ENGLISH 210: INTRODUCTION TO
TEXTS
SECTION 002:
MONDAYS AND WEDNESDAYS, 5–7:15 PM, HHH 230
FALL 2008, UWEC
PROFESSOR BOB NOWLAN
Office: HHH 425 Office Phone: (715)
836-4369
ranowlan@uwec.edu
http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan
Office Hours: T 2:40-4:30 and
9:50-10:30 pm, W 2:40-3:30 pm, and By Appointment
THAD LOGAN, SENIOR STUDENT MENTOR
logantw@uwec.edu
COURSE EXPLANATION
According to the English Department’s recently
revised and updated catalog description, which is currently working its
way through institutional channels, and which will appear in next
year’s (2009-2010) UWEC course catalog, in English 210:
Introduction to
Texts “students learn tools of interpretation–including narrative,
figurative language, language and rhetoric in cultural context, and
intertextuality–as applied to a variety of both literary and social
texts.”
In addition to this catalog description, the
official, approved, statement of the goals of English 210, last
spring
unanimously reaffirmed by the English Department, read as follows:
In English 210: Introduction to Texts, students will:
1.) Acquire an understanding of textuality:
how various texts are constructed and structured; how they create
meaning; what their purposes are and their effect on us; and how we
interact with and affect them. This process will be accomplished
in part by exposing students to difficult texts that make the strange
and unfamiliar more accessible by pushing the boundaries of the
students’ experiences or assumptions about the world. At the same
times, students will learn ways of thinking that defamiliarize and
challenge what they take for granted about the numerous texts that
surround them every day.
2.) Study a wide variety of literary,
scholarly, visual, print, film, commercial, legal, technical and
scientific texts. Although literary texts are studied in the
course, it should be noted that this is NOT a course on literary
masterpieces and/or a specific literary period. Nor is it an
introduction to literature course.
3.) Gain an understanding of how texts
function within historicized cultural contexts. Among other
things, students will become aware of the social, political, and
aesthetic effects of texts by reading works that cross cultural,
national, racial, gender, and class lines. This in turn will
inform their ability to gain practical experience with basic analytical
principles employed in the study of language in all its modes and
forms. Examples include but are not limited to the study of
narrative, aesthetics, figurative language, semiotics, and
intertextuality.
In sum, English 210: Introduction to Texts, the
principal foundational core course for all English major and minor
emphasis areas (Literature, Creative Writing, Teaching, Scientific and
Technical Communication, Linguistics, and, in process, hopefully soon
to be added, Film, Theory, and Culture), focuses on concepts and
practices useful for interpreting a wide variety of texts, and
doing so
by situating
these in relevant and useful cultural contexts.
Introduction to Texts is a course in Cultural
Studies. Cultural Studies is a cross-disciplinary field of
intellectual work that emerged in the 1980s, with particular emphasis
in the arts and humanities. Cultural studies
engages the
"writing" and "reading" of all "texts" of culture (and not just
conventional "literary"–or print or verbal–varieties of texts).
According to cultural studies, we "read" whenever
we interpret what
something "means," and we "write" whenever
we create something which
others must interpret so as to determine what it means. This
leads us to approach all products of culture as "texts" insofar as they
are written and read, insofar as they are understood as possessing or
bearing meaning. "Texts" include everything from the
seemingly
most "profoundly meaningful" to the seemingly most "mundanely
meaningless" (as, after all, to be considered insignificant, or of
little or no meaning, is to be judged to mean in a particular way as
well). Cultural studies thus focuses on making sense of "texts"
such as films, television shows, music and video productions and
performances, paintings and drawings, sculpture and architecture,
sports teams and games, trends in clothing and fashion, commercial
advertisements, individual dreams and plans, shopping lists and
checkout receipts, buildings and rooms, kinds of food and drink, roads
and vehicles, manners and gestures, ceremonies and rituals,
personalities and personal relationships, and individual actions and
specific incidents. Cultural studies focuses on making sense of
the meaning, value, and significance of specific cultural products and
practices as well as of the social relationships humans form to
facilitate and regulate specific processes of making and
practicing. And cultural studies focuses on the social
relationships humans form, furthermore, to distribute, exchange,
consume, and otherwise respond to specific processes of making and
practicing.
