24        No class

            26        Greene, The Third Man

Mid Term Vacation

Mar      9         Greene, The Third Man

            11        Greene, The Third Man/ Buchan, The Thirty Nine Steps

            First Paper and Journals Due

            16        Buchan, The Thirty Nine Steps

            18        North by Northwest

            23        North by Northwest                 

            25        North by Northwest; MacLaverty Cal

            30        MacLaverty, Cal

Apr      1         MacLaverty, Cal

             6          MacLaverty, Cal; Doyle, The Commitments

             8          Easter

            13        Doyle, The Commitments

            15        Doyle, The Commitments

            20        Palahniuk, Fight Club

            22        Palahniuk, Fight Club

            27        No Class: Friday Schedule

            29        Palahniuk, Fight Club

Paper Topics

            In the first essay–due March 11--you will make comparisons between books by Fielding, Hornby, Mamet, or Greene and the movie that was made from it. We shall discuss the details in class; please come prepared with specific questions (5-7 pp.). The term paper (7-12 pp) will invite you to work with more than one novel and one movie and come to more general conclusions about books into movies. You might, for example, compare the two additional movies made from Doyle’s Tarrytown Trilogy; compare different versions of The Thirty Nine Steps; compare The Thirty Nine Steps and North by Northwest. If you have other suggestions, I shall be delighted to discuss them with you. The second paper will be due at the final examination.

            Please note that the writing center has an excellent pamphlet on writing papers.

Writing assignments

             All papers must be typed, except for those completed in the classroom. The arrival of late essays will be noted and the student’s final grade will be penalized accordingly. Students must retain a printed copy of their papers; the assumption that a copy of an essay will continue to reside on a diskette or a hard drive does not remain an acceptable substitute. In the event that a paper goes unaccountably astray, it is the student’s responsibility to have a replacement. Ideally papers should be handed to me in the classroom; but, in certain circumstances, they can be handed to a secretary in the English Department (please make sure that she has noted the time and date the essay was submitted. Papers can also be slipped under my office door (but this is the least desirable mode of submission).

            Because of viruses NO essays will be accepted as attachments to e-mail. With the instructor’s prior approval, papers may be faxed on certain occasions.

            Formal essays should have a title and an epigraph. For further advice about my criteria for a successful essay, please see the link to “Tips on Writing” on my home page. Those tips will be further updated with links to comparable advice provided by fellow instructors in the Core Humanities Program and in the English Department.

A Writing Intensive Course

            This class is designated “Writing Intensive” by the English Department and by the University; it thus requires some 4000 words from each student in the course of the semester. This adds up to some twenty pages @ roughly 200 words per page; some students write more words per page, others less, but I keep a tally of each student’s productivity in my file on her.

Journals

            Journals will enable undergraduates to complete some of their writing in more informal circumstances; these are designed to promote confidence and fluency. Handwritten journals will be accepted with reluctance (for my experience is that such journals, regardless of legibility, tend towards the ill-conceived and the slapdash). Most students now compose even informal documents upon the computer screen. Students will maintain a dated journal of at least fifteen pages, the first installment of which (at least 8pp) is to be turned it just before Spring Break. The second installment will be due at the final examination.

            ****What I expect to find, primarily, in your journals are responses to the books we have read and the movies we have watched together. It should be clear from your journals that you are keeping up with the reading.**** I shall be happy to discover that you have been watching movies on TV, renting videos, and going to the cinema. Villanova’s “Cultural Film & Lecture Series” represents an easily accessible (and weekly) venue for movie-going. Films are screened on Saturdays at 7.00 p.m., Sundays at 3.30 and 7.00 p.m., and Mondays at 7.00 p.m. The Monday showing is followed by a lecture that should offer an ideal complement to “Books into Movies.” Please get copies of the schedule from Communication Arts or the Connelly Center. For information, call 610-519-4750.

Classroom discussion

             Lively discussion is required and your contributions will be reflected in your final grade. “Speaking across the curriculum” has again been recognized as an important component of education in American universities.

Grades

            Final grades will be based primarily (but by no means exclusively) upon the performance of undergraduates in their essays. Students are encouraged to revise their first paper after we have discussed it in conference. (The new grade will not replace the old one, but improvements will be registered in a new grade which should improve the undergraduate’s overall grade. Please note that a revision will NOT be accepted as a revision UNLESS it is accompanied by a copy of the original paper with my suggestions and corrections upon it.) Undergraduates are encouraged to visit the Writing Center; I shall keep a copy of the peer counselor’s report in each student’s individual file.

            Student journals will not be formally graded, but they represent an important part of the semester’s work. I shall keep an informal record of each student’s performance. E-mail has become an important part of all our lives; I shall keep a printed record of each undergraduate’s communications with me. E-mails sent during the course should not be treated as “shopping lists” or as other scribbles designed “for your eyes only.” Grammar, spelling, and general literacy will thus be scrutinized.

            The final examination will be held on Thursday May 8^th, 1.30-4.00 in White 120. The examination is open-book: you can bring notes, syllabi, e-mails, and whatever else you wish to the examination room; the permissibility of laptops is open to debate. This final is important insofar as I am convinced that a student’s performance on the identification and commentary question reflects her familiarity with crucial passages of the works that we have discussed during the semester. I shall choose passages that require you to comment upon the movie adaptation. Please note that I often comment in the class-room that “This is an important passage; students should realize that it comprises just the kind of passage that will appear in the identification and commentary question.” (Hint: take some notes.) Students will be expected to demonstrate their familiarity with Paul Sammon’s Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner (infuriatingly, this book has no index, so you should note pages that you and I deem important). There will also be an essay question in the final examination.

