dreams that presage his meeting with Enkidu. Ninsun interprets the dreams for Gilgamesh, and Gilgamesh responds by embracing the challenge Enkidu presents. In the style of Gilgamesh, create the dreams you could have had (but use third person) that presage your encounter with the university and/or the Clark Honors College, recounting the dreams to one of your parents/guardians who then interprets the dreams for you. You'll be writing in a long tradition: Mesopotamian students parodied Gilgamesh some 3000 years ago (see page 167 of our Gilgamesh edition).
- Response papers.You'll write four one- to two-page response papers this term. Label your papers as primarily discovery (something that surprised you and which you're investigating), interpretation (some event that you are look at closely for its effect in the text or outside it) or use, meaning the way one feature of the text can be used for a larger argument. Check due dates on the schedule below. Response paper are formal in the sense that spelling, grammar, and thinking count; at the same time, these are papers in which to try out ideas, to experiment and challenge yourself intellectually. Here are the steps for writing response papers:
- No fewer than four days before a paper is due, think about discovery, interpretation, and use, and re-read the text.
- No fewer than three days before the due date, free write, meaning that you make notes, construct an outline, or write a complete draft (this may be handwritten)--either a method you habitually use, or a method you're trying out for the first time. Get something down on paper. Then put away whatever you've written for at least six hours.
- Reread and revise what you've written, again looking at our text for evidence. Have a typed, final copy of your essay complete before noon Friday.
- Attach your notes/outline/draft to your finished copy and hand it in.
I will read these papers, comment on them, and grade them pass/no pass. Normally, a no-pass paper lacks a thesis and/or contains egregious writing errors. Four passing papers will count as a 4.0, three as a 3.0, two as a 2.0, one as a 1.0. No-pass papers may be re-written, and handed back to me within a week. You may also request that I give any response paper a "grade," meaning the grade it would receive were it a graded assignment: I'll "grade" the paper in order to give you an idea of how grading works on formal papers, but the grade won't "count," per se.
- Graded formal papers. Two five-page (1250 to 1500 words) papers, each of which can use an observation originally explored in a response paper and/or an informal study group. See also tips for topics. Paper 1, due Friday, Oct. 15, will treat Gilgamesh or, for the ambitious, Trojan Women . Paper 2, due Wednesday, Nov. 24, will treat The Monkey and the Monk and/or The Trojan Women (TJ only if you didn't write on it for the first paper). Note paper due dates: turn in your papers on the date specified. The first paper may also be rewritten (due one week after returned; include the original paper when submitting the rewrite), with the two grades averaged for the paper's final grade.
- Writing portfolio and reflective essay. During the term, keep all of your work in this portfolio; at the end of the term, you'll write a reflective essay about your writing, using your portfolio in order to include specific examples of your writing's strengths and weaknesses, and to list what you hope to continue to improve in your writing. You'll give me your writing portfolio, with reflective essay, along with your final exam, no later than Wednesday, December 8, at 5:15 pm. Completing this assignment contributes 10% to your final grade.
- Final exam. Take-home exam, focusing primarily on The Tempest, due no later than Wednesday, December 8, at 5:15 pm.
Extra credit: Informal study groups.
The learning community of the Honors College affords you an opportunity to test your ideas and grow intellectually in a supportive yet challenging environment. To facilitate conversations about our texts, you can, along with at least one other student, contribute a "discovery" to our Blackboard discussion site before Sunday midnight for each Monday's class. You're on the honor system for the listing of contributors' names. You may get credit only once for each week, but of course you'll benefit from chatting about many different discoveries. List the discussants' names and include on the Blackboard "discussion site" for that text a question your discovery led to (but as many questions as you wish). Again, all this must be posted before midnight on the appropriate Sunday.
If you complete the assignment for each of the eight weeks, you'll receive 3 tenth-points extra-credit on your final grade; for seven, 2; for six, 1; for five, half a tenth.
Grading
The response papers constitute 15% of your grade; the two formal papers, 25% and 30% respectively; the reflective essay 10%; participation, 5%, and the final exam will constitute 15% of your grade. Please note the University's "grade point value" system effective 9/90, as I will be using this system (unless otherwise noted):
|
A+ = 4.3 |
B+ = 3.3 |
C+ = 2.3 |
D+ = 1.3 |
|
A = 4.0 |
B = 3.0 |
C = 2.0 |
D = 1.0 |
|
A- = 3.7 |
B- = 2.7 |
C- = 1.7 |
D- = 0.7 |
Note that a grade of "C" is, according to academic regulations, "satisfactory," while a "B" is "good." That means that a "B" is better than average, better than satisfactory, better than adequate. The average grade, then, is a "C"; a grade of "B" requires effort and accomplishment.