English 399W Representing the Environment Literature and Ecocriticism Fall 2007 Spring 2008 English Honors Seminar Section 1T3A Tues 1 40 4 30 PH 104 Code 0064 Section E6W3A Wed 6 30 9 20 PH 304 Code 0066 Professor Frederick Buell Klapper 631 718 997 4666 Clearing Winter Storm by Ansel Adams buell warwick net Office Hours T 12 30 1 20 W 5 30 6 20 or by appt Undergrowth by Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison In the spring seminar you will revise and polish your Honors Essays prepare for the Honors Exam and design organize and stage the English Honors Conference in May We will spend class time worshopping each stage of revision We will also spend class time and blog space preparing for the Honors Exam including the essay and identification sections Most reading will be tied directly to course projects or the exam Some blog work will continue see below also we will incorporate occasional ecocritical discussions and activities to keep the work of last semester fresh Texts The Norton Anthology of English Literature vols 1 and 2 8th edition ed Stephen Greenblatt The Norton Anthology of American Literature vols A E 7th edition ed Nina Baym These are the texts I have ordered at the bookstore But you may substitute equivalent anthologies for them not the shorter one volume types but full usually 2 volume ones as long as they are relatively recent You should show them to me to make sure they contain what you ll need Unless you want to build your own libraries you also may want to borrow these anthologies from libraries or friends as they re expensive to buy Also we will only be using them intensively for about 6 weeks of the course Fall Requirements Honors Essay Revisions Honors Essay Peer Responses Class Participation Honors Essay Study Guides Every Other Week Ecocritical Blogs Class Presentations 10 5 25 25 20 15 Blogs This semester you will be doing two sorts of activities on your blogs Note each of you has a new blog site created for you The old one has been kept up but please use the new one for this semester 1 I shall divide your classes each into two groups Group A and Group B Every other week throughout most of the semester see course schedule below you and your group will post something on your blog that comes from your review for the honors exam we ll call these our ecocritical blogs For each posting I want you to single out one text you have encountered in your review of American and English literature that has you believe some element of eco critical significance that is particularly interesting This means you would be most often writing about a feature of the text not the whole texts Describe this feature of the text and discuss what you see its ecocritical significance to be NB In looking for ecocritical significances remember that ecocriticism now concerns two sorts of inquiry inquiry into the representation of nature in literature the primary concern of the first generation of ecocritics and inquiry into the environmental social relationships implicit and or explicit in all texts no matter how far removed they are from overt representation or consideration of nature These two concerns also parallel the development of the environmental movement The first wave after environmentalism became a mass movement and Earth Day celebrations began 1970 focused on nature and its protection The second wave from roughly the mid 1980s to the present focused on many different aspects of human society as the source and also the site of an expanded expanding list of social environmental problems 2 In the categories section of your blog you will post your Honors Essay Study Guides Attendance Participation Deadlines Note that class participation is a quarter of your grade Absences will adversely affect this part of your performance and therefore grade Also all of our work is time sensitive Missed deadlines for all activities will affect grades Essay Guidelines and Academic Integrity Your honors essay should be between 4 000 5 000 words approximately 15 20 pages in length if an ambitious topic requires longer treatment however doing so will be fine Please use a 12 point font and 1 margins Include page numbers a title and a Works Cited list Use MLA style For MLA style go to Purdue University s Online Writing Lab guidelines at http owl english purdue edu owl resource 557 01 A student s scholar s work should be his or her own But their ideas should also engage the ideas of other thinkers and writers Communication gives ideas meaning and creates a community of thinkers This is where citation and plagiarism can become tricky Plagiarism is of course a serious issue It is important that you establish your own point of view make it clear which ideas are yours and which come from your sources and respond to your sources critically Be sure to cite all sources appropriately using MLA style If you have any questions please ask me SPRING SEMESTER CALENDAR TUESDAY 1 29 WEDNESDAY 1 30 Tuesday class only Talk about Octavia Butler Both classes Hand out Honors Essay drafts to writing group members and me sign up for in class conferences with me for following week organize blog groups sign up for Honors Study Guides begin preparation for Honors Essay question on poetry TUESDAY 2 5 WEDNESDAY 2 6 Workshop Honors Essay papers with writing groups individual conferences with me TUESDAY 2 19 WEDNESDAY 2 13 NOTE Tues 2 12 is a holiday 1 Read from the xeroxes the Prologue and Chapter 1 on prosody from Harvey Gross and Robert McDowell s Sound and Form in Modern Poetry also read the following 10 pages from me containing material on the honors exam poetry section my response to Gross McDowell and the honors exam and a short glossary of poetic terminology for prosody and rhetorically based poetic form Note this glossary will serve as a list of types of poetic technique that you would draw on to answer the honors essay question 2 Also everyone must bring in a short poem contemporary or traditional of their choice in order to lead class discussion on it The focus of the discussion will be the focus of the Honors Essay question formulation see p 1 of my Xeroxes The discussion leader must have thought through how sound techniques prosody and other poetic techniques rhetorically based forms reflect the meaning and spirit of their poem The discussion leader must then via questioning ask students to formulate ideas about meaning and spirit of the poem and then explore as fully as possible how that it is reflected in diverse poetic