            A variety of other “imponderables” also enters into the assignment of a final grade. Improvement (particularly in writing) can prove a major consideration. Remember to bring your books to class; remember to take your books out of your book-bag; remember to open your books to the pages we are discussing. Students who neglect to bring their books invite summary extrusion from the classroom. Don’t fall asleep in the classroom; don’t stare blankly out the window; or don’t endeavor, surreptitiously, to catch up with work for other classes. Don’t chatter with, or pass clandestine notes to, your colleagues. Read the newspaper at home, please. A student’s overall attitude is important, and it will be noted. Please remember, too, that grades in every class must display some “curving.”

            Grading is an art not a science. I refrain from assigning “cut and dried” percentages for written work, for classroom discussion, for the final examination, and for other components of the semester’s grade. I do, however, expect contributions to class discussion and a competent performance on the final examination. (A rule of thumb for percentages might be: 50% formal writing; 20% final exam; 15% class discussion; 15% journal.) Rest assured that I try to be scrupulously fair and, all things being equal, invoke mercy as well as justice. Let me underline that I do expect a competent performance on the final examination. Any doubts that I may have entertained about a student’s performance are often confirmed there. On the other hand, seemingly drowsy students blow away all my suspicions with a stellar performance in the examination room.

Conferences

            At least one conference will be scheduled with each student: the main series will be held after I have returned your first paper to you. You are expected not only to be on time but to have something to say about your work. “Blowing off” a conference will adversely affect a student’s cumulative grade. If circumstances prevent you from keeping an appointment on the day of our conference, call the English Department secretary and leave a message; I do not have e-mail facilities in my office so an e-mail will not reach me there. Conference appointments will be faithfully observed (and cumulative grades will suffer from any cavalier disregard by students). Come to conferences with something to say; don’t stare at me like a fish. My time is valuable; yours should be too. Would you present yourself for an important job interview in a casual or unprepared fashion?

Class communication

            Students are expected to read their e-mails (since the e-classroom becomes more of a reality each year). Remember that I shall be sending you sets of questions about each of the books and films. If you arrive in class and find yourself in a minority of one (or two or even three) as regards a missive from me, there is clearly something wrong with your communication system! Often I make significant remarks in e-mails about the works we have discussed. The serious student will keep a record of these. Students (particularly those who have been absent from class, for whatever reason) are required to remain familiar with the syllabus and with fresh postings about the class.

Academic honesty

            Given the enticements of the Web (schoolsucks.com &c), plagiarism seems to have gone high tech. You should realize, however, that your instructors’ search engines are awesomely powerful . . . At a more old-fashioned level, professors pass students papers around and I may well have already read “that paper you borrowed from a friend who submitted it to another class.”

            You are required to familiarize yourself with the latest statements of the university’s policies on academic honesty. You will also read the sections on plagiarism in the primer assigned by the university Read this material with particular attention to problems of using work not your own. Paper topics will be designed to discourage any temptation to plagiarism. You should be aware that I have reported students for plagiarism in the past and that I shall not hesitate to do so again. The university protocols for dealing with my reports protect the interests of both professor and student, but they are, necessarily, time-consuming and labor-intensive. Far better that you should avoid, scrupulously, any suspicion of plagiarism on your part. Students should also be aware that powerful search-engines have been devised for detecting any plagiarism from materials on the www; the resources of the web may seem to make it easier to pull of plagiarism, but they make academic dishonesty far more detectable.

            Please make use of the Writing Center. Its guidebook, How to Write a College Paper, is excellent and is highly recommended.

Etiquette

            Gentlemen may wear hats. Undergraduates are requested to eschew the use of bubble-gum in the classroom and during conferences. (Chewing gum, by contrast, is permissible.) Unexplained absences, as well as late arrivals to class, will be recorded by the instructor. If you arrive late for class or turn in a late paper, please confirm that I have made the appropriate changes in my record book. Please familiarize yourself with university policy on absences that lack a legitimate excuse.

            Students can, alas, encounter sudden crises in their lives—I am always sympathetic—but please do not wait until the end of the semester to explain why you haven’t attended class or submitted papers. I am not nosey about your personal dramas, but a call from the University’s Counseling Center or a doctor’s note will help substantiate explanations. The university requires that students br prepared to document their reasons for missing class. Please note university deadlines for “WXing a class.” If your name still appears on my final grade sheet and you have, for whatever reason, disappeared from the class without leaving a paper trail, I gather from the Registrar’s Office that your capacity to receive a passing grade will be very gravely compromised.

Academic Accommodations for Qualified Students with Disabilities

         “It is the policy of Villanova University to make reasonable academic accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you are a person with a disability and wish to request accommodations to complete your course requirements, please make an appointment with the course professor as soon as possible to discuss the request. If you would like information on documentation requirements, contact the Office of Learning Support Services at 610-519-5636, or visit the office in Geraghty Hall.”

P. S. Before I forget, I have made a film myself