From the vantage point of Cultural Studies, literary
texts are not the only kinds of texts that English engages, not by far,
yet “literature,”
taking a cue from literary and cultural studies
theorist Terry Eagleton, here tends to refer to whatever a particular
culture (or subculture) happens to regard as especially "highly valued
writing." This flexible definition recognizes that what is
defined as “literature” and what is not–and especially “good” or
“great” literature–varies considerably across time and space, and
remains a continual focus of popular debate and critical
contestation. But it also recognizes that literary studies
maintains a crucial place within a larger field of cultural
studies: inquiry into what makes for different conceptions of
highly valued writing within and across different historical
cultures–and subcultures, as well as interpretation and appreciation of
those texts that do acquire and maintain the status of “literature.”
Within Cultural Studies, however, and also
throughout the history of the existence of this particular
course, English 210: Introduction to Texts, practitioners tend to
emphasize texts that are not conventionally conceived as great works of
art–or the mainstays of ‘high’ or ‘fine’ culture–instead focusing on
the vast array of cultural processes and productions we find in the
broad, diverse arena commonly referred to as “popular culture.”
In doing so, work in Cultural Studies shows how it is possible–and
useful–to bring to bear concepts and practices for interpretation of
cultural texts of all levels and kinds. At the same time,
cultural studies takes ‘great works of art’–and, more broadly, texts of
‘high’ or ‘fine’ culture–seriously too, focusing on showing how these
are related to texts of popular culture, including, often, as
deliberate critiques of, rejections of, departures from, escapes from,
and ways of, even if only temporarily, transcending the qualitative
problems and limitations of what we tend to find predominant within
“popular culture.”
Pursuing this pathway enables you, beginning your
work as practitioners of Cultural Studies, to engage in a more
conscious, critical, and independent-minded way with all of these
different texts of culture, and to think about and relate to them, and
to the ends they advance and the interests they represent, on your own
terms, thereby far less easily subject to manipulation, indoctrination,
dogmatism, demagoguery, or any other tendency to end up as mere
mindless consumers, shallow conformists, or passive victims versus the
power exercised by socially and politically dominant
groups. Pursuing this pathway enables you to engage more
extensively and intensively as producers of your culture, and of your
cultural experience–i.e., as people who do maintain potentially
substantial power of your own to exercise versus the social conditions
that ground and the social structures that shape your everyday
existence.
In the first half of this course we will focus on
learning and initially applying key concepts and practices for
interpretation of cultural texts. We will focus primarily in this
half of the course on ways of reading and writing about
cultural
texts. And we will concentrate to a considerable degree in this
part of the semester on working with texts from popular
culture. In the second half of class we will focus on
learning and initially practicing writing cultural
texts. Here we
will begin by reading, discussing, and interpreting a series of three
late 1950s to late 1960s English plays–Harold Pinter’s The Birthday
Party, Edward Bond’s Saved,
and Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw.
Each of these plays has acquired the status of a contemporary classic,
and each is, by this point in time, widely regarded as a highly
impressive–and important–work of (post)modern literature. At the
same time, each of these plays also engages critically with popular
culture, in sharp and striking ways, and each continues to be highly
challenging to–and provocative for–audiences to this day. Working
with these three plays allows us to focus on a distinct historical
place and time, while that is a time and place both different enough
and close enough to where we are at to provide ready points of
comparison and contrast, as well as connection and provocation.
What you will be doing, after we take the time initially to read,
discuss, and interpret these plays, is to divide into three groups
where each group will be working with one of the plays as a source text
and inspirational guide as your group proceeds to create a shorter play
of your own, one that is directly engaged with significant issues in
the here and now. Beyond writing these plays, each of these three
groups will also work on producing and ultimately performing its
play–for the rest of the class. So, in sum, in the second half of
class you will gain the opportunity to bring to bear the key concepts
and practices you have learned in the first half of class toward the
critical and creative writing of a cultural text of your own.
