English 460 Syllabus, Fezzey 7
Syllabus for English 449: Postcolonial Literature, Fall 2015
(Course Number 1960, Section 001)
By registering for the course, you agree to abide by all policies listed in this syllabus. Please consult this syllabus for answers to any general questions you may have regarding the course before you ask them of me.
COURSE INFORMATION: Meeting Days/Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:00-11:15 a.m.
Meeting Place: Swenson 2016
Professor: Dr. Fezzey
Office: Swenson 3090
Office Phone: 394-8075
E-mail:
Office Hours: Mondays, 1:00-2:55 p.m.; Tuesdays, 2:20-2:55 p.m.; Wednesdays, 1:00-2:55 p.m.; Thursdays, 2:20-2:55 p.m.; and by appointment
REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS: Available at the University Bookstore
Achebe, Chinua. Man of the People. 1967. New York: Anchor, 1989. Print.
Castle, Gregory. Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology. 2001. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2006. Print.
Dangarembga, Tsitsi. Nervous Conditions. 1998. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2004. Print.
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea. 1966. New York: Norton, 1982. Print.
Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. 1997. New York: Random House, 2008. Print.
Rushdie, Salman. East, West Stories. New York: Vintage, 1994. Print.
Smith, Zadie. White Teeth. New York: Vintage, 2000. Print.
Soyinka, Wole. Death and the King’s Horseman. 1975. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.
Walcott, Derek. Omeros. 1990. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992. Print.
REQUIRED COURSE MATERIALS
College dictionary--print or online version of American Heritage (www.bartleby.com/61) or Merriam Webster (www.m-w.com) recommended
Blue or black ink pen
Paper for notes on class discussion
Stapler
Access to printer
Standard 8 1/2” x 11” paper for essay (all papers must be typed, printed, and stapled)
UW-Superior E-mail Account and D2L Account
Thumb drive, G-Drive, and/or D2L Locker to save your work
UNDERGRADUATE CATALOG DESCRIPTION OF COURSE
ENGL 449 / Postcolonial Literature / 3.00Study of Anglophone postcolonial literature.
Prerequisites:
Prerequisite for taking this course is completion of 3 credits of ENGL courses.
ABOUT THE COURSE: Postcolonial Literature gives students the opportunity to explore how literary texts depict European colonization in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Afro-Caribbean and South Asian communities in Great Britain; the consequences of slavery and its abolition; as well as the struggles of individuals, groups, and nations for independence and self-identity. Theoretical concepts will include Western representations of the colonies, and the corresponding works by writers from the former colonies, amid divisions like gender, tribes, castes, and emerging barriers like class, education, and income disparities.
As we engage with these texts, we will consider the productive tensions between their explicit commitment to ideas of emancipation and progress and the postmodernist concepts and paradigms which mainstream Postcolonial Studies employs in analyzing them. We will also consider the ways in which the development of sovereign nation-states after decolonization in British-ruled Africa and South Asia shape postcolonial writings from these areas. We will discuss the basic definitions of terms and concepts, including the postcolonial and the postmodern, nations and nationalisms, imperialism and colonialism, (strategic) essentialism, subalternity and representation, Western versus Third World feminism, hybridity, historiography, and Orientalism.
The close reading, critical thinking, and writing skills that this course emphasizes are intended to help you in your other classes and in your future career. This course emphasizes the following liberal arts competencies, which are top skills that employers are seeking: reading, textual analysis, communication skills, organizational skills, writing, detail-oriented, problem solving, building effective relationships, multi-tasking, planning, research, file management, time management, typing, presentation skills, as well as the following software skills: Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Outlook, and using library search engines (Source: Burning Glass Technologies, 2015). Additionally, this course aims to aid in the development of skills that will enrich your life as you enhance your appreciation of literature as an art and reap the benefits of reading literature that range from entertainment to self-discovery to social awareness.
ENGLISH PROGRAM STUDENT LEARNING GOALS
· Demonstrate knowledge and comprehension of major texts and traditions of language and literatures in English, including cultural and historical contexts in English literature.
· Analyze and interpret literary texts in a thoughtful manner.
· Demonstrate the ability to express the present critical interpretations of literature in clear and effective manners.
· Learn to read literary texts closely, with focused attention to language, content, and form.
ADDITIONAL COURSE LEARNING GOALS
· Develop critical writing skills needed to analyze literature texts in order to develop and explain sound interpretations.
· Develop an understanding of some of the cultural, historical, and social factors which have contributed to the shaping of postcolonial literature. In particular, students will identify, analyze, and make connections between questions of class, gender, nation, race, religion, and sexuality.
· Develop effective library research strategies for discovering scholarly secondary source material in the field of English.
COURSE WORK
Course Design/Teaching Philosophy: My approach to teaching is student-centered, meaning I design my courses based on course learning goals that I have designed in order to foster critical thinking. My teaching is also informed by the growth mindset, as research shows that intelligence grows over time, and all students can learn through hard work and dedication. I view my role as an inter-actor or coach who designs a classroom environment and activities that give all students the opportunity to produce knowledge through hands-on practice or active learning. These classroom activities emphasize collaborative learning and inclusive excellence or success in learning for all students. Research shows that collaborative learning is the most effective pedagogy for courses with interdisciplinary content, because it enables instructors and students to interrogate boundaries and to integrate new vocabularies and frames by drawing and building on each other’s experiences and knowledge bases.
In-Class Activities: Most classroom sessions will involve whole-class discussion and group inquiry. Your full participation is required in these activities. You will be assigned to an in-class group early in the semester. Proper classroom etiquette should be practiced in the classroom. Thus, you should not be doing activities, such as talking out of turn, texting, sleeping, or doing homework during class time. If you are doing any of the aforementioned activities during the class period, you will be marked absent. Please put your phone away during class. To be ready to participate in each class meeting, you will have to complete reading and writing assignments.
Daily Assignments about the Readings: As you are expected to come to each class period prepared and ready to participate in class discussion, you will complete assignments for every class period and be ready to share your perspectives with the class. The daily assignments will help you collect your thoughts for class discussion, will serve as practice for writing the papers and essay exams, and will function as a record of your reading for the semester, serving as a way for you and me to keep track of your progress in the course.
Due to the length of the assigned readings, most of the daily assignments about the readings will consist of in-class writing assignments. At the start of class, you will compose a written response to an assigned question or topic. You don’t need to worry about formal organization in your answers; instead, show me you have read the material and given it some thought and brainstorm ideas for class discussion. You will also list and define any vocabulary words with which you are unfamiliar as you read. For each novel, you will compose one reading response outside of class in preparation for an in-class activity called a Literature Circle. On days designated for a Literature Circle, each student will be assigned a role (discussion director, content connector, focus facilitator, literary luminary, vocabulary enricher), and each student will type a response for his or her role before coming to class. Using his or her response, each student will then contribute to the class discussion of the novel.
Course Projects
For your midterm course project, you will write a 4-5 page paper on a topic related to one or more of the works we read that is of interest and import to you. Then you will revise and expand this paper into a research paper proposal (1-2 pages) and carefully select, read, and cite 6 scholarly library sources on this topic in an annotated bibliography. Over the course of the semester, you will revise your first paper into an 8-10 page research paper. In preparing your paper, I encourage you to write at least 4 drafts of your essay: an outline as well as workshop drafts to be critiqued by your classmates, the Writing Center, and/or me and an evaluation draft which I will grade. We will have two in-class workshops of the paper. You will present your research paper to the class in the form of a professional poster created in PowerPoint. Because this poster project asks you to work within a genre other than the academic research paper, you will have to attend to different aspects of language use and presentation. For your presentation, you will have to consider oral delivery and you will have to master concision, rather than elaboration/ development, and will need to consider as well matters of document design, color, layout, etc. You will have future opportunities to present this poster at one of the undergraduate research events on our campus, other UW-System campuses, or at other universities. Additionally, you will read one of the selected essays from our textbook, Postcolonial Discourses: An Anthology, and make a 7-10 minute presentation to the class that consists of a summary of the scholarly source and your response to it to the class on the day we’re discussing that work. For your final course project, you will submit a course portfolio that consists of a revised reading response on one literary work from each of the four geographical units that we have studied (Afro-Caribbean and South Asian Diasporas, Caribbean, Africa, India).
