Sequence 5: 19th-Century British & American Lit.
Course Guidelines

“Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
to laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man . . ." (ll.37-39)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "A Musical Instrument" (1860)


the basics / diversity / content & communication / course goals / path 1 / path 2 / miscellany

THE BASICS

English 304: 19th-Century British & American Literature: Sequence V
thematic touchstone: The Contours of Identity
location: secs 01 & 02 (building 186, room C202 / TR / 12-2 & 2-4 p.m.)
instructor: Dr. Paul Marchbanks
email: pmarchba@calpoly.edu
office: 805-756-2159 / building 47 (the "maze"), hallway 35, office A / available hours



DIVERSITY, ACCOMODATION, & ACCESSIBILITY

• This course will present an array of challenging ideas for discussion purposes, some of which you may instinctively applaud, and others you might resent. I encourage you to articulate your own perspective while respecting dissenting positions. I regularly award the highest scores to those students who support their arguments with ample evidence, clarity, and solid reasoning--even when I personally disagree with their thesis.
• For those of us rightly attuned to issues of representation and their bearing on social justice, I recommend this useful reminder of the importance of considering literary artifacts in their original context, and tempering our knee-jerk tendency to cancel authors who offend our sensibilities. This second article reminds us to value our emotional response to disturbing authorial information while holding that feeling in tension with other (New Critical, Postmodernist, Historicist) ways of viewing the impacted text.
• Recognizing that every student learns differently, I attempt to employ multiple teaching methodogies as I move through each course I teach. If you like something, let me know and it might just reappear before the quarter ends!
• Convinced that the classroom environment should enable instead of disabling each student learner, whatever their background and abilities, I have adopted various Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles. If your own circumstances require additional consideration, do let me know.

CONTENT & COMMUNICATION

The films and literature I teach run the gamut of human experience, from the ecstatic and joyful to the degrading and sordid.  Many visual and literary artists regularly exercise this kind of topical license, operating under the assumption that representing even the most difficult material can serve a beneficial purpose.  One viewer or reader might actually become sensitized to social problems they had hitherto ignored when they encounter such problems dramatized in art.  Another might find in a tale’s situations and dialogue helpful analogues for painful things they have themselves experienced: the story, that is, might provide them a voice—useful words and strategies for expressing their own grief and suffering.

Others, however, might be re-traumatized by watching something that hits too close to home because they’re not yet ready to re-experience their pain—even through the medium of fictional art.  Or, they might fundamentally disagree with the creators’ representation of challenging subject matter, might be offended by the representation and quickly point to other, more politic and sensitive portrayals of such difficult material.  They might even hold that the creator has no right to represent what they have placed in their art because that creator’s own identity factors do not closely enough mirror what they have chosen to represent.

Recognizing that even detailed content warnings have limited value, I’d like to supplement them with an open invitation to exercise your freedom during class to disagree with the perspective of others (incl. myself), to approach me during office hours or via email with concerns, and to leave the classroom for a few minutes if you become upset or disturbed.  If this happens, please do keep the lines of communication open, and let me know if a particular issue or representation bothers you: you needn’t explain why it bothered you unless you wish to do so.

COURSE GOALS

• To promote close reading and analysis
• To weigh the sociopolitical and biographical context surrounding assigned texts
• To hone critical thinking, writing, and argumentation skills without any use of generative A.I. My proscription against A.I. accords with justifications articulated by Meghan O'Rourke, David Brooks, and Frank Bruni.
• To draw thematic and stylistic connections among transatlantic literatures emerging in the nineteenth century, with attention given to various facets of identity including gender, class, race, religion, sexuality, nation, artistry, and disability

PATH 1: In-Class Discussion and Exams (50%)

Materials (purchase these editions--correct pagination will facilitate class discussion & bolster your three participation grades. Do NOT trust what Amazon initially shows you.)

• PDFs of various poems, essays, and other works, instead of expensive Norton or Broadview anthologies. Print these out and bring to class, or bring them on a flat tablet on which you can make marginal comments. I will ask you to discontinue tablet use if you use it for any other purposes in the classroom. Do not use a laptop or cell phone.)
  • Unit 1: "Mapping Signposts" / PDFs
  • Unit 2: "A Matter of Depth" / PDFs
  • Unit 3: "Split in Two" / PDFs
• George Eliot’s Scenes of Clerical Life (1857, 1858). Oxford, 2015. ISBN: 978-0199689606
• Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890, 1891), Penguin, 2003. ISBN: 978-0141439570
• Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899). Dover, 1993. ISBN: 978-0486277868