TEXTS
The following books are required:
1. Brummett, Barry. Rhetoric in Popular
Culture. 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
2006.
ISBN#: 1-4129-1437-X.
2. Bennett, Tony, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan
Morris, eds. New Keywords: a
Revised Vocabulary of Culture and
Society. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2005. ISBN#:
978-0-631-22569-0.
3. Pinter, Harold. The Birthday
Party. Any Complete Edition.
4. Bond, Edward. Saved. Any
Complete Edition.
5. Orton, Joe. What the Butler Saw. Any
Complete Edition.
All of these books are available for you to purchase
at the UWEC Bookstore. You may purchase them elsewhere, as you
wish, as long as you do acquire them in time to use for
class. Note well: in the case of the Pinter and Orton
plays, because of restrictions on which publishers and distributors
they can work with, the UWEC Bookstore had to order editions where the
plays we will use are bundled together with other plays that we will
not use (with The Room in the
case of The Birthday Party
and as part of
The Complete Plays in the case
of What the Butler Saw).
However,
as I myself have done, if you are able to order on-line, you likely
will be able to find editions containing only The Birthday Party and
only What the Butler Saw.
In addition, I will supply additional written texts,
as need be, in the form of photocopied handouts, or on Desire2Learn and
the W (the Student-Faculty Shared) Drive. I will also supply
copies of the visual, audio, and audio-visual texts that we will make
use of from time to time as well.
SCHEDULE
W 9/3: Introduction and Orientation.
M 9/8: Rhetoric and Popular Culture: The Rhetoric of Everyday Life, The
Building Blocks of Culture: Signs, and The Building Blocks of Culture:
Artifacts.
Read
for Class, M 9/8: Rhetoric
and Popular Culture,
Selections From Chapter 1, pp. 3-22.
W 9/10: Rhetoric and Popular Culture: Definitions of Culture,
Characteristics of Culture, Summary and Review, and Looking Ahead.
Read
for Class, W 9/10: Rhetoric
and Popular
Culture, Selections
From Chapter 1, pp. 22-40.
M 9/15: Rhetoric and the Rhetorical Tradition: Definitions in General,
The Rhetorical Tradition: Ancient Greece, Two Legacies from the Greek
Rhetorical Tradition, Definitions of Rhetoric After Plato, Rhetoric in
the Eighteenth Century, and New Theories (and New Realities) Emerge in
the Twentieth Century.
Read
for Class, M 9/15: Rhetoric
and Popular
Culture, Selections From Chapter 2, pp. 41-65.
W 9/17: Rhetoric and the Rhetorical Tradition: Interrelated Twentieth
Century Changes–Population, Technology, Pluralism, Knowledge, Mapping
Power Today in Traditional Texts: Neo-Aristotelian Criticism, and
Managing Power Today in Texts of Popular Culture; The Texts of Popular
Culture; Summary and Review; and Looking Ahead.
Read
for Class, W 9/17: Rhetoric
and Popular
Culture, Selections From Chapter 2, pp. 65-89.
M 9/22: Rhetorical Methods in Critical Studies: Texts as Sites of
Struggle, Three Characteristics of Critical Studies, Finding a Text,
and Defining a Context.
Read
for Class, M 9/22: Rhetoric
and Popular
Culture, Selections From Chapter 3, pp. 90-114.
W 9/24: Rhetorical Methods in Critical Studies: “Inside” the Text; The
Text in Context: Metonymy, Power, Judgment; Summary and Review; and
Looking Ahead.
Read
for Class, W 9/24: Rhetoric
and Popular
Culture, Selections From Chapter 3, pp. 115-136.
M 9/29 and W 10/1: Writing About Cultural Texts.
Read
for Class: To Be Announced.
