Spring, 2001	Kathie Linehan
English 134	Rice 10, (440) 775-8578
TuTh 11:00-12:15 King 339	Office Hours: MW, 3:30-4:30, & by appt
	e-mail: Katherine.Linehan@oberlin.edu

NOVELS OF DEVELOPMENT

Goal: This course uses thematic concerns common to coming-of-age fiction as a framework for comparative examination of narrative technique, sociohistoric context and artistic purpose in a diverse group of novels. The course aims to cultivate skills in writing and literary analysis.

Texts:

 

Toni Morrison, Sula (Dutton)

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (Norton Critical Edition)

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (Harbrace)

Leslie Marmon Silko, Ceremony (Viking Penguin)

Gish Jen, Mona in the Promised Land (Random House)

Requirements: Four 3-5 page double-spaced papers (two first half, two second half of semester), topics to be assigned. These are graded papers, and you'll have the opportunity to rewrite either of the first two after I return them. I'll also assign (one or two classes ahead of time) occasional one-page Credit/No Entry preparatory papers intended to serve as a warm-up to discussion. I don't expect polish on the prep papers; my emphasis is on your putting thought into them and being ready with them on the day they're due. Because this is a small class that operates like a seminar, it is important for the sake of everyone involved that you're all in there pitching -- coming to class regularly, ready to respond to the assigned reading. (Good to underline! Good to review underlinings just before class!) No final exam.

Schedule:

Feb 6	Introduction to course
Feb 8	Come with prep papers in hand, this time 2-3 pages. Describe or dramatize any incident, travel experience, favorite activity, or social alliance in your life which in retrospect you recognize as having helped you define yourself to yourself. Try to write so as to bring the subject matter and its significance alive in the mind of your reader, whether you use first or third person voice ("I" or "she/he"), and whether you choose to write from the angle of who you were then or who you are now. If it helps to fictionalize it to some extent, go ahead. The papers will be traded around in class in groups of three to discuss a) what comes across most strongly and effectively to people, and why; and b) what other things you considered writing about. I've never tried this assignment before, so hey -- I'll play too.
Feb 13, 15, 20	Sula in three installments: first up to "1922" chapter, then up to "1939," then finish. Topics for discussion to be suggested along the way.
Feb 22	In-class workshops on Sula papers. These will be an exercise in close reading. I invite you to choose any ONE of several passages in the novel not extensively dealt with in class and present your ideas about how that passage works as a unit in the book. What do you think Morrison wants us to see and feel? How does it relate to where the book as a whole is going? How does she sequence things, choose words, and create images to work the effect she's after? Likely choices: 1) the spaced-off passage in "1921" describing Eva's tenants, the Deweys and Tar Baby; 2) the scene in "1922" in which Sula and Nel dig their hole together&emdash;perhaps including the aftermath with Chicken and Shadrack; 3) the profile of Jude in "1927"; 4) the gossip about Sula which fills up the "1929" chapter up to the point where the omniscient narrator gives us the lowdown.
Feb 23 or 24	PLEASE PUT SULA PAPERS (3-5 pages) UNDER MY OFFICE DOOR.
Feb 27, Mar 1, 6, 8, 13, 15	Six classes on Great Expectations, covering the 360 pages in the Norton text in increments of about 60 pages per class. Some short pieces of adjunct material in that edition will be assigned along the way. Plan to start work on papers in time to HAND IN GREAT EXPECTATIONS PAPERS ON MARCH 16 OR 17. (Topics tba)
Mar 15, 22	First half of Mrs. Dalloway
	SPRING BREAK!! HALLELUJAH!!
Apr 3, 5	Finish Mrs. Dalloway. In this half of the semester, you can pick any two of our three novels to write on. Whatever your choices, I ask you to stick to the due dates for papers on that novel. DALLOWAY PAPERS DUE APRIL 9.
Apr 10, 12, 17, 19	Ceremony; for those writing on the novel, we're likely to use April 19 as an in-class writing workshop. CEREMONY PAPERS DUE APRIL 20.
Apr 24 ,26, May 1, 3	Mona in the Promised Land
May 8	No class; conferences on MONA PAPERS (DUE MAY 11)
May 10	PLEASE ALL COME FOR WRAP-UP DISCUSSION & COURSE EVALS.