Syllabus--ENG 207: Shakespeare Fall 97--Bishop

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Materials Requirements | Grading | Opportunities | Study questions
Weekly reading assignments | What is an "A" paper?

Office Hours: 307 Chapman
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E-mail address: lmbishop@oregon.uoregon.edu

MATERIALS (top of page)

• Textbook: The Norton Shakespeare, available at the University Bookstore. Please bring the book, or a Xerox of the play under discussion, to each class.
• Packet: at the UO bookstore, containing a scene-by-scene synopsis for each play (an optional, but recommended purchase).
• Reserve list: a selection of critical books on permanent reserve for all Shakespeare classes.

 REQUIREMENTS (top of page)

 1. Attendance will be taken beginning the third week of class. Missing four to six classes will result in your final grade being lowered one full letter grade. Missing seven to nine classes will result in your final grade being lowered two full letter grades, and so on.

2. Two five-page, typed double-space, essays will demonstrate your ability to read Shakespeare's texts critically and write effectively. One paper will treat one of the first three plays weíre reading this term; the second paper will treat EITHER Richard III or As You Like It. Papers lose one letter grade for each calendar day late. You may choose your own topic for the papers, or use the topics at the end of the syllabus. Both papers will be graded, and then may be rewritten, following prescribed guidelines:

--the original paper MUST be turned in with the rewrite;
--the rewrite MUST be more than simply correcting grammar mistakes;
--the original grade and the rewrite grade will be averaged for the final grade.

PAPER #1: five pages due Friday, October 31

PAPER #2: five pages due Friday, November 21

3. Two 50-minute exams (on ) will stress close reading of the text: terms useful in understanding the text and direct textual quotations must be identified. The two exams will be "objective." Everyone who has read the plays closely and attended class regularly will find them extremely easy; anyone who has either not read the plays or failed to attend class will find them impossible. No early or late exams will be given.

4. Scene presentation. You'll work as groups to present a short scene to the class, and on the day of your presentation you'll turn in a one-page paper, individually-written, detailing what this one scene contributes to your understanding of the play and its themes. 

ALL WORK FOR THE CLASS MUST BE COMPLETED TO PASS THE COURSE. 

GRADING The scene presentation and paper will count 15%, each exam 17.5%, each paper 25%. (top of page)

Please note the University's "grade point value" system effective 9/90:

A+=4.3	B=3.0	C-=1.7
A=4.0	B-=2.7	D+=1.3
A-=3.7	C+=2.3	D=1.0
B+=3.3	C=2.0	D-=0.7

Note also that a grade of "C" is, according to the 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. 

OPPORTUNITIES (top of page)

 Videotapes: The Instructional Media Center (IMC) of the Knight Library owns a videotape of each play we're seeing this term. I'll publish a schedule later: in the meantime, you can look up the call numbers on Janus. Besides tapes of the plays, the IMC owns tapes helpful in you getting you started on your scene presentation.

• VT 1210 "Preparing to perform Shakespeare" 52 minutes
• VT 1211 "Set speeches and soliloquies" 52 minutes
• VT 345 "Speaking Shakespearean verse" 50 minutes
• VT 2028 "The staging of Shakespeare's plays" 45 minutes

STUDY QUESTIONS (top of page)

TITUS ANDRONICUS

• Discuss the symbolism of blood , or the symbolism of mouths in Titus Andronicus. Be specific in your assertions and use the text as your evidence.
• If you've read some other Shakespeare plays, you might think about why Titus Andronicus is NOT one of his more popular plays.
• What do you do with Aaron the Moor? Is he the consummate villain, or a figure of fun?

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

• Discuss art's self-consciousness in the Pyramus and Thisbe play-within-the-play of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Note that the play-within-a play is in the last act of A Midsummer Night's Dream: what could that placement indicate?
• Discuss children in A Midsummer Night's Dream. There is, of course, the cause of the quarrel, the little Indian boy; note too the blessing at the end of the play. What do children or childishness contribute to this play?

RICHARD II

• How does Shakespeare make Richard kingly in Richard II? Be complete in your analysis.
• Choose one scene from Richard II and analyze how it mirrors the play as a whole; Act III, scene iv might be a good choice.C
• Choose one imagistic design in Richard II (clothing or blood, for instance) and follow it through the play, commenting on the design's connection to one of the play's themes.