*
M 9/29: Short Paper #1 (Beginning to Work with Key
Concepts and Practices in Reading and Writing About Cultural Texts)
Assigned. *
M 10/6: Varieties of Rhetorical Criticism: An Introduction to Critical
Perspectives, Marxist Criticism, Visual Rhetorical Criticism,
Psychoanalytic Criticism, and Feminist Criticism.
Read for Class, M 10/6: Rhetoric
and Popular
Culture, Selections From Chapter 4, pp. 148-178.
W 10/8: Varieties of Rhetorical Criticism: Dramatistic/Narrative
Criticism, Media-Centered Criticism, Culture-Centered Criticism,
Summary and Review, and Looking Ahead.
Read
for Class, W 10/8: Rhetoric
and Popular
Culture, Selections From Chapter 4, pp. 179-214.
*
F 10/10: Short Paper #1 Due, by 12 noon, in my
English Department Mailbox, HHH 405. *
M 10/13 and W 10/15: Screening and Discussion of Groundhog Day,
including of Simulational Selves and Simulational Culture in Groundhog
Day.
Read for Class, M 10/13: Rhetoric
and Popular
Culture, Chapter 7, “Simulational Selves, Simulational Culture
in
Groundhog Day,” 257-271.
*
Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper #1
Assigned. *
M 10/20 and W 10/22: Screening and Discussion of Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind, and of Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in
Comparison and Contrast with Groundhog
Day, as well as Eternal
Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind vis-a-vis the idea of Simulational Selves
and
Simulational Cultures.
*
W 10/22: Short Paper #2 (Beginning to Work with
Key Concepts and Practices in Reading and Writing About Cultural Texts)
Assigned. *
*
F 10/24: Learning and Contribution Reflection
Paper #1 Due, by 12 noon, in my English Department Mailbox, HHH 405. *
M 10/27: The Birthday Party,
Acts I and II.
Read
for Class, M 10/27: The
Birthday Party, Acts I
and II.
W 10/29: The Birthday Party,
Act III, and The Play as a Whole.
Read
for Class, W 10/29: The
Birthday Party, Act III.
M 11/3: Saved, Scenes One
through Seven.
Read for Class, M 11/3: Saved,
Scenes 1-7.
W 11/5: Saved, Scenes Eight
through Thirteen, and the Play as a Whole.
Read
for Class, W 11/5: Saved,
Scenes 8-13.
M 11/10: What the Butler Saw,
Act One.
Read
for Class, M 11/10: What the
Butler Saw, Act 1.
W 11/12: What the Butler Saw,
Act Two, and the Play as a Whole.
Read
for Class, W 11/12: What the
Butler Saw, Act 2.
M 11/17, W 11/19, M 11/24, M 12/1, W 12/3, and M 12/8: Work in Groups
on Writing, Producing, and Practicing Performing Short Plays.
*
M 11/24: Learning and Contribution Reflection
Paper #2 Assigned. *
W 12/10: Performances of Short Plays.
*
M 12/15: By 12 noon in my English Department
Mailbox, HHH 405: Learning and Contribution Reflection Paper #2 Due. *
** PLEASE NOTE WELL: READINGS FROM NEW KEYWORDS: A
REVISED VOCABULARY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY WILL ALSO BE ASSIGNED FROM TIME TO TIME
(IN ADDITION TO THE READINGS INDICATED ABOVE). **
*** THIS SCHEDULE
IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. ***
ORGANIZATION AND CONDUCT OF CLASS SESSIONS
We will work continuously throughout the 135 minutes
we have each period. (If you need [as opposed to want] to take a
short restroom break, you should feel free to go ahead and take it–but
try to keep it short.) Class will follow a variety of formats,
but throughout you will be consistently actively involved. In
other words, while I will devise the structures for what we do, and
direct all of our work together, assisted by Thad, this will be a
discussion-emphasis as opposed to a lecture-emphasis class. From
time to time I will make short presentations, but that’s it, as it will
be up to you to help us work our way toward a consensual understanding
of key concepts and practices–what they mean, how and for what they are
useful, and what their significance happens to be. You will need
to work with me (and Thad) in order to enable your learning and that of
your peers; students always learn much better, in this kind of class,
through active participation and extensive collaboration (including
often as part of smaller groups and teams) rather than by remaining
largely quiet and merely taking notes during the course of long
lectures. Plus, we will be making use of your prior, and other,
knowledge, skill, talent, and experience as a crucial point of
connection with everything “new” you encounter in this class. And
since we will be focusing a great deal on contemporary American popular
culture, each of you has a lot to offer. We collectively maintain
“expertise” in many of the vast array of different areas in which
people in the US today interact–in all of the diverse rituals,
conventions, routines, customs, traditions, habits, and myriad other
forms of meaningful activity that give shape and substance to our
everyday lives. “Popular culture” includes all of that, as well
as all of the ways we commonly make sense of all of this participation
(i.e., what we think, feel, and believe about it).