Assignments

• attendance: attendance is important. An absence negatively impacts not only the individual student, but others who could benefit from their unique perspective. You have one free absence. Your second absence will cut 1 pt from your final grade, your third absence will cut 3 more pts, your fourth absence will cut 5 more pts from your final grade, etc. In other words, four absences creates a nine-point deduction.
• participation & class discussion (20 pts , 4 scores of 5 pts each--awarded after weeks 3, 5,5, 8, and 10); students most commonly earn 4-4.25 pts. Lower scores will be given to those who rarely contribute to discussion, and higher scores awarded to those who consistently:
  • contribute thoughtful, organized reflections to class discussion and group activities
  • reference the appropriate editions of each assigned work with correct pagination
  • demonstrate intimate familiarity with assigned readings by pointing others to pertinent passages
  • avoid using cell phones during class
  • stay abreast of course updates (via the website and email)
  • report, via email, any errors (broken links, typos, etc.) on the course website
• reading quizzes (20 pts, 2 pts each): thirteen randomly scheduled quizzes of five questions each. Study questions (i.e. "points for reflection") linked from the Path 1 calendar often inspire quiz questions. Receiving 2 pts on a quiz requires correctly answering three of five questions correctly. Missed quizzes cannot be made up. The lowest two quiz grades (including any missed quizzes, if absent on a quiz day), will be dropped at the end of the quarter.
• impassioned pleas (10 pts total, 2 scores of 5 pts each): students will post responses as "comments" to videos housed at my free, non-monetized site Digging in the Dirt. (I don't earn a cent from this; I created it to encourage conversations about the Arts among students and the public.) Subscribe so you're aware when new videos drop during the quarter. Some sample, graded pleas can be found here.
  • Impassioned Pleas should:
    • for ENGL 304, remain within the prescribed 100-125 word range
    • add to or disagree with at least one point made by Dr. M in the video without parroting his argument. With the Grand Isle pre-screening video, instead watch the film and answer one of my questions in it.
    • back up a new claim of your own with specific detail (pulled from personal experience, a Path 1 text, current events, etc.) For the Grand Isle pre-screening video, draw from the novel in pointing out similarities or differences.
    • evoke feeling in your reader: write with pathos!
    • be generated by you (no A.I.) and carefully edited
  • Two Impassioned Pleas:
    • Plea #1 (A.I. Ate My Homework): 100-125 words. Due by 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 23. If you are also in my ENGL 459, instead respond to one of the following: A Defense of In-Person Teaching or Romance with Robots.
    • Plea #2 (Path 2 film): 100-125 words. Respond to my intro. for Grand Isle (1991), the oft-overlooked film adaptation of Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899). Submit before class on Thurs., Nov. 20.
• required film screening (4%): Mary Lambert's Grand Isle (1991) at The Palm movie theater in downtown SLO on Wed., Nov. 19 at 7 p.m. / $10 / Those not attending can write a 500-600 word essay during a 60-minute office hour to earn some of the 4 pts--sometime before we discuss the film in class on Thurs., Nov. 20.
• Midterm Exam (20% total): 75-minute, closed-book exam composed of objective questions and one essay. Bring scantron and blue book.
• Final Exam (20% total): 2h 50m, open-book exam composed of one essay. Bring two blue books. NOTE: the final exam will require students to bring their Path 2 novel into conversation with Path 1 texts. Details tba.
  • sec 01: Tuesday, Dec. 9, 1:10-4:00 p.m.
  • sec 02: Tuesday, Eec. 9, 4:10-7:00 p.m.
    

PATH 2: Small Group Discussion

Materials (AFTER you have been assigned to ONE of these novels, purchase the edition listed from an online source)

• Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey (1847) / Oxford / 169 pgs / 978-0199296989
• Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1847) / Oxford / 292 pgs / 978-0198834786
• Charles Dickens's Hard Times (1854) / Norton Critical / 222 pgs [of primary text] / 978-0393975604
• George Eliot's Silas Marner (1861)/ Oxford / 176 pgs / 978-0199536771
• Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898) / Dover / 87 pgs / 978-0486266848
• Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde / Dover / 54 pgs [small print] / 978-0486266886
• Joseph Conrad's Almayer’s Folly (1895) / Dover / 134 pgs / 978-0486426778
• Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (1899-1900) / Norton Critical Edition / 246 pgs [of primary text] / 978-0393963359
• H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds (1898) / Dover / 145 pgs / 978-0486295060
• H. G. Wells's The First Men in the Moon (1901) / Dover / 161 pgs / 978-0486414188
• Charles Chesnutt's The Marrow of Tradition (1901) / Norton Critical / 195 pgs / 978-0393934144

Assignments

• Each student will belong to a small group of 2-3 students assigned to a Path 2 novel. Students in a given group will engage their touchstone text through a series of activities including the following:
  • small group office visit (10% ): each path 2 group will participate in a one-hour discussion of their Path 2 novel between Monday, Nov. 3 and Friday, Nov. 14. This session must include every member of your Path 2 group. Confer with one another, then choose a 60-min. block of time here which works for everyone, and email me with your selection. Office visit scores reflect
    • whether you bring the correct edition of your path 2 book with you (see list above)
    • apparent familiarity with the entire novel
    • the frequency with which one backs up claims with specific textual evidence (i.e. point to relevant passages & page numbers)
    • timeliness of arrival
  • NOTE: the final exam will require students to bring their Path 2 novel into conversation with Path 1 texts. Bring blue book to final exam.

MISCELLANY

Grading: go here for an elaboration of terms used below

Contact

The Pet (1853)
Walter H. Deverell

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu