Attendance and participation

This course will be run primarily by discussion, and a high level of responsibility for what happens in class devolves on all participants. You’ll be expected to show up regularly—having not just read the texts, but read them thoughtfully, so that you can participate fully. Miss more than two classes over the term, and your karmic score will begin to plummet.

Chatty is good. Chatty is critical. Don’t feel like you have to know all the answers in order to open your mouth—queries, half-formed ideas, etc., are welcome. But you need to be an active intellectual participant not only in your own mind (something that is also, admittedly, cricial), but also in our community. Simply filling a chair every day will not get you an A—or even a B.

Prep papers

For each book we study, you’ll be asked to write a short (400-800 word) essay due at the beginning of class on the first day we discuss that text. These prep papers are designed to get you thinking in a more focused way about what you’ve read, and while they don’t have to display the polish of a term paper, they should still be reasonably intelligible. No late papers will be accepted. On the other hand, you’re allowed to skip any two you want, for any reason—no advance warning needed. I’ll give you an informal grade on your prep work by mid-term, but your final grade will be a reflection of the term’s work as a whole.

NB: some of the papers may have assigned topics; if so, they’ll be announced the last day of class before we begin reading the text in question. Otherwise, feel free to write on anything that grabs your attention: the role of a particular character; a symbol; a particularly meaty passage in the context of the text as a whole, etc.

approx. 25% of grade

Reading quizzes

There’s a moderately high amount of reading in this class, and if you don’t keep up with it, it hurts not only you, but the class as a whole (ever tried having a meaningful discussion when only half the people present know what’s going on?). This is just a little added incentive to keep on schedule. I’ll drop your two lowest quiz scores when computing end-of-semester grades.

End of term essay

This paper, due at the end of the semester, will be an articulate, intelligent, finely-honed analysis (5250 words (15 pp.), +/- 10%) of one or more of the works we have studied in class—or, with instructor’s permission, of another relevant novel.

You should expect to read and refer to secondary sources in your paper. This does not mean that I want a research paper, a summation of other people’s arguments. Instead, use criticism and/or theoretical readings to help you construct a more complex analysis of your own.

All topics (whether on a book from class or not) should be approved in advance; in the first two weeks of April, you should each plan to have a short conference with me in which we discuss possible paper ideas.