Note:

• Except for the first week of class, text chapters and stories are assigned for the upcoming week (e.g., Week 2 assigns reading(s) that will serve as discussion and assignment basis for Week 3.)
• Nothing subtistutes for your own careful and deliberate reading & thinking of each assigned piece of literature.  Expect to read each assignment a minimum of two (2) times.  (Additionally, when you keep up with assigned reading, the lectures become more meanignful.)
• Unless otherwise noted, all essays are due at the beginning of the class that follows the peer review.  Place your folder on my desk, even if I do not call for them!
• Absence from class does not change due dates, participation and notes from it in classroom activities, nor any other class assignment or deadlines.
• Some reading assignments will overlap information from previously assigned chapters. 
• Chapters 24, 25, & 26 in your textbook should be mandatory reading.  You'll understand why as we proceed!
• Your instructor reserves the right to edit, delete or augment this schedule as may be necessary.
• Occasionally, for speed, I use my own shorhand; for example, SS = short story, [w/] = 'with.'  If you are eunsure what I mean, please ask!  And, yes, you're welcome to "adopt" my shorthand clues.

Week 1 - Aug 31-Sept 5: Getting Down to Business.  First meeting, introduction to course and to each other.  Handout:  Course Information Sheet (CIS); Discussion:  Evolvement of literature as we know it.  Discussion: What should be considered in our writing about literature?  Literary Terms.  Writing assignment #1--due Week 2:  "I, a Reader, Writer, adn Student."  Read "The Necklace," (p 4) by Guy De Maupassant; Ch 2, pp 54-63 and 100-105.  Also "The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," by Amborse Bierce (69).

Week 2- Sept 7: Due: "I, ...Writer/Reader/Student."  Con't discussion of Chaps. 1 & 2.  "The Necklace" discussion; short stories.  The plunge into writing:  curiosity list, journaling, word problems adn suggestions.  Generating ideas, getting started: questioning.  Literary Terms.  Ways to consider literary works.  Personal reading improvement discussion & plan.  Read: Plot & Structure, pp 100-105, and also read "Neighbors," by Raymond Carver (p 70), and William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"  (p 74) 

Week 3- Sept 14:  Discuss plot, motivation, causality, and structure.  Lecture: Puritanism and Transcendentalism overview.  Read and study Ch 4, Characters in fiction, pp 151-157 & 190-197.  Read "Young Goodman Brown," (YGB) Nathaniel Hawthrone, p 331.  Assign: essay #2: Using Mme. Loisel in "The Necklace," and Emily in "ARose for Emily," write a comparative study of a trait or characteristic that both women have in common.  Back up your analysis with prose from the strories. (Have you read pp 30-33?)

Week 4- Sept 21:  Peer Review of essay #2.  Essay #2 is due Tues., Sept. 29 by 5 p.m. to Ms Emerson's office W 352.  (emember to place your essay in your red folder.) Discuss YGB.  Read Ch 5, Setting, pp 198-199; 237-243.  Also rad for next class Ch 8: Symbolism and Allegory, pp 321-326, and 354-365.  Read Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl" (23) and "The Masque of the Red Death," Edgar Allen Poe (233).

Week 5- Sept 28:  Discuss setting, symbolism and allegory.  Read Ch 3: Point of view, pp 107-115, & pp 144-150. Read "The Lottery," (120) by Shirley Jackson, and "The Chrysanthemums," John Steinbeck (347).  Essay #3: Chooses one and develop: (1) How does the description of Rosa's surroundings ("The Shawl") add to the realism of the story?  To the mood? OR How does the description of Prince Prospero's castle ("Masque of the Red Death") add to the fantasy of the story?  To the mood?  Peer review at next class.

Week 6- Oct 5:  Peer Review- Essay #3 due Oct 13 by 5 p.m. to Ms Emerson's office, W-352.  Discuss Pt of View.  Read Ch 7 Tone & Style, pp 280-285, 314-319.  "The Story of an Hour,"  Kate Chopin (287) and "Soildier's Home," Ernest Hemingway (289).  Read Chapter 24: Criitical Approaches in the Study of Literature, pp 1390-1409.

Week 7-Oct 12: Md-term [essay] exam (1 hr).  Discuss Tone and Style.  Read Ch 9:  Idea or Theme:  The Meaning and Message in Fiction, pp 364-370, 392-398.  "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gillman (408) Read Chapters 27-28 and read Chap 20: The Dramatic Vision:  An overview, pp 862-873; 879.

Week 8- Oct 19:  Brief discussion of stories assigned Week 7 (if necessary).  Begin Death of a Salesman, (DS) Arthur Miller, p 1263 Act 1.  Discuss tragedy as a genre, and Miller as a playwright).  Essay #4 (the "project paper") will hae as its base Death of a Salesman (coupled with at least one other ss we've read.  Obviously, you must have read and studied this play in order to compose a meaningful, well-developed researched literary analyisis.  Essay #4 will be due Nove ______(TBA). 

Week 9- Oct 26:  Guidied research project paper scope.  Rough draft of project thesis --in-class work.  E-mail me your drafted working thesis by tomorrow (Nov 1) at noon. (Outlining? Brainstroming? and research!) Where to find resources.  Read Act 2 Death of a Salesman. 

Week 10- Nov 2:  Discuss: Death of a Salesman.  Guided research project paper:  substance and form.  MLA guidelines on Works Cited page.  Con't thesis statement work.  E-mail me your working thesis by tomorrow at noon! Read Requiem-DS.

Week 11-Nov 9:  Continued in-class work and discussion on research project.  Introduction & Endings.  [Possible peer review of Works Cited page] Discussion on Miller's play.

Week 12- Nov 16:  Continued discussion and in-class work.

Week 13- Nov 23:  Research paper will e due prior to Thanksgiving holiday.  [Thanksgiving holiday=no Saturday classes]

Week 14- Nov 30:  Discuss upcoming final exam.

Week 15- Dec 7:  FINAL EXAM IS ON December __, 2009. (TBA)