Students, welcome to our Blog for EH 200, Approaches to Literature.

This website will lead you to all the important information you need this semester.

Before we can get started on what is sure to be a very exciting course, there are a few documents you need to read and become familiar with.

Please read these documents carefully, and e-mail any questions you may have about them to your professor, as you are responsible for following the rules and regulations they cover.

Important Documents for Students:

• Course Policy and Procedures

Current Semester:

• Syllabus: Fall 2011

Prior Semesters:

• Syllabus: Summer 2011

• Syllabus for Spring 2011 MWF Sections

• Syllabus for Spring 2011 TTR Sections

• Syllabus: Summer 2010

• Syllabus: Spring 2010 MWF Schedule

• Syllabus: Spring 2010 TTR Schedule

Resources for Instructors:

In addition to the handbook — see bel0w – here is a video on the general role and signifiance of literature at our institution. Hopefully, it helps to explain why we do the things we do.

• Instructor’s  Handbook: Introduction

• Instructor’s Handbook: Unit One

• Instructor’s Handbook: Unit Two
  

• Instructor’s Handbook: Unit Three
  

• Instructor’s Handbook: Policy and Procedures, Syllabus, Course Terms

• Instructor’s Handbook: Video Instruction: Unit One

• Instructor’s Handbook: Video Instruction: Unit Two

• Instructor’s Handbook: Video Instructor: Unit Three

Your Homework for Today was to produce a complete Précis draft:

Get out your homework and underline the most important sentences or ideas.

Journal Assignment: (10 Minutes)

Explain in detail what the challenges were for you as your wrote this draft. What are you happy with? What do you need more time to perfect?

Group Work: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Meet in small groups and share findings

Group Presentations: (Suggested: 5-7 Minutes)

Mini-Lecture: (Suggested: 5-7 Minutes)

How do we address these concerns?

Peer Review:

• Sentence Structre

• Paragraph Structure

• Document Structure

Homework: Revise precis for next class

Citing some of our course terms, explain what can “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds” tell us about the basic struggles people may face when they aspire to a professional status.

In-Class Journal: (Suggested: 10 minutes)

How do people from different economic (income) backgrounds work? Describe to me how you envision lower-income, middle-income, and upper-income people your age working.  What are the similarities and differences?  Again, begin with definitions for these terms.

Group Discussion: (Suggested 5-7 Minutes)

Talk about the first difficult (notice that I did not say best or worst) job you held.  What was it about that job that you liked the most and least? Keep a list of your responses. Once you have done that, come up with a statement that identifies which income bracket that job might be associated with, and whether or not you would have considered yourself a professional in the workforce while you were working on this job.

Group Presentations: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Mini-Lecture: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Two new terms today: Work and Professional

Work: What is it?

What do we think?

Definition: Work: “activities undertaken for the purpose of maintaining or advancing a social position.”

Professional:

What is it?

What do we think?

A professional is someone who “adheres to a specific set of ethical standards that privilege the interests of an occupation over the interests of the worker.”

Homework: Read and annotate the first fifteen pages of Stephen Crane’s “Maggie: a Girl of the Streets”

How is this draft better than the last draft? Explain.

Group Work: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Talk about improvements and current struggles

Groups Report: (Suggested: 7-10 Minutes)

Workshop: Remaining Time

Turn in drafts for review.

Journal: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

What are the positive aspects of this document as you understand them? What are the negative aspects?

Group Discussion: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Groups Report on Findings: (Suggested: 5-7 Minutes)

Workshop with sheet.

Revised Draft Due Next Class For Submission

—

1)      Let’s get out our homework for today and underline the thesis statements.

1. Let’ share two thesis statements.

2)      Journal Work:

1. Out of your four thesis statements, which one do you like the best – which would be the best to argue? Is it contestable?

i.      Explain

3)      Group Discussion

4)      Group Reports, with evidence.

5)      Homework:

Guided Argument Assignment.

Paper Two prompt. At this point, you have read several stories, all of which touch on issues related to play and work, though in different ways.

You job is to draft a persuasive argument with a contestable thesis that compares and/or contrasts scenes from two stories.

In your comments on each scene, you are to identify how income impacts a character’s understanding of play (or work)_  You need to incorporate our other major terms, low-income, class, setting, boredom, and plot and any others into your general argument!

This paper will require that you define these terms when you first introduce them into the paper.

You are to follow the structure of a Toulmin argument, use proper in-text citation, and we will also be including a works cited page.

Three secondary sources will be required

1. Draft of first three pages of the paper due for next time.
   1. Paragraph structure
   2. No spaces between paragraphs
   3. Citations
   4. The three-step process
   5. No assumptive language.

Review your thesis statements

Underline the three best ideas.

Journal: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Explain in detail 1) the sections of the stories you will need to review in order to write this paper and 2) the kinds of secondary sources you think would be helpful to you as you write this paper.

Group Work: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Share Findings:

Groups Activity: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Compare and contrast plot points in two stories using the same frame. Do this with three different combinations of stories. Be ready to report back to the class

Class Discussion

Homework:

Draft the paper for next class.

Guided Argument Assignment:[For distribution to students]

• Paper Two prompt. At this point, you have read several stories, all of which touch on issues related to play and work, though in different ways.

• You job is to draft a persuasive argument with a contestable thesis that compares and/or contrasts scenes from two stories.

