English 250B-02, Survey of English Literature/Dr. Clifton Snider
Fall/2008/Office: MHB-506; phone: (562) 985-4247
TTh, 2-3:45 p.m./e-mail: csnider@csulb.edu
Room: PSY-201/Hours: TTh 3:55-5 p.m.

web site: www.csulb.edu/~csnider (has important course material and links)

Introduction

This course is designed to give you a broad, critical overview of English literature from the Romantic Period (starting about 1798) to the present.

Course Goals

• To be introduced to a variety of authors and their works from the Romantic period to the present
  

• To analyze these works as a class (the so-called Socratic method) in order to discover their various meanings
  
  
• To gain a general overview of the literary Zeitgeist of each main period; because of time constraints we can not get a complete view
  
  
• To analyze an important work from each period in an analytical paper on your own carefully and insightfully in a research paper and in a final essay exam
  

• Analytical Research Papers are 3-4 pages long, typed, double-spaced, worth up to a 100 points each. Your thesis-driven paper will require at least two secondary sources (do not use Wikipedia or any other unauthorized Internet source or reference work; databases such as the MLA Bibliography are best to find sources; if in doubt, see me). You must include a true, full-length rough draft (not a printout or copy of your final paper). Each source must have sufficient bibliographical information (author, title, publication, year), cited in MLA style. Failure to include any of these will cost 10 points per omission. I will not accept the paper without a rough draft. Put all of this in either a regular-size file folder or a folder with pockets. NO BINDERS. A more complete description of the assignment is on each of the assignment pages on my web site.  See my Correction Signs.

• Analytical Questions. Starting the second week, I will assign 2-3 students to bring in 2-3 analytical questions about that day's reading or about the author if the question illuminates the reading. You get up to 10 points for this, but to get the points you must present the questions to the class and be prepared to discuss them, and if you agree to do the questions and do not (without an acceptable reason; see Attendance Policy) I will deduct the points from your total points. Type them with your answers and give those to me on the day you present your questions.
  
  
• Unannounced reading quizzes (worth up to 10 points each, 2 points per question) are factual questions with the purpose of getting you to read the assignments carefully and testing whether you've done so. If I find that enough students are reading the material and participating in class, I may forgo the quizzes.  There are no makeups for the quizzes, but you do have an opportunity for making up some points through doing the extra credit option below.
  

• Some of the films I plan to show are R rated; if this or language and subject matter of the sort used in such films disturbs you, please see me at once.  I will try to make other arrangements, such as an additional reading assignment.  If you are age 16 or under, see me immediately so we can make other arrangements.
  
  
• Please note that my academic specialties are Jungian and Queer Criticism. Not to utilize my specialties in a class such as this, even though it is a survey course, would be doing a disservice to you. Indeed, the premise of Jungian criticism, as I explain in my book, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On, is that to interpret a work fully you need to know its historical context, just what a survey course such as this one attempts to provide.  Furthermore, just as women and other minority writers have been either omitted from the canon or minimized, so too are LGBT writers similarly discriminated against, even if they are major writers already in the canon (Lord Byron is a prime example).  I will try to correct this discrimination.
  
  
• Plagiarism has increasingly become a serious problem. You will fail the course if I discover you have plagiarized. Remember that using anyone else's words without quotation marks, even if you give credit to your source, is plagiarism. See the Schedule of Classes. And read the chapter on plagiarism in the MLA Handbook.

• The use of cell phones, lap tops, or any other electronic device during class, unless needed for a disability, is strictly forbidden.
  
  
• See also the Resolving Differences Handbook on the CSULB web site. If you have any complaints, you must follow university policy or risk the lowering of your final grade.  This means you come to me first with your complaint.