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"The problem with using experience as a guide is that the final exam often occurs before the lesson" -- unknown

LI -220: Fiction & Human Experience
Spring, 2005,
Mondays, 6:00 – 8:50 P.M.

Instructor: Thomas M. Eaton                                      See Links page
Office: 318-K, Grauel BLDG.                                        for assignment sheets
Office Hours: 11-1:30 M/W                                          and Learning assists
Office Phone: 651-2019, Home office, 339-1595
E-mail: tmeaton@semo.edu

Required Texts :

Pickering, J.: Fiction 100: An Anthology of Short Fiction, (10^th ed.) (university Bookstore textbook rental)

Course Description:

LI- 220 is an introduction course meeting university standards off general study. This course will introduce the student to the short story construct of human experience. Students will be encouraged to aesthetically evaluate the reading, apply and consider elements of social conditions within the students’ own experiences as to gain ability in communicating supported evaluative judgments contributing to leadership, citizenship and scholarly focus on literary styles, trends and conditions.. LI-220 endorses a multicultural approach, focusing on commonalities between humans rather than particular race or cultural patterns. Students will develop analytical tools needed to become well-rounded readers.

Design: This syllabus uses a thematic approach in accordance with the Graduate English Association’s (2004) recommendations towards the thematic approach in as means towards generating motivation. Students are encouraged to make thematic connections between the texts while still recognizing the cultural nuances or historicity behind the work. Written assignments will demand critical analysis of daily universal experiences and the application of composition tools to translate analytical thought into formal and professional written responses. Tests will be of a multiple choice venue, reinforcing knowledge blocks, variations and commonalities within themes, and cultural and historic awareness of social backdrops of the literature.

Course Goals and Outcomes:

General Outcomes:

- identify and explain the fundamental features of the short story structure as a means of demonstrating human experience.

- Define key literary terms/concepts and implement these in oral/written discussion as well as in literary interpretation.

- Describe, examine, and evaluate one’s own reading practices and oral/written critical analyses.

- Analyze literature and explain how various perspectives of literary work merge together to create meaning reflecting social and individual conflict.

- Apply writing and revision as tools for personalizing literature as life-demonstrations of actual human conditions thereby training students to apply these cultural and individual situations in real life practice.

Specific Outcomes –

- Familiarity with literature as a live active force demonstrating human condition.

- Develop interpretive, connective and descriptive analysis techniques and translate those techniques through writing practices including summarizing, extracting, engaging personal narrative involvement, comparing and contrasting and challenging cause and effect relationships.

Requirements: (See Advisor for eligibility)

Students are to attend all classes. This is highly important as this class meets twice a week. While attendance itself does not affect grades in a statistical manner, failure to attend, because of the particular nature of the course, will likely result in missed information, participation, and background knowledge necessary for success in this course. Students must notify the instructor prior to missing a class via e-mail.
All cell phones and electronic devices are to be turned off unless accompanied by certification from the Learning Enrichment Center that such devices assist in overcoming a learning disability. Southeast Missouri State University complies with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Students with disabilities who seek academic accommodations must first take appropriate documentation to the Office of the LEC, second floor, University Center . Students with special needs should then make an appointment with me during the first week of class to discuss any accommodations that need to be made.

Assignments are due on the day required. Any assignments not completed, without prior approval by the instructor for extensions, on the day they are due will not be accepted.
In line with the university’s policy guidelines regarding student behavior, any acts of student belligerence, threats, hostility toward other students or instruction staff, misuse of language or offensive behavior will be immediate grounds for dismissal from the class without return until a hearing is established in line with university mandates regarding petitions or hearing procedures as is outlined in the student handbook.
Students are responsible for all course materials. Assignment sheets will be employed by the instructor and devices including e-mail and traditional mail will be used. However, it remains the students’ responsibility to keep up with all work.

Scoring:

Because of the developmental nature of this course, both in degrees of concept development and writing development, overall scoring is done holistically meaning a blend of statistical outcome and quantitative analysis within the following areas.

Formal papers ................................ ……………………= 40%

Participation - group discussion, In-class presentation……= 20%

Mid-term & Final Exam….........……………………… ..= 40%

This system allows for weaknesses in one area to be compensated by other areas. Absenteeism has been proven to be harmful to all of these areas. You are evaluated here much as you are on the job. Educating yourself is your job. Performance, behavior, initiative, contributions to coursework and preparedness all constitute this scoring method.

