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 also aims to cultivate skills in critical exchange and writing.

Texts:             

Requirements:   1) A series of brief (1-2 page or occasional oral) Credit/No Entry exercises, some appearing in schedule below, some to be assigned as we go along.  No more than 4-6 overall.  2) Four letter-graded papers, each 3-4 pages double-spaced (one on each of our four novels).  One of the first two graded papers can be rewritten within a week after it's returned, with the final grade to become the grade of record. If your mid-term paper grade average is a B or higher, you have the option of combining the last two papers into a single 6-8 page paper on either Great Expectations or Ceremony.  No final exam. 

Your responsibilities also include helping to make discussion productive.  That means attending regularly (see 'course policies' below), coming prepared, and doing your bit to facilitate exchange that goes somewhere.

Schedule:

M Feb 4	Introduction
W Feb 6	Worksheet (distributed Feb. 4): the openings of three different stories about childhood experience, one using a third-person narrative perspective assimilated to the child's point of view, one using a first-person adult narrator looking back, and one using a first person child narrator looking back. Question for discussion: how do narrative point of view and style (tone of voice, choice of words--try substitutes to sharpen your awareness--, images, progression of sentences and paragraphs) shape your sense of the child involved and the issues that may be important as the story develops in each of these three cases?
F Feb 8	Sample 2 from worksheet, whole story (remaining pages distributed Feb. 6): Come to class with  a 1-2 page informal exercise paper commenting on a) what feeling, effect, or idea you see the story building towards (the conflict between romance and reality? adults doing dirt to kids?  the pain of moving from innocence to experience?  the poignancy or absurdity of youthful self-involvement? or whatever) and b) how you'd square that reading with some concrete aspects of how the story progresses towards the end (plot, word choice, etc.).  Bring two copies of your exercise paper to class:  we'll have 10 or 15 minutes of two-person paper-exchange and discussion before full-group discussion. You'll then go home with a copy of both your own paper and your discussion partner's paper.
M Feb 11	FIRST WRITTEN EXERCISE TO BE TURNED IN.  Critical dialogue exercise: come to class with a re-write of your Friday, Feb. 8 paper, having over the weekend incorporated a response to some statement or idea in your discussion partner's paper that you can find a way to use to strengthen or clarify your own argument. The response must involve a quote from the other paper--anything from a phrase to a few sentences.  ATTACH YOUR PARTNER'S PAPER TO YOUR OWN (if it's all marked up, that's OK).  Don't worry about super-polishing your re-write; this is a Credit/No Entry assignment aimed at practicing critical dialogue and citation technique.  Meanwhile, topic for reading and discussion for Feb. 11 class:  Sample 3 from worksheet, whole story (remaining pages distributed Feb. 6).  Focus for discussion:  how does the structure of this story (movie theater flashback within car-trip frame) inform its treatment of the issues of navigation, promises, family loyalty, and betrayal?
W Feb 13	Wuthering Heights, ch. 1-3.  In this novel, we work our way back to the childhood history of the central characters first through the groping perceptions of the outsider, Lockwood, and then through the recollections of his housekeeper Nelly Dean, quasi-sibling, quasi-servant to the young Catherine and Heathcliff.  Try your skills at close reading to see how you feel yourself set up--or what you feel yourself being set up for--by Lockwood's initial impressions of Wuthering Heights, his self-disclosures, and the episode of his overnight stay at the Heights.  For help with the Yorkshire dialect (and other things), be sure to check footnotes.Throughout your reading of this novel, keep an eye out for the chapter you might like to focus on for your chapter analysis (see assignment due March 4). And MARK UP THAT TEXT!
F Feb 15	Wuthering Heights, ch. 4-6.  Though Nelly frames the account of Heathcliff's childhood entry into Wutherings Heights, she also quotes a lot of dialogue that gives us glimpses of other people's point of view--e.g. Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley, Catherine, and Heathcliff himself.  Where do your sympathies lie and why?   Do you find yourself trusting or being suspicious of Nelly's take on things?