GENERAL EXPECTATIONS OF STUDENTS
I expect students in this course to strive to become
sincerely interested in learning about the subject matter of this
course, and to be consistently intellectually serious as well as
academically diligent in their pursuit of this learning. I
expect students to strive to bring actively and extensively to bear–in
your essays and contributions to class discussion–insights you gain
through your engagement with the texts and topics addressed as part of
this course, and I expect you to strive at the same time to relate
these texts and topics as closely and as fully as possible to subjects
of genuine interest and concern in your own lives. And I expect
you to let me know right away when and if you have any questions or
problems about any aspect of how you are doing in and with the course,
so that I can do whatever I possibly can to help answer these questions
and solve these problems.
In addition, students should keep in mind that the
higher educational academy is not a "safe space" separate from the rest
of the "real world" where you can expect to be sheltered from
encountering anything you might find disagreeable or
objectionable. After all, disturbing positions and practices
exist extensively outside of the classroom as well as in what we read,
see, hear, and otherwise confront in and for class; what we confront in
class exists in this institutional space as symptomatic of positions
and practices that operate beyond the confines of the classroom, the
course, and the university. If and when you find any text
or topic genuinely upsetting, you maintain the ethical responsibility
not simply to try to hide from these positions and practices but rather
to work to critique them in an intellectually serious, responsible,
mature adult way. Students should expect therefore that you will
on occasion encounter representations that you will find troubling, in
this UWEC course and in many others as well; within this Department you
will receive no right of exemption from engaging with these and
absolutely no welcome for simply complaining (especially to a higher
administrative authority) about their inclusion. Keep in
mind that great works of art–including of literature–are often created
with the deliberate aim of disturbing, even shocking many people who
will encounter these; often the aim here is to provoke strong response,
as well as thought–and action–that goes beyond what has become
familiar, conventional, commonsensical, and, especially, merely
“safe.” I’ll add here that some of what we will confront this
semester I find quite disturbing myself but I nonetheless believe it is
important that I confront it, and not try to hide from it.
Finally, students should also be prepared to deal
with that fact that a professor differs from a high school teacher in
many respects, but one key difference is that we maintain a principal
professional, ethical responsibility forthrightly to represent the most
advanced knowledges in our fields of expertise and to proceed from
there to work toward their further development and
dissemination. In short, we must create, advocate for, and
profess these knowledges; you should expect that your professors
may
from time to time take strong and indeed controversial positions on
difficult and challenging issues, eschewing the pretense of
disinterested neutrality. To do anything less than assume this
responsibility would be to shirk our professorial responsibility and to
render ourselves unworthy of maintaining our professorial positions.