COURSE GRADE (Scale: 94-100% A; 90-93% A-; 88-89% B+; 84-87% B; 80-83% B-, etc.)
Reading Responses (and quizzes if applicable) 150 points
Participation (attendance, in-class activities, workshop drafts, outline, etc.) 100 points
Presentation on Scholarly Essay 100 points
Paper 1 150 points
Research Proposal and Annotated Bibliography 100 points
Research Paper 200 points
Course Portfolio 100 points
Poster and presentation 100 points
Total 1000 points
COURSE POLICIES: The following policies reflect a course design that relies on students’ full participation in class discussion and activities.
Late Work: An assignment is considered late if it is not turned in by the end of the class period. No coursework will be accepted after Tuesday, December 15.
Missed in-class reading responses cannot be made-up unless the absence is due to a university-sponsored activity. Coursework missed as a result of a university-sponsored activity must be turned in or made up on or before the day you return to class. Missed exams can only be made up due to extenuating circumstances and must be scheduled to be taken at my office as close to the date of the original exam as possible.
Late papers and posters will be lowered by 5% if they are not turned in the day they are due. They will continue to be lowered by 10% for each week beyond the week of the original due date. I do not accept essays or posters through e-mail. Essays must be submitted typed, printed, and stapled. If you do not turn in a paper during class, put it in an envelope or folder and slide it under my office door. Posters must be submitted to the D2L dropbox.
Attendance: I will distribute a sign-in sheet each class period. Missing classes will significantly and adversely affect your course grade. Specifically, you may miss four class meetings for any reason. Each absence beyond the fourth, regardless of the reason, will result in a 5% lowering of your grade for the course. I do not distinguish between “excused” and “unexcused” absences, so SAVE your absences for un-anticipated illnesses or emergencies. If you know in advance that you will have to miss more than two weeks of class, you should drop the course. Arriving significantly late to or leaving early from class more than once is recorded as an absence. In short, you are expected to be here. Points lost from attendance may be made up at my discretion but some grade deduction will still be taken.
Writing Center: The University of Wisconsin-Superior Writing Center, located in Swenson 1030, offers support to student writers in one-on-one sessions with peer consultants. The Center's philosophy is that all writers can benefit from receiving feedback on their work and from revising their work. With this in mind, consultations are available free of charge to any UW-Superior student at any skill level from any class in any discipline. Writing Center consultants help writers brainstorm, find topics, incorporate and document sources, organize drafts, develop revision strategies, and more. Both in-person and online consultations are available. When you visit the Center, take a copy of your assignment, any drafting or notes you may have, as well as any sources you’re working with. Have these items on hand for online consultations, too. To make appointments and learn more about the Center's hours and services, visit the Writing Center webpage: http://www.uwsuper.edu/writingcenter. Students receive 10 points of extra credit for each Writing Center visit and Writing Center workshop (Extra credit is capped at 50 points).
Tutoring: The Academic Support Center is a content area tutoring lab that offers students the opportunity to work with talented traditional and non-traditional aged students who know what it takes to succeed in the classroom. Trained peer advisors offer day and evening assistance in a host of student-to-student services including: one-on-one tutoring, small group tutoring, navigating campus computer software, advisement with class schedules or other issues, 14 computers for student use, quiet study area for students who want to get away from it all. We can find a tutor in almost any subject. Just ask us! ALL services are FREE!! The Academic Support Center is located in Swenson Hall 1025. It is open Monday through Thursday 8AM to 6PM and Fridays 8AM to 4PM. Tutor.com is a FREE online tutoring. Tutors are available 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. Tutors are available in a wide variety of subjects. You and the tutor work together in the online classroom. The entire session happens on screen in real time, and students can review a transcript of the session at any time. You chat with the tutor, draw on the interactive whiteboard, and use drag-and-drop shapes and formulas to explain your problem. You can get help with research. Go to http://www.uwsuper.edu/support/onlinetutoring.cfm to learn how to login to Tutor.com.