Sample Syllabus
ENG 203: WORLD LITERATURE
COURSE DESCRIPTION
English 203 introduces students to significant works of literature from around the world and across time. This course is designed to acquaint you with major developments in the literary arts, to hone your skills of analysis, and to provide you a basic framework of literary interpretation that will help you appreciate and enjoy reading beyond this class.
Our section of English 203 focuses on literary genre, or category, as an organizing theme. We will discover how a genre like the epic, which originated in ancient Mesopotamia, has traveled and transformed through time into modern fantasy novels and cinematic epics, yet in many respects has remained quite stable. We will note the ways that cultural and geographic contexts shape a writer’s use of genre—for example how Shakespeare’s sonnets differ from those of contemporary Mississippi writer Natasha Trethewey. And we will chart the creation of new genres as developments in psychology and technology change the way we understand ourselves and tell our stories.
REQUIRED MATERIALS
Global Crossroads: A World Literature Reader (newly revised edition). Edited by Luis A. Iglesias.
ISBN: 9781598718218
MAJOR COURSE ASSIGNMENTS:
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Creative Response Project (min 1,000 words, 20% of final grade)
Midway through the semester, you will choose a work of literature we have discussed and craft a creative response. Your response may take the form of a new creative work within the same genre as the work to which you are responding (for example, write a short tale in the epic style about a character or experience not usually viewed as epic). Or you may perform a transformation/adaptation of your work into another style (for example, retell the story of Antigone in a series of haiku). This project involves a proposal in which you will explain to me your plan for the project and describe the relationship between the source work and your response.
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Critical Essay ( min 1,500 words, 30% of final grade)
The capstone project for this course will be a substantial critical essay in which you make an argument about one or more works of literature from the course. Your essay must demonstrate understanding and engagement with idea of literary genre and other major course themes. This project involves a proposal and a rough draft stage.
You will also be graded in the following areas (combined 50% of final grade):
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Daily reading quizzes (10%)
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Group annotations and informal writing assignments (10%)
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Attendance (15%)
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Participation (15%)
COURSE SCHEDULE
INTRODUCTION
Week 1
Course Policies, Intro to Literary Forms and Genres
Assigned Reading: Syllabus
UNIT 1: Epics & Heroes
Week 2
Reading: Global Crossroads Introduction (GC pp v-vii)
Viewing: Star Wars and the Hero’s Journey
Personal Response to Course Intro Paragraph Due
Reading: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablets I-III (GC pp 4-23)
Quiz 1
Week 3
Reading: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablets IV-IX (GC pp 24-53)
Quiz 2
Reading: The Epic of Gilgamesh, Tablets X-XI (GC pp 54-71)
Quiz 3
UNIT 2: Drama & Dissent
Week 4
Reading: Excerpts from Sophocles’s Antigone, trans. Don Taylor
Quiz 4
Viewing: National Theatre commentary on Antigone
Quiz 5
Week 5
Reading: Ama Ata Aidoo’s Anowa, Prologue, Phases 1 & 2 (GC 73-113)
Quiz 6
Reading: Anowa, Phase 3 (GC 114-134)
Quiz 7
UNIT 3: Haiku & Environments
Week 6
Reading: Japanese Haiku Selections
Creative Response Proposals Due
Week 7
Reading: Imagist Poetry Selections
Group Annotations
UNIT 4: Love & Lyricism
Week 8
Reading: Selections from Shakespeare’s sonnets
Group Annotations
Reading: Selections from Natasha Trethewey’s Native Guard
Group Annotations
Creative Response Project Due
Week 9
Reading: Selections from Natalie Diaz’s When My Brother Was an Aztec
Group Annotations
Reading: Selections from Pablo Neruda’s Odes
Group Annotations
UNIT 5: Short Fiction, Narration, & Interiority
Week 10
Reading: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”
Quiz 8
Reading: Sherman Alexie’s “A Vacuum Is a Space Entirely Void of Matter”
Quiz 9
Week 11
Reading: K. Saraswathi Amma’s “The Subordinate” from The Slate of Life (GC 151-159)
Quiz 10
Reading: George Saunders’ “The Red Bow”
Quiz 11
UNIT 6: Blended & Emerging Genres
Week 12
Reading: Prose Poem Selections
Group Annotations
Reading: Chen Li’s “Baudelaire St” and “Mushan’s Blacksmith Shop”
Selections from Maxine Hong Kingston’s China Men
Group Annotations
Week 13
Reading: Flash Fiction Selections
Quiz 12
Reading: Ana Maria Caballero’s “Newly Abridged Happiness Manual, Vol. 1” & “I Wish for the Metaverse to Rinse Off of Me”
Prepare and submit a question for the author
UNIT 7: Literary Critical Essays
Week 14
Reading: Critical Essay Sample #1
Group Annotations
Reading: Critical Essay Sample #2
Critical Essay Proposal Due
