The Literary Experience
English 1050-020; CRN 30915 White 120; TR 11.30-12.45
Prof. Hugh Ormsby-Lennon Dept of English SAC 466; Phone/ Voice-mail 94655*
Office hours: Tuesday and Thursday 2.30-3.30 pm and by appt.
Home Phone/ Voice-mail 215-592-8102. (*It’s best to call me at home.)
E-mail: Hugh.Ormsby-Lennon@villanova.edu (use this rather than Voicemail
Home fax: 215-238-1187 (Alert me first, please.)
Home Page: url: http//www60.homepage,villanova.edu/ My home page is most easily accessible from “My Classroom,” the photo site that we all share for English 2700-003. My home page is also accessible via the Villanova Faculty Directory on WWW. My home page will have a link to this syllabus, continually updated, and to other important information concerning this class.
Theme: The Meanings of Romance
Goals and Objectives: Students will become better readers, writers, and speakers. Questions for class discussion will be distributed regularly on email so that students will be better and can thus improve their performance as speakers.
Reading List (in order)
Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary (Penguin)
William Trevor, The Collected Stories (Penguin)
Philip Larkin, Collected Poems (Noonday)
Tennessee Williams, Summer and Smoke
David Lodge, Small World (Penguin)
T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems (Penguin)
Teaching Method
The success of this class depends upon student participation. To stimulate discussion I shall send you questions in advance so that students will be aware of important topics and approaches. In several cases we shall also watch portions of a video of work we are discussing in class.
Jan 13 Introduction
15 Introduction
20 Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary
22 Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary
27 Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary
29 Fielding, Bridget Jones’s Diary
Feb 3 Trevor, “Lovers of their Time,” 627-644 (Bring Larkins to each class)
5 Larkin, “This Be The Verse,” 180; “Annus Mirabilis,” 167; “An Arundel Tomb,” 110
First Paper due (4 pp) : a trip to Philadelphia art gallery
10 Trevor, “Office Romances,” 439-454 (Bring Larkins to every class)
12 Trevor, “Downstairs at Fitzgerald’s,” 718-733
17 Larkin, “Sad Steps,” 169; “Love Songs in Age,” 113.
Attend performance of Summer and Smoke
19 Williams, Summer and Smoke
24 No class
26 Williams, Summer and Smoke; Introductory discussion of Small World
Second Paper on Bridget Jones’s Diary Due
Brief review of Summer and Smoke Due
Mid Term Vacation
Mar 9 Lodge, Small World
11 Lodge, Small World
Conferences
16 Larkin, “Sad Steps,” 169; “Love Songs in Age,” 113.
18 Trevor, “Mulvihill’s Memorial,” 734-748
23T. S. Eliot, “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
25 T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land
30 T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land”
Apr 1 Trevor, “Mrs Silly,” 400-417
6 Larkin, “Church Going,” 97-8; “The Whitsun Weddings,” The 114-6
Third paper due: either an analysis of a story by Trevor or a comparison of
of Eliot and Larkin.
6 Trevor, “Miss Smith,” 133-141; “In at the Birth,” 102-112.
8 Easter
13 Roddy Doyle, The Commitments
15 Roddy Doyle, The Commitments
20 Roddy Doyle, The Commitments
22 Roddy Doyle, The Commitments
27 No Class: Friday Schedule
29 Larkin, “Dockery and Son,” 152; “New Eyes Each Year,” 212
Final Paper and the Rewrite (to be discussed during the first round of Conferences) due no later than Thursday May 6, 5.00 p.m.
Final Conferences
Paper Topics
These will be quickly communicated by email and will be fully discussed in class.
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.
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 a 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.
Email 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.
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: 70% writing; 35% class discussion.) Rest assured that I try to be scrupulously fair and, all things being equal, invoke mercy as well as justice.
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 the works we are reading. 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.”