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Course Information Syllabus Assignments |
Instructor: Ted Friedman
Office Hours by appointment; regular conferences will be scheduled during the semester. All conferences will be at the Trinity Café in the East Union The following required books are available at The Regulator on Ninth Street:
Most audio/visual material will be screened during class. Several feature-length films, however, will be shown in the evening. Students who cannot make these screenings will be required to view the films in Lilly Library, where they will be on reserve. I. Introduction Thurs, Jan 16 II. Huckleberry Finn and the Ironies of the Canon Tues, Jan 21
A: Reaction #1 Bring in three-ring binder
Jonathan Arac, "Nationalism, Hypercanonization, and Huckleberry Finn" Jane Smiley, "Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Tom's Cabin" A: Response #1
A: Reaction #2 Thurs, Jan 30
A: Response #2 Quiz #1
Susan Douglas, "Genies and Witches," from Where the Girls Are Mel Watkins, "Black Humor," from On the Real Side A: Reaction #3 Thurs, Feb 6
A: Response #3
A: Reaction #4 (start Group B)
A: Response #4
A: Reaction #5 Thurs, Feb 20
A: Response #5
A: Paper #1 due
A: No Assignment Quiz #2 Tues, Mar 4
A: Reaction #6 Thurs, Mar 6
A: Response #6 Tues, Mar 11
A: Reaction #7 (start Group C)
A: Response #7 VIII. Political Satire: Primary Colors Tues, March 25
A: Reaction #8
A: Response #8
A: Reaction #9 Quiz #3 Thurs, Apr 3
A: Response #9
A: Reaction #10 (start Group D)
A: Response #10 Tues, Apr 15
A: Reaction #11 Thurs, Apr 17
Andrew Ross, "Uses of Camp" A: Response #11
A: Reaction #12 Thurs, Apr 24
A: Response #12 Quiz #4 (includes the first 125 pages of Moo)
A: No Assignment
A: Paper #2 due I. Class Participation You will be expected to come prepared for class and to engage in class discussion. Class participation will make up 10% of your final grade. II. In-class Presentation In the latter half of the semester, you will give a 5-10 minute presentation on a comic text you find particularly interesting and culturally significant. This could be a novel, essay, TV show, movie, comic strip, stand-up act, shaggy dog story, or anything else you find funny (as long as it's not already on the syllabus). You will be expected to summarize the text, describe its context, and discuss your interpretation of what makes it funny and important. When appropriate, you should bring in videotape, xeroxes, or other visual aids. You will also hand in a written outline of the presentation. The presentation will make up 10% of your final grade. (A later handout will describe what's expected from the presentations in more detail.) III. Quizzes Rather than a midterm or final, there will be four short quizzes. The quizzes are to demonstrate that you've done the reading; they will all be multiple-choice IDs. There are only three grades on the quizzes: Excellent (10 out of 10), Satisfactory (7 to 9), or Fail (6 or less), corresponding to A, C, and F. The average of your quiz grades will make up 10% of your final grade. In addition, you cannot pass the course without passing every quiz. Anyone failing a quiz will be responsible for writing a 3-page make-up paper on the readings covered in the quiz, addressing a topic of my choice. A satisfactory grade on the paper will raise the grade of your quiz to Satisfactory. IV. Reaction and Response Essays Reaction Essays are due on Tuesdays; bring three (or four) copies - one for me, the others for the members of your response group. These brief essays can be informal in tone; they don't need beginnings, middles, or ends. They're your chance to work through your thoughts and ideas about the readings. Pick any passage or topic you find puzzling, fascinating, or irritating. You don't have to come to any definitive conclusions; the point is to grapple with the material. Feel free to also include observations about class discussions, conversations you've had with friends, or anything else in the rest of the world that relates to the class. Reaction papers should be more than two pages long (in other words, they should at least spill over to a third page). They may be hand-written if clearly legible, but word-processing is strongly preferred (Times New Roman 12 point, double-spaced, standard margins, to be exact). With your first entry, hand in a three-ring binder; at the end of the semester, you'll get the binder back filled with all your entries. Response Essays addressing the rest of your group's journal entries are due the subsequent Thursdays. You can combine your responses to each group member into one document, which again should total more than two pages in length. Again, bring copies for each of the group members, plus one for me. Your job is not to judge your classmates, but to engage them. What surprises you in their arguments? What makes you rethink your own ideas? Write directly to them; they're your audience. No individual essays will be graded. At mid-semester, you will receive a tentative grade for the quality of your reactions and responses so far, based on the thoroughness, consistency, and creativity with which you've engaged the ideas of the course. At the end of the semester, you will receive a final grade on the reactions and responses, which will make up 40% of your course grade. V. Papers There will be two papers. Paper #1 will be a short (4-5 page) analysis of a scene from Huckleberry Finn or Invisible Man. The first paper will make up 10% of your final grade. Paper #2 will be a longer (6-8 page) interpretation of the same comic text you discuss in your presentation, elaborating and expanding upon your ideas in a formal essay. The second paper will make up 20% of your final grade. |