HENRY V

• Follow in Henry V one character's ability or inability to use language and discuss how that ability of lack thereof positions that character in the play's scheme and contributes to the play's theme.
• Note the prologue, chorus, and epilogue of Henry V: what could have inspired such a device in a history play? Does it have to do with "historic foreshadowing? Or is it perhaps "historic postshadowing"?
• Trace the doubleness in Hamlet and show how it contributes to a theme of the play (yeah, yeah, I know you're thinking appearance and reality--that's fine--but you could also play it as "giving evidence" and"witnessing" in a legal sense).

HAMLET

• What about dreams in Hamlet? Is the ghost a dream? What "truths" can we gather from dreams?
• Write about the antithesis of Christian morality and revenge as it is codified in Hamlet's conflict.
• Account for the popularity of Hamlet; why is this play embedded so deeply in our culture?

WEEKLY READING ASSIGNMENTS (please have the assignment read before its due date; read the synopsis for the first class meeting for each play) (top of page)

Week 1: September 29 through October 3
Introduction: why study Shakespeare? Titus Andronicus, Act I: Rome and drama

Week 2: October 6 through10
Titus Andronicus, Acts 2 through 5: Save the children ; Aaron the Moor

 Week 3: October 13 through17
Midsummer Night's Dream, Acts1 through 3: Owning children; the classical setting

 Week 4: October 20 through 24
MSNDr, Acts 4 & 5: The play within; Richard II, Act 1: Medieval politics 

Week 5: October 27 through 31 PAPER 1 DUE
Richard II, Acts 2 through 4: Being, acting as king; defining kingship

Week 6: November 3 through 7
Richard II, Act V: Treason? A name? --TERM EXAM-- 

Week 7: November 10 through 14
Henry V, Acts 1 through 3: Justification for war Henry V, the glories of war 

Week 8: November 17 through 21 PAPER DUE
Henry V, Acts 4 & 5: Love and war; Hamlet, Act 1: Ghosts 

Week 9: November 24 and 26
Hamlet, Acts 2 through 4: insanity and more spying 

Week 10: December 1 through 5
Hamlet, Act 5: the contemplation of death --TERM EXAM-- 

WHAT IS AN A PAPER?  (top of page)

This question is probably the most frequently asked in any English class. To help answer it, let me outline for you what a paper must have in order to get a "C" grade:

• The paper must be college-level work: that means that it must have evidence of thoughtful inquiry. A college-level paper does not have misspelled words (especially in the age of spell-check); a college level paper does not have grammatical errors. Such errors reduce a paper's grade to below a C; no paper with such errors can receive higher than a C-, and most will receive D's.
• The paper must have a thesis. A thesis is the paper's "point," what the paper is about--which is more particular than just being "about" the Middle Ages, for instance, or about medieval kingship. What in particular are you exploring? What point are you trying to make about your specific area of inquiry? Consider a thesis the conclusion you've come to about a specific topic. If your paper doesn't have a thesis, it will receive no grade higher than a C-, and it will probably receive a D. 

So what makes a "B" paper? Besides correct spelling, good grammar, and a thesis, the "B" paper's thesis is interesting, limited, and specific. Its argument makes clear steps, and its good, cogent evidence and organization reveal the care taken in writing the paper and analyzing the evidence. Its paragraphs make sense as paragraphs--each treats a part of the argument--and the paragraphs follow one another logically, tied together by an implicit structure (the enthymeme).

Then there's the "A" paper. Besides correct spelling, good grammar, an interesting thesis, good evidence, and logical organization, the "A" paper has a compelling thesis, one that might challenge at first but which holds its own with the reader. There are no holes in its argument: on the contrary, its analysis is sophisticated. It's a paper the reader thinks with, where the next idea presented is both precise and intriguing. An "A" paper reads beautifully aloud, and reveals a probing intellect. An "A" paper has some "art" to it.

 The most important advice I can give you for writing "A" papers is to write a draft a week ahead of the due date and revise it BEFORE HANDING IT IN. I've found in my own writing that I don't figure out what I'm talking about until the end of writing my first draft. Only when I've written a draft does my thesis become clear. When I rewrite, I use what I've figured out at the end of the writing process to BEGIN my second draft, and VOILA! I have a better paper. I'm happy to read rough drafts of your papers, and I encourage you to spend the minimum time needed to write a good paper (a simple rule of thumb: a five-page paper requires at least ten hours of organizing and writing, and that doesn't include research time).

This page created by Louise M. Bishop Last updated 14 August 1997