GOALS OF THE BACCALAUREATE
These are the five most important,
official goals
all UWEC
undergraduate courses are designed to help you meet:
1. Knowledge of Human Culture and the Natural World
2. Creative and Critical Thinking
3. Effective Communication
4. Individual and Social Responsibility
5. Respect for Diversity Among People
These goals require your striving to
meet them. Striving
means
learning actively and deliberately, completing assignments in a
thorough and timely fashion, participating in class discussion, and
making connections between what we do while meeting in class and what
you do when engaged outside of the classroom. And while I’m
mentioning university goals, I’ll also just throw in here that we are
all now committed toward working to realize the ‘Centennial [Strategic]
Plan’ according to which UWEC aims to become “the premier undergraduate
community in the Upper Midwest, noted for rigorous, integrated,
globally-infused liberal education and distinctive select
graduate programs.” The UWEC administration expects us all to
strive toward making this happen, from here on, and that includes
students, staff, and faculty.
SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR COURSE GRADE
Introduction
In evaluating all work done for this course, I will
take account of how carefully, seriously, intelligently,
enthusiastically, and imaginatively students engage with the concepts,
issues, positions, and arguments addressed in the course and
represented by the texts we read, by me, by Thad, and by each other.
Attendance
Since this is your class as much as it is mine, if
not moreso, and its success depends upon your contribution, it is
important that you be in class as often as possible. And
attendance means being in class on time, for the full 135 minutes,
alert, engaged, and prepared to work. Otherwise, it’s not really
attendance at all. I recognize that on occasion students
will have to miss class, however, so each of you are allowed two
unexcused absences. Beyond that, you should only miss class
because of a genuinely serious personal or family emergency, and you
will need to justify to me that this is the case so as not to suffer a
grade penalty. And, if you end up needing to miss six or more
classes, for whatever reason, you should withdraw and sign up for
English 210 in a subsequent semester, as you won’t be passing the class
this time around. Finally, if you arrive late or leave
early, engage in private conversations or in text messaging, do other
work for other courses while in class, sleep in class, or behave in any
other way that shows you are not really present in class, especially
where this distracts from the work the rest of us are trying to do, you
may be counted as absent for class. If any of this kind of
behavior is persistent or egregious that will definitely be the
case. I do pay attention, and I keep track of attendance,
even though I don’t do a roll call, or have you sign in. So, if
you ever think I’ve mistakenly counted you as absent–especially for any
of the reasons listed above–please make sure to come talk with me after
class to explain yourself.
Short Papers–Beginning to Work
with Key Concepts and Practices for
Reading and Writing About Cultural Texts
These papers will provide you an opportunity to test
out your developing grasp of
exactly that: key concepts and practices for reading and writing about
cultural texts. They will likely involve several options, and the
opportunity to apply what you have learned to specific texts of your
own choosing. I will provide a thorough explanation at the time
that I distribute each of these paper assignments to you, including
specifications for style, format, and length (although I will mention
here that I tend to be quite flexible in working with different lengths
depending upon what works for different students). Please
seek out my help–and Thad’s–as you are working on these papers; we will
be glad to give it. Each of these papers will be worth 10% of the
overall course grade, for a combined total worth 20% of the course
grade.
Learning and
Contribution/Learning and Contribution Reflection Papers
My foremost aim in teaching this course is to help
you to learn something of significance and value. I will judge
you to a significant degree on what you learn, how–and how hard–you
strive to learn, and on how–along with how well–you contribute to the
learning for the rest of the class.
Class participation represents an important
opportunity to learn, not just a place in which to demonstrate what you
have learned. By raising questions, testing and trying out ideas,
taking risks and making mistakes, you learn a great deal–and help
others learn a great deal as well. You learn through talking, not
just talk to show what you have learned. Don't hesitate to speak
forth in class if you have anything at all to throw into the mix.
At the same time, just talking a great deal does not
necessarily mean that you are making a quality contribution to the
class by aiding the learning that we aim to accomplish. Quality
of participation is much more important than quantity, although a
sufficient quantity is indispensable to insure quality. Still, I
want to emphasize here that I perceive talking for talking’s
sake–especially talking which pulls us off on far-fetched tangents,
which remains disconnected from and disengaged with the reading and the
rest of the class, or which effectively silences others–to be negative
participation. Quality class participation does not, moreover,
involve merely asking questions of me and responding to my questions;
quality class participation requires you to work as assiduously as you
can to advance a serious and substantial discussion with your peers
about the texts and topics subject to discussion.
