RESEARCH LINKS

AUTHORS IN DEPTH

FOR INSTRUCTORS
	Sample Syllabi
	Class Presentations
	Research Paper Topics

GLOSSARY

Michael Meyer Gerald Richman James Van Sickle

GERALD RICHMAN' S ACADEMIC PAGE: ENGLISH
102 FRESHMAN ENGLISH II

Email:grichman@acad.suffolk.edu............Voice Mail: (617) 573-8279

Office Hours in Fenton 536: TTh 9-10:00 and by appointment

Last revised December 24, 1998. Because this page is under construction and will be updated throughout the Fall semester, please consult it frequently. I will announce major changes and additions in class.

GERALD RICHMAN'S ACADEMIC PAGE . . . . ENGLISH DEPARTMENT HOME PAGE

GOALS AND POLICIES, TEXTS, SCHEDULE, READING JOURNALS AND RESPONSES, RESEARCH PAPER AND GROUP BOOKLETS, GRADES

GOALS

There are three related goals for this course

• to continue to polish your writing skills through frequent short and medium length writingassignments

• to continue to polish your reading skills by careful analysis of poetry and drama

• to introduce basic research skills

  • how to find information

  • how to evaluate sources

  • how to extract pertinent information and ideas

  • how to incorporate research material into your writing

Policies

• To pass the course, you must complete all class requirements. Failure to pass in an assignment may cause you to fail the course. It is better to hand in an assignment late than not to hand it in at all.

• Attendance is mandatory and will be taken in each class session. More than two unexcused absences will result in points being lost from your final grade. If you choose to take more than five unexcused absences, you may not passs the course. If you do miss class, you are responsible for the material covered that day. Get the notes from other students.

• If you have any problems understanding or completing class assignments, please see me before or after class as soon as possible in the semester.

TEXTS

The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature

Seamus Heaney, The Curse at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes

SCHEDULE

Final Examination: Tuesday, December 15, 9-10:50. Research Booklet due either in a typed version or on a disk as an HTML document ready to be posted to the class web site

READING JOURNAL ENTRIES AND RESPONSES

I have set up a mailing list on the internet for this course, writers-L. To subscribe to writers-L, send the following message to listserv@miser.suffolk.edu:

sub writers-L Your Name

After a short while, you will receive a message that you are subscribed. You will automatically receive all messages sent to writers-L. To send a message to writers-L, use the following address: writers-L@miser.suffolk.edu DO NOT SEND MESSAGES TO listserv@miser.suffolk.edu, for they will be lost in cyberspace. Your first assignment is to subscribe to writers-L and to send a test message.

Four times during the semester (September 17, September 24, November 5, and November 17),you will post a 500-word Reading Journal Entry to writers-L about some aspect of the week's reading that puzzles or interests or provokes you. For the following class (September 22, September 29, November 10, and November 19), you will post three responses to other students' postings (250 words each). Entries and Responses will be graded on the basis of completion of the assignment fully and on time, on imagination, and on evidence of your struggle with the readings.  

RESEARCH PAPERS AND GROUP BOOKLETS

At the beginning of the semester, the class will be divided into groups of four or five for a semester-long group project that will be due at the Final Exam. Each member of the group will prepare a three-five page research paper on one aspect of the group topic. The group will prepare a joint introduction of three-five pages to the booklet which will contain the individual papers, provide an order for the booklet, and create an appropriate title. At or before the Final Exam the group will hand in a typed copy of the booklet or a disk with an HTML copy ready to be placed on the class website.

Groups must choose one of the following topics. You will meet together with your group to rank the choices from 1 to 5, and write them on a slip of paper. I will draw randomly from a hat and assign the topics accordingly. If your first choice is taken, you'll get your second. Or if that's taken as well, you'll get your third. And so on.

Once you have been assigned the group topic, group members will decide who will take individual topics. In writing individual papers, you must use at least three sources in addition to what is available in our textbook (and not including texts of the primary readings)--one book (see SAWYER LIBRARY CATALOGUE) , one periodical article (see Web Version of Expanded Academic Infotrac, which can only be accessed from a networked computer on campus or through Lynx in acad. It cannot be accessed except through acad if you are using an outside internet provider like AOL or TIAC), and one internet site (see below for some sites that I've found and use Diana Hacker's book to find further sites). You may, of course, use more sources.

