English 413 Senior Research and Writing. A collaborative group research and writing project for senior majors, conducted in supervising faculty members' area of expertise, with directed independent study culminating in a substantial final project. Serves as capstone for the major. Curricular Objective: English 413 fulfills Capstone Graduation Requirement
Studying Literature in Action Professor Suzanne Keen
Arranged hours: evenings, 200 McDowell Street, 464-5022
Office hours: tba (My other courses meet A (MWF) and AB (TuTh)
Payne Hall 32A 458-8759 skeen@wlu.edu
Explores the impact of reading literature and expressive writing using empirical methods, introspection, and traditional literary analysis. Shared theoretical readings will augment individual directed readings in poetry, narrative fiction, drama, or children's literature, depending on the student's area of interest and expertise. A service learning experience, involving work with young readers through community schools or libraries, is a possibility. More traditional literary critical options will also be discussed. Students will also assist Professor Keen in her research on emotional responses to reading.
Departmental Curricular Objectives:
Students in English will learn how to
1. write clear, persuasive analytical essays driven by arguments about texts;
2. read closely, recognizing subtle and complex differences in language use;
3. seek out further knowledge about literary works, authors, and contexts, and document research appropriately, adhering to the highest standards of intellectual honesty;
4. broaden the range of literary texts and performances from which they can derive pleasure and edification
Required Books
Louise DeSalvo, Writing as a Way of Healing. Beacon. ISBN-13: 978-0807072431
Rita Felski, Uses of Literature. Blackwell. ISBN: 978-1-4051-4724-8
Stephen D. Krashen, The Power of Reading, 2nd ed.: Insights from the Research. Heinemann. ISBN-13: 978-1591581697
James Pennebaker, Writing to Heal. New Harbinger Publications. ISBN-13: 978-1572243651
Francis Spufford, The Child that Books Built: A Life in Reading. Picador. ISBN-13: 978-0312421847
Jean Trounstine and Robert P. Waxler, Finding a Voice: The Practice of Changing Lives through Literature. Michigan. ISBN-13: 978-0-472-03040-8
You will supply your own primary texts and I’ll read them as we go along.
Some Possibilities for Further Reading (this list will grow as we gain a sense of one another’s interests)
Rafael Campo, The Desire to Heal
Rita Charon, Narrative Medicine
Mark Edmundson, Why Read?
Suzanne Keen, Empathy and the Novel
Larry Nucci, Education in the Moral Domain
Nel Noddings, Educating Moral People
Martha Nussbaum, Cultivating Humanity
James Pennebaker, Opening Up
Course requirements:
20% faithful attendance and participation, including tutorial presentations
5% draft of capstone essay
75% final capstone essay
Syllabus
1 Felski, Uses of Literature, introduction
2 DeSalvo, Writing as a Way of Healing; begin using Writing to Heal (this will be strictly private). Commit 4 consecutive days to writing 20 minutes per day.
3 Jean Trounstine and Robert P. Waxler, Finding a Voice
Felski, Uses of Literature, chapter one, “Recognition”
4 Felski, Uses of Literature, chapter two, “Enchantment”
5 Felski, Uses of Literature, chapter three, “Knowledge”
6 Felski, Uses of Literature, chapter four, “Shock”
Research and writing prospectus due.
Washington Holiday
7 Krashen, The Power of Reading, 2nd ed.: Insights from the Research
topics due
8 Spufford, The Child that Books Built
9 thesis paragraph and preliminary bibliography due
10 week off for drafting (no dinner discussion)
11 drafts due to Prof. Keen’s office by 2:30 pm (no dinner discussion)
12 Presentations with other 413 group (follows dinner discussion; the other group joins us for dessert)
Final revisions of essays due at dinner meeting
Preparing for a "tutorial" style presentation
Read the assigned material and take notes, responding to any specific prompts or questions that I have posed. These may require outside research.
You have 15 minutes maximum for your presentation. I will keep time. 15 minutes goes a lot faster than you think! If you plan to type out a text that you will read, you should know that a normal typed, 300 word page, takes about 2-21/2 minutes to read at a pace that your listeners will be able to comprehend. If you plan to use this strategy, you should write with oral delivery in mind: that is, sentences should not be overly long with lots of dependent clauses. Another option is to create a one-page handout with an outline of your comments, about which you will speak from memory. The advantage of this method is freshness and naturalness; the disadvantage is that you may run over without realizing it. I will stop you when you have used your quarter hour. You should rehearse your presentation at least once before you give it! I will collect your text or outline after the presentation.
Presentations could be on five different kinds of topics: literary history; primary literary texts; literary criticism; literary theory; empirical research on reading.
When responding to literary history , your main job (other than attending to prompts I've given you) will be to recap the narrative briefly (not more than a paragraph) and explain its significance for students in 2007. This may mean providing exhibits--such as passage from Wordsworth's 1850 Prelude and a parallel passage from his 1815 version, recovered by literary detectives. It may mean pointing out biases and omissions in the literary historian's narrative (a 1950 text). It may require that you learn something about the literary figures involved in the narrative, or about how the technology of scholarship has changed in the 57 years since Altick wrote The Scholar-Adventurers .
When responding to a primary literary text , your choices should be guided by the major themes and questions of the course (to which Romances of the Archive serves as a guide). You should respond to specific prompts (check the syllabus), but other than that you have some freedom. Your presentation should be analytical, not a summary. It should employ close reading, motif tracing, or elucidation of difficult passages at its center. You may consult secondary sources (that is, literary critics) to answer questions such as this one, about "The Aspern Papers": upon what real Romantic poet does Henry James base his story? Your presentation should not consist simply of recap of critics' views, however; you need to add some original observations and interpretation of your own.
When responding to literary criticism (that is, a secondary source), you need to establish what kind of work it is: scholarly (adding knowledge), genre criticism (identifying type and tradition), interpretation (offering a "reading" of a text), review (evaluation of the merits and demerits of a contribution) or something else entirely. To assess the argument it makes, you need to summarize the work's thesis. Thus you first report on what it says, and then you evaluate its persuasiveness, turning some of your primary literary-analytical skills onto the secondary text. This is good practive for integrating secondary sources into your own arguments in longer essays.
When responding to literary theory, you should be able to explain the basic claims and perspectives of the theory, identify the kinds of texts or circumstances to which it applies, identify and define any keywords, and apply it to a relevant text and/or context.
When responding to empirical research, you will probably moved into a neighboring field: linguistics, psychology, education, discourse processing, or cognitive neuroscience. Describing the experimental design of the research and evaluating how we in literary studies might apply the results to our questions, will be your main responsibility.