Assignment sheets: Assignment sheets will be provided for each formal exercise. These include outline for each paper, the Midterm preparation, final exam preparation and expectations of forum-response activities. These sheets will indicate specific expectations, direction and purpose of each written assignment. They will also indicate deadlines for material completion. Grades will not be posted or available as students know roughly what range they are in and because the holistic qualitative approach cannot supply a final grade until the term is over. Assignments will be posted on this website - if you are not in class to receive one then it is YOUR responsibility to access one

Additional Notes: Students planning to major in English should keep copies of their best papers to submit as their senior portfolio. Information regarding the senior portfolio can be located through discussion with your instructor.

Closing: This course rewards critical thinking, willingness to challenge and question readings and respectful debate. It demands clear and concise writing practice in which guidance will be supplied. It invites and welcomes innovation and experimentation. This course does not reward passivity, purposeful mediocrity, excuses, attitude or blame. You are encouraged to use the Writing Center, 4th floor, Kent library. Should you do you, please attach the yellow response form to your final submission.

Sixteen Week Schedule:

Legend:

Column 1 - gives you the week, column 2 indicates what will be discussed in each class. Column 3 will inform you of what is to be read for the following week and column 4 indicates assignments, presentations or group activities. NOTE: Group activities cannot be made up. T.E.

