Student Movies
Selections from student multimedia adaptations of text into Windows movies:
KIRSTEN BALO, SEINA LEE, and SEAN LEVIN interpret Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
ABDUL MAHMOOD and FOUAD MUGHAL interpret Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"
Final Moviemaker Project
Download the Final Moviemaker Project instructions and assessment handout.
Brief Oral Presentation
Download LIT instructions for a brief oral presentation due next week in class.
From Prose to Creative Nonfiction
Download handouts on prose and on Hunger of Memory as literary art.
Poetry Homework & Study Guide
Download a poetry study guide for summarizing and responding to poetry in your homework and in class.
Notes on Shakespeare and Othello
Download notes from our classroom lecture and discussion on Shakespeare and Othello.
PICTURE SOURCE: Charles & Mary Lamb, Tales from Shakespeare (1901)
Notes on Literary Modernism
Download notes from our classroom lecture and discussion on literary modernism.
Portrait of Dora Maar (1937), Pablo Picasso
"In the twentieth century ... the process of modernization expands to take in virtually the whole world, and the developing world culture of modernism achieves spectacular triumphs in art and thought. On the other hand, as the modern public expands, it shatters into a multitude of fragments, speaking incommensurable private languages ... we find ourselves today in the midst of a modern age that has lost touch with the roots of its own modernity."—Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (1982)
On Wikipedia
Here are just a few more reasons to go beyond the popular reference site and instead do some database research...
...from beloved "fake" TV pundit Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report via YouTube...
LIT Research & Writing Assignments
Students must complete two pieces of annotated research and two pieces of summary-and-response writing (total) for the semester. Thus, you will end up doing one piece of research or writing for each of the main genres: fiction, drama, poetry, and prose.
The sequence, dates, and choices (of literary item and research-versus-writing) are up to you, so you must manage your own schedule to complete all four assignments. The syllabus-schedule will help you set deadlines, including the dates we’ll go over each genre.
Before you start an assignment, let the teacher know when you’re thinking of preparing the work. The assignment will be due on the day that we discuss the literary item you’ve chosen. Bring the finished, typed-up product (10- or 12-point typeface, 1” margin all around, name/date/class clearly identified) to the session and be ready to discuss.
For each assignment, choose one literary item:
FICTION = one full story
DRAMA = one full section from a play
POETRY = one author (represented by two or three poems)
PROSE = one full chapter
FOR
RESEARCH:
Through original research, collect four to five sources that advance your understanding of your chosen literary item, per the following checklist.
• ONE reference-source entry (encyclopedia, almanac, literary/specialized dictionary, etc.)
+
• ONE mass-media article (newspaper, magazine, general-public periodical)
+
• ONE web site or web page regarding the piece, author, genre, etc.
+
• TWO scholarly articles (academic journals, published research, conference presentations)
-- OR --
• ONE primary-source book (no anthologies or textbooks, preferably an academic work)
Draft two to three pages on your research: (1) a Works Cited page listed alphabetically and (2) one or two pages describing in full, detailed paragraphs what you got out of each source on the list. Try to classify each source: cultural, linguistic, historical, biographical, critical, etc. In other words, look for and report on research that helps us understand and appreciate the literature we’ll discuss in class.
For Works Cited MLA-formatting, see the handout from class or refer to the Diana Hacker MLA web site.
FOR
WRITING:
Draft and develop a brief (two to three page) paper in response to your chosen literary item. Follow this sequence to organize your ideas.
Paragraph #1 = INTRODUCTION that clearly identifies your item and establishes an interpretive thesis
3 paragraphs = detailed SUMMARY of the item, with quotes and specifics that advance your thesis
3 to 4 paragraphs = RESPONSE, playing off of the SUMMARY to prove your interpretive thesis
Closing paragraph = CONCLUSION, with strong and convincing thesis re-statement
(NOTE: A full paragraph consists of at least three sentences — one to introduce the topic, one to develop it, and one to conclude the paragraph.)
Craft your response paper to present your own ideas on the meaning and value of the literary item.
EVALUATION:
The teacher will grade each assignment on a zero-to-ten point scale, from unacceptable to excellent, based on 5 criteria (two points each):
DEMONSTRATED CLOSE READING (Do you show careful textual review?)
ANALYTIC VALUE (How convincing is your interpretation? How thoughtful is your research?)
INTERPRETIVE VALUE (Does your work add to our thinking about lit?)
WRITING MECHANICS (sentence structure, paragraph structure, response-paper thesis)
GRAMMAR (correctness of English)
From Homer to Mos Def
Download our handout on "The Genesis of Literature", a broad sketch of various genres and periods, to see how lit developed "From Homer to Mos Def."
Also, check out the following writers we discussed briefly this past week:
Walt Whitman
Beau Sia
Terry Eagleton
SYLLABUS: LIT 110-B
Welcome to Literature 110-B, Fall 2007!
Download the syllabus for Introduction to Literature.