• In your comments on each scene, you are to identify how income impacts a character’s understanding of play.  You need to incorporate our other major terms, low-income, class, setting, boredom, and plot and any others into your general argument!

• This paper will require that you define these terms when you first introduce them into the paper.

• You are to follow the structure of a Toulmin argument, use proper in-text citation, and we will also be including a works cited page.

• Three secondary sources will be required

—

1: Reading Quiz: (Suggested: 5 Minutes)

2: General Discussion of the story: (Suggested: 5-10 Minutes)

Journal Assignment: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Keeping our basic class concepts in mind, how is this story similar to or different from another story we have read this semester? Follow the Toulmin model in your argument.

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Paper Two Prompt:

Guided Argument Assignment:[For distribution to students]

• Paper Two prompt. At this point, you have read several stories, all of which touch on issues related to play and work, though in different ways.

• You job is to draft a persuasive argument with a contestable thesis that compares and/or contrasts scenes from two stories.

• In your comments on each scene, you are to identify how income impacts a character’s understanding of play.  You need to incorporate our other major terms, low-income, class, setting, boredom, and plot and any others into your general argument!

• This paper will require that you define these terms when you first introduce them into the paper.

• You are to follow the structure of a Toulmin argument, use proper in-text citation, and we will also be including a works cited page.

• Three secondary sources will be required

Homework for Wednesday:

In two pages, I want you to present and explain four possible thesis statements. You should be presenting the statement and supporting it with evidence from the story or stories that you could potentially use to support the argument in the full draft. We will be selecting from these thesis statements on Wednesday.

Homework Review: (5 Minutes)

• Your Homework is to read “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds.”  I want you to write a one-page blog post identifying the relationship between details relating to play, income, setting, and class

Mini-Lecture: Cultural References (Suggested: 5 Minutes)

• So far, we have considered various frames for understanding narratives.

• We have also through about PLOT.

• We have also thought about how we can COMBINE our FRAMES with PLOT to gain greater insight into a story – which we need to do if we are going to make informed arguments about stories.

• Today, we are going to consider a new concept: Cultural References

Journal Work: (Suggested: 5 Minutes)

In your journal, I want you to take the next five minutes and explain that phrase to me. What does it mean to you?

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 3-5 Minutes)

Cultural References are details particular to specific social or economic conditions.

• They provide insight into the world the text, the world it represents,  and the audience it speaks to.

• If we understand cultural references, and the fact that all stories make cultural references, we can get over the idea that “old” stories all take place “back then.”

• They are, like you and me, alive in the sense that they are in conversation with their formative social and cultural conditions.

Group Work: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Identify  three major cultural references in Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds. Explain their relevance in terms of Frames and Plot.

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

In-class writing: (Suggested: 15 minutes)

Let’s return to a question I asked you on the very first day we got together.

• What is the difference between work and play as you now understand the concepts? Where do we learn about work? Where do we learn about play?  How are the ways in which you work and play different from the ways your parents work and play?  Look back at what you wrote earlier this semester. How is your understanding different now, particularly your understanding of play. Use your key terms! That is the whole point!

Discussion of findings: (Suggested: As time permits)

Homework: (One page)

• Citing some of of our course terms, explain what can “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds” tell us about the basic struggles people may face when they aspire to a professional status.

Your homework for today was to write a one-page blog post on the plot of your average day:

Discuss Homework: (Suggested 5-7 Minutes)

Let’s begin with a more related activity:

Journal: (Suggested 10 Minutes)

Outline a brief anecdote from your life: some event that you can tell as a story.

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

What is the “plot” – what are the events that share causal relationships – in that story?

Group Work: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

Identify five plot points in “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds”: five moments where one event causes another.

Groups will report work on the board.

Mini-lecture: (Suggested: 5-7 Minutes)

Combining the ideas of Plot and our Interpretive Frames (play, income, class, setting) to identify and critique important moments in a story.

Time Permitting:

Let’s look for two major moments in “The Gift of the Magi” and break them down with our frames. What can be say about these moments?

Homework: Your Homework is to read “Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds.”  I want you to write a one-page blog post identifying the relationship between details relating to play, income, setting, and class.

What was your initial reaction to Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds? Using two of our course terms, I would like you to identify and describe similarities and differences between this story and one other story we have read.

Group Discussion: (Suggested: 5-7 minutes)

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 5-7 Minutes)

New Concept: Plot

New Concept: Plot

Journal assignment: (Suggested: 10 Minutes)

What does the word “plot” mean to you when it is used to describe a story? Go into good detail and provide examples.

Group Discussion: (Suggested: 5 minutes)

Class Discussion: (Suggested: 5-10 Minutes)

Min-Lecture:

Plot: The series of events in a story that are linked by causal relationships. It is not a summary.

Group work: Describe the plot of “The Untold Lie”

Homework: One-page: What is the plot of your average day? Do _not_ write a summary.

Final Drafts of you Precis due next class.

Get Out Homework on “The Gift of the Magi.” Underline the most important sentences.

Journal: (10 Minutes)

Using two of our course terms (play, income, class, setting) identify and describe some of the major similarities and differences between these stories.

Group Discussions: (Suggested: 7-10 Minutes)

Group Presentations: (Suggested: 7-10 Minutes)

Mini-Lecture: Final Comments on the Precis, final draft  due on Friday

Workshop current drafts.

Homework:

Produce Final Draft of the Precis for Friday.

Read Mrs. Beazley’s Deeds: Annotate for play, setting, and income.