TIME FRAME	OBJECTIVES	APPLICATION	ASSESSMENT
Week 2 – 23-28 (no class week 1 – MLK)	Introduction to Course Syllabus -- Outline of basic literature terminology: four levels of man vs… Analysis, aesthetics, symbolism, allegorical draws, interpretation, conventional drama design, six primary literary themes, and fiction as a mirror. Introduction to part 1: Man vs. himself.	Baldwin ’s Sonny’s Blues” (art and demographics as isolating factors) Barth’s Lost in the Funhouse p.56	Focus Question: “How does fiction represent isolation and the internal structure that follows and how does this tie in to human experience of personal, racial, ethnic, gender or economic “isolates”?”
Week 3: Jan, 31- Feb 4.	Man vs. self , conventional drama. Dual strand style, drama curve – Cup of Trembling: allegorical reference – proxemics of isolation.	Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, p. 952, Crane’s The Blue Hotel, p.389	- Focus Question: How is it possible to be lonely in a crowd – P.Narr. – explain the sensation.
Week 4: Feb 7 - 11	Discussion and review questions on Bartleby & …Hotel. Focus on variations of social isolation and external response by others in the face of isolation reaction.	Jackson ’s The Lottery, p.715 Glaspell’s A Jury of Her Peers, p566	Focus Question: How does isolation engender external violence, internalized abuse, and hostility or curiosity by onlookers when you “take a stand.”
Week 5: Feb 14-18 ------------ Week 6 Feb 21- 25	Introduction to man vs. Society: Elements include incident, reaction, snowball effect of initial action, degree of which mores and morals laws are affronted, unspoken delineations of racial, gender, and ethnicity laws (morals not applied equally based on one of these profiles). (singular oppression – gender identification “Social rules of men). (opportunity to question traditional values of masculine honor, feminine pride, racial stereotyping, creed-based loyalty to “God-form” or ethnic loyalty in all of the readings thus far. ------------------ --- Discuss the human experience as: Man versus the social whole (universal themes of social violation) Man vs. a social group (ethnic, racial or gender boundaries, specific reactive group.) Man vs. a singular (social) representative (law man or social agent)	Zora Neale Hurston’s Spunk” p. 675 John Cheever’s – The Country Husband 186-203 (These four stories complete the Man. vs. society section) ------------ Rick Bass’ Antlers, pp.79 Sarah Orne Jewitt’s A White Heron, pp.761	formal writing assignment 1: “Using any of the five components of the short story, discuss how isolation is demonstrated in human experience and how man vs. himself.” In Class Group Discussion: - (Class to discuss and analyze voluntary ownership, contemporary relationship priorities and expectations. (that which is forbidden, that which is allowed, myths and misconceptions in contemporary relationships.– opportunity to note commonalities between traditional relationships and alternative relationships ) -------------------- Turn in Formal assignment 1: Focus question responses to be typed – held in journal. Formal Writing 2: “To be the focus of social attention, either negative or positive, is the opposite of isolation. However, isolation can be a key ingredient in the distress associated with the attention. How can this contradiction exist?”
Week 7, Feb 28 – Mar 4	Antlers: Discuss the “fuzzy, wavering lines that separate man from the animal” Isolation in nature -- social escapism through nature -- nature demanding social ordering --- betrayal of nature for personal gain, -- recognizing ecological mythical qualities in relationship of man and animals.	Thomas Hardy’s The Three Strangers, pp. 620 Stephen King: The man in the Black Suit, pp.832	Q&A on Social paper, formal II Group Focus: List at least five conditions which separate man from the animals – (Use caution – I will try to prove you wrong.)
Week 8, Mar. 7-11	Nature as precursor to doom – mood, nature as fear-inducing, embodiment of Eden or Hell – spiritualism, ritual and “visitors” from natural/unnatural world. (note syntactical variation (irony) in “natural” and “unnatural” – terms of comprehension	Mid-term Review – Points of man vs himself, man vs. society, Man vs. nature --literary terminology	Formal II – Social paper due
Week 9, Mar. 13-17	SPRING BREAK	Study for Midterm	****
Week 10, Mar 21-25	Midterm Exam – Handout on Formal III – Nature. Film:	Barthleme’s Cortez & Montezuma, pp p. 73. & O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” pp.1082	Midterm Exam Formal Writing III Nature: Assigned “A continuing theme in literature, especially evident in early mythology, states that as long as man lives outside of nature he will be punished. In your analysis, choose a position as to whether man is outside of nature and therefore can control it or if man is a symbiotic part of nature and can only to be subject to nature regardless of his abilities.”
Week 11 – Mar 28 –Apr. 1	Man Vs. religion - ) Discussion of elements evident in the Man vs. religion theme (punitive punishments, heightened epiphany senses – (leading to divine interpretation –visions), motivational energies, fear modification and inherent desire (Maslow’s Hierarchy introduction). Continue discussion of religion conflict – tie in isolation, societal pressures, and nature (doctrine - social) vs. (Myth – nature sponsored).	Rayomond Carver’s Cathedral, pp.160 & K. Boyle’s Astronomer’s wife pp. 118	Turn in Formal III Group exercise: answer this question and present: Question whether doctrine and myth are really the same, the former elements of truth overlaid with myth, the second, mythical components underlaid with truth.nt:
Week 12 – April 4-8	(Discussion of technology as religion, advanced civilization (including corruption) interpreted as God-like – Man’s personification of God as himself. (see Genesis). Consider discussion on this premise: Did God create man in his own image or did man create God in his (man’s) own image?” – Discuss religion-influenced social caste systems, naivety in the face of danger, personifications and symbolism of evil and good.) End – man vs. religion	Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher, pp. 1135 & Cask of Amontillado, p. 1129	Formal Assignment 4 - “Both ecstasy and suffering are evidence of “faith” However, since man vs. religion incurs social, natural and internal (man vs. himself) conflict, is the relief from that conflict “divine” or a natural emotional result from a reduction in conflict.?”
Week 13 – April 11-15	Introduction to Terror & Violence at motif in literature: Psychological emphasis, delineations between terror and violence (pleasurable vs.unpleasurable. Deviation studies, biophile and necrophile attractions – Good and evil question reconsidered.	Bierce’s Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge , pp. 105 & Dobyns’ Kansas , pp.426	Q&A on Formal Question 4 Group – Students are to list reasons why they like to be scared – Also, discuss reality television as a return to the roman “games” could it happen?
Week 14 – April 18-22	Discussion of the dream sequence, subconscious mind, the slice-of-life vignette styling, terror/violence appeal allows for transitions in time not experienced in regular life. Self preservation, violence objectivity and subjectivity.	Minot ’s Lust, pp 978 & Updike’s Separating, p. p1293	Formal 4: Turn in Groups: Students to determine what love is. Also, each group to write one multiple choice question for the exam.
Week 15 – April 25-29	Closing discussion on love: social determinants, moral obligation, romanticism and idealism	General Q&A on nay of the issues	Review for Final exam: Focus on issues of men vs. religion, terror and violence, and love
Week 16 – May 2-7	Final Exam, Monday night, May 2	***********	************