Research Groups will exchange journal entries and responses by email several times during the semester (October 1, October 6, October 8, October 13, October 15, October 20, October 27, November 3, November 12, December 1, and December 7). Here are the instructions for activating and accessing your Suffolk University computer account. If you use another system at home or work (such as AOL or TIAC), you may use that system to complete your assignments.

• Every student at Suffolk has access to a large number of computer resources that require anID and Password. "Every student in all three schools . . . has an acount on the Acad RS 6000 machine. Your login -id is made up of your last name and student-id. For example: Fred Student id # 1234567, would access the computer as: stu12345. The first three letters of the last name appended to the first 5 numbers of you student-id. Password will be your first name as it appears in the Registrar's Office records.
  
  Students with last names of only two characters would have id's of those 2 letters appended to the first 5 numbers of the student-id (e.g., Fred Su id # 1234567 would use su12345).
  
  Passwords must be 4 characters in length. If your first name is less than four letters, your password will be a combination of first and last name. For example, student Bob Smith would have as his password bobs. (First three letters of his first name combined with one letter of his last.) You will be asked to change your password when accessing the system for the first time. Simply follow the instructions which will appear on your screen."
  
  Go to one of the CAS Computer Labs (Fenton 232, Fenton 338B [usually reserved for classses], and Ridgeway 415 [often reserved for classes]), turn on one of the computers if it is not already on. When the Windows 95 screen loads, click on on Applications icon. Then click on the EWAN icon. Your account is on ACAD. Click on this, and enter your ID and Password when prompted. If this is your first access, follow the directions given above, which use your name and student i.d. number. For more information, see the CAS Academic Computing Department guide to EWAN.
  
  You can also access the Suffolk system from off-campus by a modem. From a modem dial into the Suffolk system (573-8728, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 27 will display telnet>; 573-8738, 39, 40, 41, 42 will display login). At telnet>, type open acad and hit Enter. Supply information for login and password, and $ prompt will appear. Type mail and hit Enter.

• Using the Address Book of your email program (for the University program, see Getting Started with Pine), set up a Group (list) Address for the three or four other members of the group and me.
  
  Here are the instructions for Pine. Other email programs are similar.
  
  To create a list address

By November 3, you musrt submit a substantial rough draft of your paper to the members of your Research Group.

For solid information about finding, using, and documenting electronic and print sources, see Diana Hacker, Research and Documentation in the Electronic Age. This is an extremely useful resource. Use it.

TOPICS

NOTE that in writing individual papers, you must use at least one book (consult SAWYER LIBRARY CATALOGUE to check the library for books on your topic) and one periodical article (consult the paper indexes or InfoTrac in the Reference section of the library or Web Version of Expanded Academic Infotrac, which can only be accessed from a networked computer on campus or through Lynx in acad. It cannot be accessed except through acad if you are using an outside internet provider like AOL or TIAC).

1.Group subject: Robert Lowell's poem "For the Union Dead"

Group topic: How do sources outside the poem (history, the St.-Gaudens monument, other literary responses, the film Glory) add to our understanding of the poem?

• Biographical Sketch of Robert Lowell

• For the Union Dead--hypertext version of poem with several links to monument,negro infantry, and Hiroshima

• See also on Reserve in the library photocopies of material not available from the Sawyer Library or the Internet.

  • Axelrod, Steven. "Colonel Shaw in American Poetry" 'For the Union Dead' and its Precursors." American Quarterly 24 (1972): 523-37.

  • Cooney, Denise Von Glahn. "New Sources for 'The "St. Gaudens" in Boston Common (Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and His Colored Regiment).'" Musical Quarterly, 81 (1997): 13-50.

  • Duncan, Russell. "Preface" and "Introduction." Blue-Eyed Child of Fortune: The Civil War Letters of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. Athens and London: U of Georgia P, 1992.

  • Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. "The Shaw Memorial and the Sculptor St. Gaudens.." The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine. June 1897: 176-200..

  • The Monument to Robert Gould Shaw. Boston, 1897. (Selections)

  • Scharnhorst, Gary. "From Soldier to Saint: Robert Gould Shaw and the Rhetoric of Racial Justice." Civil War History 34 (1988): 308-22.

