ENG 247.01 Poetry and DramaAssignment: Read “Absurdism,” pp. 436-440. Read Handout Edward Albee’s The Sandbox. Journal Response.January 26 In Class: Stage, enact and discuss The Sandbox. Write a 2nd Journal Response to The Sandbox in light of this material and the in-class play performance.Assignment: Read Intro. Material to The American Dream, 441-443. Read The American Dream, 444-458. Journal Response.January 31 In Class: Discuss Albee’s The American Dream.Assignment: Read Valdez’ No Saco Nada de la Escuela, pp. 761-772.February 2 In Class: Discuss Valdez’ No Saco Nada de la Escuela.February 9 In Class: Discuss Wilson’s Fences.February 21 In Class: Watch Video of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.Assignment: Work on your drama paper.May 4, Drama ExamMay 4, Completion of Course Evaluation DueAcademic HonestyENG 247.01 Poetry and DramaWinter 2006, TR 11:00-12:25, BW 217Instructor: Martha Petry Phone: 517-796-8530 Mailbox: 2nd Floor, Walker Hall, Lang & Lit. Dept. Office: BW 240 Office Hours: TR 9:30-11 and 12:30-2:30; W 11-3 and 5-6 E-mail: [email protected] Materials: The Longman Anthology of Drama and Theater, Compact Edition, Michael Greenwald, Roger Schultz, Roberto D. Pomo (eds) Understanding Poetry, Walter KalaidjianObjectives: What a strange course this is: Poetry and Drama, as though these two kinds of literature somehow belonged together--like the course Short Story and Novel are linked by their narrative and fictional elements. Perhaps we will discover connections between these two genres, ways that poets speak to playwrights and playwrights to poets and to us. But, at the start of this class, what I most want us to work with is how plays work and what makes a really fine play and later how poems work and what makes a really fine poem. We will learn to listen to the rich diversity of many playwrights’ and poets' voices and to our own diversity. We will learn to listen to a variety of characters and scenes and conflicts and thus to listen to our own characters and conflicts. We will begin to understand what it means to make a poem or a play and what it is to write about a particular time and place. Some of the writers that we will encounter will be part ofthe "canon"--those biggies that everyone studies; others will be at the edges of some of our cultural experiences, offering us other stories and experiences of individual locale, of individual and communal struggle to find a place, a home, without boundaries, nomadic wanderers, carving new frontiers. The question of gender--the nature of difference, the "proper spheres" of women and men, the character of women's and men's work and sexuality, the experience of racial violence, the forms ofaffirmation and negation, of doubt and belief, what it means to love and to live and to die and to love again, surrendering and surviving --these will be some of the issues and ideas that will arise through our readings and, I'm sure, others will emerge. What our readings will lead us to are a new consideration of how poems and plays resound and resonate and resist our own experience. Some reading may be difficult; we might find other writers' visions more comfortable and familiar,particularly if they correspond to our own. Nonetheless, all of the chosen writers, will--I believe--challenge our own assumptions and perceptions about drama and about poetry.The class will also focus on techniques for writing clear analytical papers. Writing assignments will consist of class-to-class reading responses, two papers, a mid-term and a final exam.[A Mini-Manifesto] or [Why I teach literature] or [The Inside Scoop -- or What happens here matters more than a grade] I believe that literature helps us grow, both personally and intellectually, because it can help us connect ourselves to the broader cultural, philosophic, andreligious world of which we are a part; it can enable us to recognize human dreams and struggles in different times and places that we would never otherwise know. I believe that literature helps us develop mature sensibility and compassion for the condition of all living things; it gives us knowledge and perception needed to appreciate the beauty of order and arrangement; it provides a comparative basis from which we can see worthiness in the aims of all people, and it therefore helps us see beauty in the world around us. It also exercises our emotions through interest, concern, tension, excitement, hope, fear, regret, laughter, and sympathy, and sometimes through hate. Through cumulative experience in reading, literature can and does shape our goals and values (if we let it) by helping us clarify our own identities, both positively, through acceptance of the admirable in human beings, and negatively, through rejection of the sinister. It helps us shape our judgments through the comparison of the good and bad, the sacred and the profane, and the gray areas in-between. Literature, in short, can help make us human; it can and should open us tothe complexity and mystery of our own and others' experiences.Because I believe all that, then, we will consider in this course the stuff of literature, or more specifically of poetry and drama, what these two genres are, and how they work. To understand what literature offers, we need to understand how it presents itself, how it coheres, how the "text"unfolds. Thus the elements of drama and of poetry will be explored in order to come to a better and more thorough understanding of a particular writer's craft, of how words and dialogue, imageand symbol, sound and suggestion are used to unfold meaning(s).Associate Degree Outcomes. The Board of Trustees has determined that all JCC graduates should develop or enhance certain essential skills while enrolled in the college. Several of these Associate Degree Outcomes are addressed in this class, including comprehending and using written forms of information; communicating clearly, concisely, and intelligibly using writing communication skills; developing critical thinking skills, working collaboratively with others, and developing an awareness and understanding of other cultures.Your responsibilities include: Participation. Be here, ready to discuss, think about and respond to the literature (which means reading it before arriving in class). Because the focus of this course is your response to the writers we read, the most important thing I expect is that you do the