English 494 Spring 2000
Instructor: Dr. Julie Barak
Office: 435 Lowell Heiny Hall
Phone: 248-1072
E-Mail: [email protected]
Office Hours: 1:00-2:00 M-Th
Home Page: http://www.mesastate.edu/~jbarak
| Goals | Methods | Texts | Resources | Requirements --paper --presentation --reading quesetions and notes --portfolio and survey forms |
Schedule |
Course Goals: 1) To become familiar with the writers and themes of the Native American Renaissance. 2) To demonstrate competence in composing an extended reading of a text. 3) To demonstrate the ability to captivate an audience and to stimulate audience response in an oral presentation. 4) To share ideas about and connections between texts in class discussions.
Course Methods: The most essential method of the course will be large group discussions lead by either the instructor or by class members. Initially, we may depend upon short lectures to introduce topics to contextualize reading and discussion. In addition to these methods for discussing the literature, we will spend a fair amount of time workshopping our writing, sharing techniques, ideas, suggestions for improving, expanding and organizing our work.
Required Texts and other expenses:
Alexie, Sherman -- Reservation Blues
Erdrich, Louise -- Love Medicine
Gunn Allen, Paula -- Woman who Owned the Shadows
Hogan, Linda -- Mean Spirit
Momaday, N. Scott -- House Made of Dawn
Ortiz, Simon -- From Sand Creek: Rising in this Heart which is Our
America
Rose, Wendy -- Bone Dance -- New and Selected Poetry
Silko, Leslie Marmon -- Ceremony
Vizenor, Gerald -- Heirs of Columbus
----- -- Anthology of Native American Literature
Welch, James -- Winter in the Blood
Other expenses:
Note cards
Copies of drafts as requested for workshops
Resources and Research Aids
(These are on reserve in the library):
Fleck, Richard. Critical Perspectives on Native American Fiction.
Larson, Charles. American Indian Fiction.
Lincoln, Kenneth. Native American Renaissance.
Maitino, John R. and David R. Peck. Teaching American Ethnic Literatures.
Nelson, Robert M. Place and Vision.
Louis Owens. Other Destinies: Understanding the American Indian
Novel.
Velie, Alan. Four American Indian Literary Masters.
You'll also find the following reference works very helpful:
Dictionary of Literary Biography. REF PS221 .D5
Volume 175
Dictionary of Native American Literature. REF PM155 .D53 1994
Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. REF PN94 .T83
In addition, you'll need to use the MLA bibliography -- an online database especially for literature scholars. This database does not include any full text articles; it's a citation only database, so you'll need to use interlibrary loan to obtain the articles you are interested in. This means that you should start your research in MLA ASAP! Here is that address:
http://www2.mesastate.edu/library/alphabetic_list_of_indexes___d.htm#L-O
Begin your research by referring to DLB and TCLC. What issues do critics focus on in these two reference works? What interests you in their discussion? Once you've found an issue that's interesting, then go to MLA and see what is out there that relates to that particular focus. Another good place to start would be some on-line sources such as:
http://vos.ucsb.edu/shuttle/eng-cont.html#american -- Voice of the Shuttle
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/People/mmbt/women/writers.html -- Celebration of Women Writer's Page
http://voices.cla.umn.edu/ -- Voices From the Gap
http://www.ipl.org/cgi/ref/native/browse.pl/authors#E -- Native American Writers Project
http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/native.htm -- Native Americans -- Internet Resources
http://www.galenet.com/servlet/GLD?&u=CA -- Contemporary Authors (from the Mesa State College Library Database).
Coursework Requirements:
15-25 page research paper.
At the beginning of the semester you will chose one author from the reading
list to work with. Through out the semester we'll work together to gather
information, to think about your own interpretation of that information,
to organize your thoughts and your research and to compose the paper. Points
for the paper are distributed as follows
a. annotated bibliography (at least 15 sources): 10 points
b. workable thesis statement: 5 points
c. formal outline which details development of ideas and use of both primary
and secondary sources: 10 points
d. first draft of essay: 10 points
e. final draft of essay: 65 points
The paper is worth 40% of your final grade for the course.