Individual topics

• "Historical Strategies" (1367-70) --1863 (see 54th Mass. Casualty List, Picture of Robert Gould Shaw, Historical Background), 1897 (see Letter from Charles Eliot to St. Gaudens), and 1960 (see the T.V. series/film Eyes on the Prize and Viewer's Guides, and the book of the same title)

• St.-Gaudens Monument (including pictures)

  • National Gallery of Art

  • Robert G. Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial

  • Images of Hope and Glory: 100th Anniversary Celebration

• Other literary responses

  • Paul Laurence Dunbar "Robert Gould Shaw"

  • William Von Moody "An Ode in Time of Hesitation"

  • Charles Ives

    • The "St. Gaudens" in Boston Common (Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and his Colored Regiment)

    • "Moving, Marching Faces of Souls"

  • John Berryman's "Boston Common"

  • Donald M. Bishop's "Regiment in Bronze"

• Glory

  • Glorynotes

  • The Unofficial Glory Homepage

2.Group subject: Susan Glaspell's "Trifles" (759-774) and "A Jury of Her Peers" (774-77)

Group topic: How do various literary strategies (formalist, biographical, social,deconstructionist?, reader-response?) help us understand "Trifles"?

"A Jury of Her Peers". For commentary, see Susan Glaspell

What Makes a good short story. explores "A Jury of Her Peers"

A Forum on Susan Glaspell's "Trifles": Search Form

Individual topics

• "Formal Strategies" (1361-63)--How do the two versions differ?

• "Biographical Strategies" (1363-65)

• "Social Strategies" (1370-71) "Deconstructionist Strategies" ? "Reader-Response Strategies"?

3.Group subject: Emily Dickinson's poetry (585-618)

Group topic: Hopw do various critical strategies (formal, biographical, psychological, social) help us understand and respond to Emily Dickinson's poetry?

Book Marks for the Emily Dickinson International Society

Emily Dickinson Page

Individual topics

• "Formal Stategies:" (1361-63)

• "Biographical Strategies" (1363-65)

• "Psychological Strategies" (1365-67)

• "Social Strategies" (1370-71)

4.Group subject: T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (649-61)

What do various critical strategies (formal, biographical, historical, social) add to our understanding of the poem?

What the Thunder Said: T. S. Eliot Page, general background with many links

Prufrock Annotated

Prufrock's Literary Ancestors

Prufrock Notes

Individual topics

• "Formal Strategies" (1361-63)

• "Biographical Strategies" (1363-65)

• "Historical Strategies" (1367-70)

• "Social Strategies" (1370-71)

5.Group subject: Langston Hughes' poetry (two in textbook, ten online or on reserve)

Group topic: How do various critical strategies (formal, biographical, psychological, historical, social) add to our understanding of Hughes's poetry?

Online poems

• "The Negro Speaks of Rivers", with audio of Hughes reading the poem

• "Wake"; "Bad Morning"; "Ennui"

• "After Many Springs"; "April Rain Song"; "As I Grew Older"; "Aunt Sue's Stories"; "Ballad of the Landlord"; "Being Old"; "Cross"; "Dream Deferred"; "Drum"; "For an Indian Screen"; "Hold Fast to Dreams"; "I, Too"; "Let American Be America Again"; "Love Song for Lucinda"; "Mama and Daughter"; "Mother to Son"; "Pictures to the Wall"; "Same in Blues"; "Teacher"; "The Negro Speaks of Rivers"; "Theme for English B"; "To Beauty"; "Troubled Woman"; "Trumpet Player"

• "I Dream a World"

• "The Negro Mother"

• "The South"

• "As I Grow Older"

• "Justice," "Still Here"

• "I,Too," "Poem(2) To F.S.," "New Year," "Ruby Brown"

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes: Teacher Resource File

The Academy of American Poets--Langston Hughes, biography and texts of many poems

Harlem Renaissance

Individual topics

• "Formal Strategies" (1361-63)

• "Biographical Strategies" (1363-65)

• "Psychological Strategies" (1365-67)

• "Historical Strategies" (1367-70)

• "Social Strategies" (1370-71)

GRADES

This is a rough breakdown of the grading for the course. But your grade will not be based on a strict mathematical average: I will also take into account improvement in your reading and writing skills.

Reading Journal Entries and Responses....................25%

In-class Explications............................................25%

Group Journal Entries and Responses.......................25%

Research Papers..................................................20%

Group introduction, title, organization........................5% (No one's grade for the course will be lowered because of the group grade.)

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