Evaluation will be based upon three short analytical essays (worth 70% of your course grade) and a comprehensive final exam (30% of course grade). Please be aware that attendance, preparation, and participation are also significant factors and can influence your course grade. Students are expected to attend each of our meetings and to prepare by thoroughly reading and thinking about assigned materials. You should always come to class "conversant" with the assigned reading; that is, you can easily talk about details in the reading without having to look them up, and you have prepared some questions. Underlining and writing in the margins as you read will help you read more actively and, in turn, helps you become conversant. Do not expect to read the assignments once and "get" them; read assignments two or three times (more for poems) and look for patterns, anomalies, and connections to other readings. Question and explore your "gut reaction" as you reread: if you enjoy a work, think about why; if you are upset or confused about a reading, try to work out precisely why. No one is required to "like" all the readings, but you are expected to be thoughtful and detailed in your praise or criticism. Keeping your own journal at home about your responses would be an excellent idea if you are striving for an "A" in the course but need to improve your critical thinking, writing, and reading skills (Nancy would be glad to give you ideas about how to start and keep a reader's journal).

Students are expected to engage in class discussions alertly and tactfully. You can do this by offering ideas without being overbearing, posing questions, listening actively to the thoughts of others (make eye contact), building on the ideas of others, and helping to draw quiet peers into our conversations. Sometimes our readings may "touch a nerve," and some students may need to let off steam or express personal feelings that have been bottled up. I would like us as a class to strike a balance between emotional and intellectual responses; therefore, as you prepare for and participate in class, try to think about your personal reactions to readings and topics, and then go on to consider how your reactions are relevant to the study of literature and society. This thought will help you develop gut reactions to give them more depth, power, and meaning to yourself and to others.

Your preparation and participation will help make our meetings more engaging and will add depth to all the other work you do for this course. The quality of a course suffers if students (and the teacher!) come to class unprepared and unable to contribute questions and ideas. Therefore, repeatedly missing class or attending class obviously unprepared will result in a lowered course grade or, in serious cases, failure of the course. The "chemistry" of every course differs, depending on the participants. I hope you will help shape the atmosphere of the course into one that is instructive, supportive, energetic, and provocative--in the best sense of the word.

Analytical Writing (70% of grade)
During the term, students will invent, draft, revise, polish, and submit three short assignments. The topics are "open," but there are some specific guidelines regarding the format, subject matter, and length for each assignment, as outlined below. Students are also encouraged to make use of WWU's Writing Center, located in Wilson Library, room 389. For more information about the services offered, go to http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~writepro/.

Choose this link to download the assignments as a Microsoft Word document.

Because this is not a writing-concentration class, your writing will be evaluated more heavily for content than for your expression. However, unpolished grammar and language, disorganization, poor vocabulary, underdevelopment, and a lack of proofreading can all inhibit a reader's ability to access your good ideas. You should take advantage of opportunities to revise and clarify your writing, because it will most definitely lead to more complex, lucid, engaging, and successful work.

Students should be conscious of the university's policy regarding plagiarism. Plagiarism is representing someone else's ideas as your own. It is not dishonest to make use of or refer to the ideas of others; it is a form of academic dishonesty to not credit those ideas. For our papers, students are not expected to do research. Instead, the papers will focus on exploring what you think and how you came to think it, as a result of careful reading, thinking, and revising. However, if you want to look at what others have written about your subject, you are free to do so. You must, though, cite any source you use and your paper must be built upon your own original ideas--only citing others to support your own unique viewpoint. Failure to do so will result in an "F" for the course and possible expulsion from the university. If a peer in class contributes significant ideas to your work, you should credit the student in your paper. Many students are unaware that it is possible to plagiarize yourself. It is considered academic dishonesty if you recycle parts of a paper you wrote in the past or if you turn in the same paper for more than one course. If you have any doubts about defining plagiarism, please speak with Nancy about your questions. Always keep copies of all your drafts (and print out stages of your draft as you go) until the term has concluded, in case you are asked to demonstrate your process of creating and expressing original ideas.

Late papers will be accepted but graded down one full grade per day late. To assure that your late paper is graded fairly, please e-mail it to Nancy (not as an attachment; "paste" it into the body of a message). A paper turned in any time after the deadline is automatically a day late. All papers should be printed in 12-point text, double-spaced (except in block indents of long quotations) with 1-inch margins. Remember to include your name on the paper (preferably on each page with the page number) and Nancy's name on the first page (lost papers are often put in the teacher's mailbox). Always title your work. You can use recycled paper and print on both sides, if you prefer. Staple your work in the upper left-hand corner.

Final Exam (30% of course grade)
The comprehensive final exam is meant to be an opportunity for students who have applied particular effort to understanding all the readings and attended all our class meetings to demonstrate the breadth of their learning. You can expect questions related to the specific discussions we have had together (so that you can make use of them and add your own "take" if you choose) and questions about readings that we may not have taken as much time to talk about in class (so that you can demonstrate you are prepared to do more than repeat ideas others expressed about our assignments). You may also be asked to offer ideas about the film we have viewed in class. Please bring two large-format blue books. You will probably just need one, but bring an extra just in case. The exam will be "open book." You can use your course reading packet and novel, and any notes you have written in them (no other notes). The reason for the "open book" policy is that you will probably want to quote from works or offer close readings of specific passages of your choice in response to questions posed.

To prepare, make sure that you keep up with the assignments as we proceed through the course. That way, you will have a much better understanding of our discussions (and add to them!) and you won't face the nightmare of trying to read it all right before the test. I also suggest that you make a habit of writing a journal entry at home after each of our class meetings. In your entry, summarize the ideas that came up in class, and write a bit about your reaction to these ideas. This way you will create a record that will be very useful for studying--much more useful than trying to re-read everything. During class we will do some writing that you should also save; you may want to review this for the exam. I recommend that you do NOT take careful notes during class discussion (really!). Instead of writing all the time, make eye contact, think about what people say, and just jot down some key words or sentence fragments that will jog your memory later. You can use them at home when you write a journal response to the day's meeting.

You are also encouraged to read actively, with a pen or pencil in your hand. Circle words that seem powerful or curious to you. Underline passages that you want to remember for later. Make notes about questions and ideas right in the margins of your texts. Point out connections you see to other works by noting the page numbers where interesting links are made. These marks will create a trail of your thinking process, and they will be very valuable as you brainstorm, draft, and revise your papers and as you study for and write your final exam.