Class Presentation. Together
with a partner, you must put together a presentation on your author that
includes the following two features:
a. A performance of some kind. This can be a mock interview, a dramatic
reading of the poetry, a dramatization of a scene (you may have to enlist
other class members to help with this), a "lecture" by the author
or by any other qualified expert on the text, or any number of other possibilities.
Come to talk to me about your idea. You should shoot for around 30 minutes
of performance time.
b. A discussion focusing on the issues and ideas presented in the text.
Your job through the presentation and as discussion leader is to provoke
a response from your audience and then to keep that response lively and
interesting through your intelligent, energetic and thoughtful questions
and comments.
Your presentation will work best if it's organized around a theme that you think permeates the work. Your job is to "organize" our reading of the text so that we come away from it with a coherent assessment of meaning and connection to other texts and ideas we've been focusing on. The presentation is worth 35% of your grade.
Questions, comments, and responses to the readings. Buy a packet of 5x7 note cards. For each reading assignment, you should record the following on one of the cards and bring it to class with you:
a. On the front of the card write three questions, comments, ideas, connections, theories, etc., you have about the text. These will be used to direct our discussions.
b. On the back of the card write out a response to the text. Your response might include any of the following:
Your responses should be about 100-150 words long. If your handwriting is too large to allow you to get this much writing on the back of one card, use two. These questions and responses are worth 25% of your grade. Included in my assessment of these responses is how often and how cogently you use them to aid the class in discussing a work.
Portfolio and Survey forms for program assessment. These are due at the end of the semester. More information will follow.
See Catalogue for college policies on Academic Honesty (p. 34) and Disability Provisions (p. 26).
Week 1
Jan. 20 -- Introductions. Select a text from the list for your project and paper and begin to read it.
Week 2
Jan. 25 -- Read Introduction to Native American Literature and 35-40 pages of selections under Identity.
Jan. 27 -- Read selections under place + Erdrich Essay.
Week 3
Feb. 01 -- Read selections under Family.
Feb.03 -- Bring in reports/copies on your author from TCLC and DLB. What ideas are circulating? How are these writers being discussed? What issues are interesting to you?
Week 4
Feb. 08 -- Read Selections under Tricksters and Transformations -- 35-40 pages.
Feb. 10 -- Read Selections under Struggle and Language.
Week 5
Feb. 15 -- Read essay on Erdrich. Bring in an essay on your author. Discuss thesis statements, organization, and style.
Feb. 17 -- Conferences.
Week 6
Feb. 22 -- Momaday
Feb. 24 -- Momaday
Week 7
Feb. 29 -- Workshop Draft. Bibliographies, Outlines, Introductions, Beginnings. Annotated bibliography due.
Mar. 02 -- Welch
Week 8
Mar. 07 -- Silko. Thesis due.
Mar. 09 -- Silko
Week 9
Mar. 14 -- Workshop Draft. Bring in sections. Outline due.
Mar. 16 --.Ortiz
Week 10
Mar. 20-24 -- Spring Break
Week 11
Mar. 28 -- Workshop Draft. Bring in sections.
Mar. 30 -- Gunn Allen
Week 12
Apr. 04-- Erdrich
Apr. 06-- Erdrich
Week 13
Apr. 11 -- Workshop Draft. Bring in sections.
Apr. 13 -- Hogan
Week 14
Apr. 18 -- Workshop Draft. Bring in sections. First draft due.
Apr. 20 -- Vizenor
Week 15
Apr. 25 -- Conferences
Apr. 27 -- Rose
Week 16
May 02 -- Conferences
May 04 -- Alexie
Week 17
Papers due. Portfolios due. Evaluations. May 11 at 1:00.