Contribution to the class certainly can extend
far beyond mere speaking in class: it may include a variety of ways in
which you can bring to bear your insights to help yourself as well as
the rest of us gain from the experience of this course.
Excellent writing for class is also a valuable way to contribute
to class. At the same time, listening carefully, respectfully,
and thoughtfully in class discussions is yet another important means of
contribution–as is taking time to meet and talk with me and Thad
outside of class. In fact, meeting and talking with us outside of
class can be an excellent way to contribute–as well as to show us how
seriously interested in and engaged with the course material you are.
Learning and contribution will constitute a
significant proportion of your overall course grade. As
part of this grade, you will write two short learning and contribution
reflection papers. For these papers I will ask you, simply, to
assess how, along with how well, you have been learning and
contributing in the class over the course of the preceding
approximately one-half of the semester. As I see it, these
short papers provide you a useful opportunity to communicate with me
how you believe you are doing with the course, as well as why so, and
to demonstrate your critical self-reflexivity, the hallmark of a
liberal arts education. As you are assessing your own learning
and contribution, you may include thoughts in reaction to issues raised
in class discussion that you did not have the opportunity or did not
feel comfortable enough to share in class; these additional reflections
can help me get a better sense of what you have been thinking about and
how you have been responding to class discussions, as well as to the
readings. I will take into account what you write in determining
your learning and contribution grade for the preceding half-semester
period; performance on these papers represents a vital component of
your learning and contribution grade.
I will provide you specific directions in the
assignments I give you for each of these papers. Each learning
and contribution grade (including each learning and contribution
reflection paper) will be worth 20% of the
overall course grade, making
for a combined total worth 40% of the
overall course grade.
Small Group Project:
Leadership of Discussion of a Section of a
Play
As part of a group of students you will be
responsible for leading our discussion for one-half period of a
significant section from one of the following three plays–The Birthday
Party, Saved, and What the Butler Saw. Your
aims here will be: to
help your fellow students better understand and appreciate (the
meaning, value, and significance of) the section of the play for which
you are responsible, and to do the same for the play as a whole, as
well as to help stimulate an interesting discussion of the play,
including by drawing connections (comparisons and contrasts) with the
here and now. If you can come up with some good ideas to help the
students who will be working with this play as source material for
composing, producing, and performing their own short play subsequently
that will be great. Each group will meet with me in a conference
prior to the day in which you will be responsible for half of class; I
will help you prepare. Your performance on this assignment will
be worth 10% of
the overall course grade.
Large Group Project: Composition,
Production, and Performance of a
Short Play
Here you will be working together with a group of
your peers from class to compose, produce, and ultimately perform–in
class, for the rest of us–a short play directly inspired by one of the
three plays we will be reading and discussing in class: The Birthday
Party, Saved, or What the Butler Saw. You will
be updating and
translating the play so that it is focused on the here and now.
At the same time, you will be maintaining significant elements of plot,
character, style, mood, tone, and even setting from your original
source-play. And you will be working to find ways to make use of
the key concepts for reading and writing about texts that we discussed
in the first half of the semester; you will be bringing these to bear
in how you compose, produce, and perform your play, demonstrating how
your “writing” here of a cultural text reflects your critical “reading”
of (and is in fact another way of “writing about”)
a series of other
cultural texts. In other words, your play will offer a creative
as well as critical take on some significant aspects of contemporary
American popular culture, linked with and inspired by Pinter’s, or
Bond’s, or Orton’s creative and critical takes on some significant
aspects of late 1950s to late 1960s British popular culture. I
will provide more details when I give you the specific assignment for
this project–as well as the opportunity to sign up for one of the three
play composition, production, and performance teams. I will also
give you instructions as well as suggestions and recommendations
throughout the time you will be working on this assignment. And
you should note well here that even as this is the kind of assignment
that students overwhelmingly tend to enjoy working on, and that
includes students initially skeptical or worried about it, you will
need to take it seriously, and make productive use of your time.
