Fall 2014 Syllabus

Major Authors: Dickens

Paul Schacht, SUNY Geneseo

Office Hours

I'm available at a variety of times each week Monday through Friday. Just book an appointment with me and let me know what you'd like to talk about. Or drop by my office and see if the door is open. It usually is.

Texts

By Charles Dickens

• Oliver Twist
• The Annotated A Christmas Carol
• Bleak House
• Great Expectations

By other authors

• G. Graff and C. Birkenstein, They Say/I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing (available in print or for considerably less as an e-book)
• Other readings as assigned

Learning Outcomes

In all 400-level literature courses in English at SUNY Geneseo, students will demonstrate

• the ability to "join the conversation" that is always ongoing among critics and scholars regarding texts, authors, and topics by engaging with secondary sources
• an in-depth understanding of a single author, a small group of authors, or a narrowly-defined topic, theme, or issue

To learn more about learning outcomes in English, visit the Current Programs page of the English department website.

Requirements

One short paper (approx. 5 pages), 15%

One longer paper, drawing on at least two secondary sources (7-10 pages), 30%

Other writing as described below under “Routine,” 35%

Project Participation, 20%

Routine

Research, Report, Reply, Discuss

Monday

The whole class will set an agenda for the week by deciding what we’d like to know more about or what interpretive issue we’d like to pursue. One group will be responsible for following up during class and beyond. Others in class will work on a variety of projects.

Wednesday

We’ll begin with a 15-minute report from the group that took the lead on research that Monday. The group will work from Monday to Wednesday to prepare the report. One person in the group will be responsible for presenting, and another group member will be responsible for publishing the group’s report as a short blogpost on the Nineteenth-Century Studies Blog at English @ SUNY Geneseo. The blogpost is due by 11:59 pm Wednesday.  

The report must culminate in a discussion question. The question must be one that can be answered in multiple ways; that is, a question of interpretation. The report must also indicate why we should care how the question is answered.

The report will be followed by a brief, full-class discussion of whether the question is a good one to consider. The question may be amended or replaced by a new one in light of this discussion.

Once the question has been established, the groups (including the one that proposed the question) will discuss the question among themselves. Each group will develop an interpretive position and select a particular passage from the text as the focal point for this position.

Before class on Friday, someone from each group will publish the group’s response as a reply to the original blogpost. It should be brief and should include the passage that the group chose as its reference point in attempting to answer the question.

These blogpost-replies are a way to engage in conversation with the original post. They should follow the spirit and structure of writing-as-conversation developed in Graff and Birkenstein’s They Say/I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. They should use the templates (or variations thereof) described in Graff and Birkenstein’s book.

Friday

We’ll begin each Friday with 5-minute “lightning” talks. Each group will briefly summarize the interpretive position articulated in its blogpost. Lightning talks will be followed by open discussion of the interpretive question. In the open discussion, I will look to members of particular groups, as individuals, to offer a reply to the talks of other groups, as indicated on the syllabus. Between Friday and the following Monday, at least one member of each group should post a reply to the blogpost reply of the group’s it’s paired with for that week.

There are a couple of weeks shortened by holidays when we’ll have to modify the routine just a bit.

Papers

You’ll write two papers for the class. The first will be about 5 pages long, the second 7-10 pages long. You’ll use Google Drive to share drafts and completed work with classmates and with me.

By Monday of Week 4, you’ll have developed a thesis for the short paper. The thesis must position itself either (a) in relation to what has been said in class about an interpretive question, (b) what might be said in relation to a different interpretive question of interest to you, or (c) in relation to what a critic has written in relation to any interpretive question. You’ll share your thesis with the class. The class will critique selected theses together in an effort to help everyone understand what makes for an effective thesis.

On Friday of Week 4, we’ll follow a similar procedure with informal proto-drafts of the first paper.

By Friday of Week 5, you’ll share a full draft of your paper with me.

By Friday of Week 6, you’ll share the completed paper with me.

We’ll follow a similar procedure for the second, longer paper. Due dates appear below.

Projects

Every student in the class will participate in one of the following group projects. Details to be explained in class:

• Dickens timeline(s) using TimelineJS
• Dickens map(s) using Google Maps Engine
• Editing Wikipedia character pages on Dickens characters
• Assembling and interpreting Dickens re-mixes
• Text analysis of Dickens’ writings using Voyant Tools
• Dickens explainers

Final Meeting

We won’t use the final meeting for an conventional exam. Instead, we’ll use it for a culminating conversation about Dickens — in an effort to assess our answers to the questions that the class decided to pursue — and to share project results.

Schedule