Week 15
Critical Essay Rough Draft Due (In-Class Peer Review)
Optional Paper Conferences
Week 16
Critical Essay Final Draft Due
ASSIGNMENT PROMPTS
CREATIVE RESPONSE PROJECT
Description
For this project I would like you to choose a work of literature we’ve discussed, or will soon discuss, and craft a creative response it. Your response may take the form of a new creative work within the same genre as the work to which you are responding (for example, write a brief story in the epic style about a character or experience not usually viewed as epic). Or you may perform a transformation/adaptation of your work into another style (for example, retell the story of Antigone in a series of haiku). You may even choose to reinvent the work in an entirely different medium—for example as a podcast, painting, or musical composition.
It is important that your submission for this project demonstrates an understanding of literary genre. If you’re writing in the style of one of our works, then your new piece of writing should make use of the constraints and affordances of that genre (ex. elements of a hero story, set and costume descriptions, etc). If you choose to work in a non-written medium, you will need to submit a 500-word statement about your response, explaining how your work engages with the genre and/or the theme of the original.
For the proposal, you must submit two well-developed paragraphs (minimum 200 words) explaining which work you plan to respond to, in what form, and why. I would like your proposal to explain the relationship between the source work and your planned response. Your proposal should also articulate a plan for how you will execute your response, including what research and materials will be needed.
Scoring Criteria
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Creativity
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Thoughtful engagement with course text
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Demonstrated understanding of literary genre
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Effort - minimum word count, proofreading, timely submission of proposal and final project
FINAL CRITICAL ESSAY
All semester we have been reading, interpreting, and discussing works of literature with a special emphasis on literary genre. We've not only read works of literature--epics, tragedies, haiku, sonnets, short stories, and more--we've also read scholarly articles about these works of literature, which represents yet another genre of writing. Now it is your turn to attempt writing in the genre of the literary critical essay. For this final assignment of the semester, you will make an argument about one or more of the pieces of literature we've studied and express that argument in a well-developed essay. Your essay must do the following . . .
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stake out a clear, arguable position about how a piece of literature we've studied adheres to (or subverts) its literary genre; how the piece of literature uses the constraints and affordances of its genre to communicate its message
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express that position in a clear thesis statement
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provide sufficient context for your argument (this may mean pulling in other examples of the genre in question; it may mean researching historical or cultural context; it may mean citing what other scholars have said about this piece of literature)
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support your argument with ample textual evidence in the form of quotation, paraphrase, and/or summary
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make clear the stakes and significance of your argument; why does your interpretation matter? how does it affect our reading of the literature?
This project involves three stages: proposal/outline, rough draft, and final essay. For the proposal, you must submit one well-developed paragraph (minimum 100 words) explaining which work you plan to write about and expressing your preliminary thoughts on how the work interacts with its genre. You should also provide a rought outline for essay. The rough draft should be a complete draft (1,500 words) showing significant progress toward the final goal. We will exchange rough drafts in class for a peer review session to help you improve your essay and bring it to the final stage.
Scoring Criteria
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Clarity of argument
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Depth of engagement with course text
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Demonstrated understanding of literary genre
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Effective use of quotation
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Evidence of close reading
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Coherent paragraph construction (according to the MEAL plan)
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Effort - minimum word count, proofreading, timely submission of proposal, draft, and final essay