Plus you almost certainly will need to work on it outside of as well as
inside of class time, even though you will have seven 135 minutes long
class periods to work in your teams on composing, producing, and
rehearsing your short plays. Please feel free to consult
with me and Thad outside as well as inside of class as you are working
on this project; we will be glad to help in any and every way we
can. We will be doing everything we can to help you in class
throughout that period of time. Finally, I will be giving each
member of each team an evaluation sheet to fill out and turn in after
your play has been performed in class, where you will evaluate your own
and each other member of your team’s contribution to the collective
project you have worked on; I will take what teams write on these
evaluation forms, about yourselves and your teammates, significantly
into account in determining your individual grades for this
project. And the grade for your work as part of a team of peers
involved in composing, producing, and performing a short play will be
worth 30% of the
overall course grade.
Extra Credit Opportunity
You may, if you wish, write a sustained critical
analysis of any one of the three plays we will read and discuss
together this semester (The Birthday
Party, Saved, or What the Butler
Saw) in which you incorporate research into the life, times, and
outlook of the playwright as well as key shaping influences on him and
his playwriting; the history of the play’s production, performance, and
reception; scholarly interpretation of the play; and the relation
between this single play and some other plays that he also wrote.
Let me know if you are interested in this extra credit opportunity, and
I (and Thad) will work with you to help you get going on it, if that is
something you want to pursue. This extra credit paper will be
worth 10% of the
overall course grade.
CONFERENCES/EXTRA HELP
I encourage you to meet with me in conference
during office hours or at another mutually convenient time to discuss
any issue of interest or concern that you develop as a student in this
course and as a member of this class. I recognize the value of
learning that takes place in conferences; I know this can at times be
equally as important, and in fact occasionally even more important,
than what takes place in class. It also provides you an
opportunity to contribute beyond what you say in class and write for
class. So please do not hesitate to meet with me at any time you
think this might be helpful to you–or whenever you’d just like to talk
further with me. I want to help you in your understanding
of issues addressed in texts and discussions, as well as in your
writing and participation. And you may certainly also feel free
to contact me by e-mail or by (my campus office) phone as well.
I really do like to get to know my students;
students at this university continually demonstrate impressive ability,
talent, knowledge, experience, insight, vitality, and good
character. I am lucky to get to know you; it enriches me.
And one thing is worth emphasizing from the start, as I know just the
fact that one is a professor can be intimidating, even when, like me,
one never thinks of himself as an intimidating kind of person, and that
is, above all else, I like my students, I always do, I like you a lot,
and I care about not only how you are doing in class but also about
your well-being in general. The more and the better I get to know
you, the more and better I can help you, and, it’s quite possible, as
has been the case with many students I’ve taught over the years too,
that we can even become friends.
In addition, Thad Logan is joining us as a senior
student mentor for this course. He wants to work with you, and
help you; that’s why he’s here. So take advantage of the
opportunity to work with him. Thad is definitely someone from
whom you can learn a lot–and can help you a great deal. He is an
outstanding student of English–as well as an excellent person.
* Any student who has a disability and is in need of
classroom accommodations, please contact the instructor and the
Services for Students with Disabilities Office. *
CONCLUSION
In the interest of accountability–me to you–I am
here providing you links: 1.) to my statement of philosophy as a
college teacher:
http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan/philosophy.htm; 2.) to my
autobiographical profile:
http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan/PROFILE_.htm and
http://www.myspace.com/insurgentseanmurphy
(if you too are on
myspace feel free to contact me to become myspace friends); and 3.) to
my professional vita (the academic equivalent of a resume):
http://www.uwec.edu/ranowlan/VITA.htm.
I encourage you to check
these sites out; it is useful for you to know who your teacher is, what
he’s about, and where he’s coming from–and I like to be very open,
honest, and forthright with you about all of that. I look forward
to a great semester working together with you!