M Feb 18-F Mar 1:	For these next six classes, we'll work through Wuthering Heights at the rate of about four chapters per class.  I'll give discussion questions as we go, plus an occasional warm-up writing exercise for class, and possibly a few brief supplementary readings (e.g. some poems by Emily Brontë and/or some excerpts from critics).  We'll be trying to get a feel for the play of interpretive possibilities in this book; for example, a) whether the novel's value system seems to revolve around nature or civilization; b) whether the novel's representational system seems most to involve romantic fantasy, psychological realism or allegory; c) whether Heathcliff is utterly at the center of the novel or whether there's a good case for a special orientation to female coming of age issues; d) whether the second generation is a corrective to, falling away from, or continuation of the first; d) whether Nelly is, as Emily Brontë's sister Charlotte proposes, the novel's one true example of benevolence and homely fidelity, or whether we're meant to see a dangerous bias in Nelly and her narration.
M Mar 4	FIRST GRADED PAPER (3-4 pages) DUE under my office door by 5 p.m.:  an interpretive study of ANY ONE CHAPTER within Wuthering Heights. Pick a chapter that you see as rich in interpretive possibility and focus on some aspect or aspects of its language, imagery, dialogue, plot, or character (or some combination thereof) that you can see as grist for arguing a position that you find persuasive.  I'll be keeping extra office hours the week before for conferences on drafts; then I'm giving you the day off from class on Monday March 4 to clear time for your completion of the paper.
W Mar 6	Sula, through the 1919 chapter.  What questions are generated for you as you go from the quote from 'The Rose Tattoo' to the untitled retrospective on "that place" to the chapter headed "1919."  What feelings does the "In that place" section evoke in you and how do words and names help to create that feeling?  How does this beginning and the chapter that follows it compare to Wuthering Heights in setting up a sense of time and place from which we will work backwards to trace the growing up of the dual child protagonists, Nel and Sula (coming up in next chapters).  What picture do you have of the context in American social history for what's playing out here?
F Mar 8- M Mar 18:	Sula in five further installments. Topics for discussion to be suggested along the way.  For the first four of these classes I'll ask eight of you to work in teams of two to present brief "key passage" commentaries.  Within the assigned reading for that day, pick a passage--no more than a few sentences--that strikes you as especially interesting, meaningful, or enjoyable (appreciations of Morrison's stylist energy and lushness are fine) and come to class prepared to say why it's worth looking at closely.  The two of you should consult ahead of time to see whether you want to share commentary on one passage or coordinate commentary on two separate ones.  Oral presentations should last no longer than 3-4 minutes per person.
W Mar 20	In-class workshops on Sula papers.  Choose any passage 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 choose words, create images, sequence paragraphs, etc., to work the effect she's after?  Or if you'd like to define your topic some other way (e.g. issues of the relationship to time and history; the symbolic dimension of Sula's birthmark, the significance of the Suicide Day parade, etc.), consult with me ahead of time.  Come Wednesday with a draft.
F Mar 22	Extra office hours earlier in the week for conferences on papers, so no class on the 22nd; SECOND GRADED PAPER (3-4 pages, on Sula) DUE under my office door by 5 p.m.
	SPRING BREAK!!  HURRAY!!  and while you're having fun, think about reading ahead on the two second half novels!
M Apr 1-W Apr 19:	Nine classes on Great Expectations, covering the 360 pages in the Norton Critical Edition in increments of about 40 pages per class.  Some short pieces of adjunct material in that edition will be assigned along the way.  We'll also have another series of key passage commentaries.  Plan to start work on papers in time to HAND IN GREAT EXPECTATIONS  PAPERS ON APRIL 22.  (Topics tba)
Apr 22-May 6:	Seven classes on Ceremony.  One day early in this unit we'll have a library session to investigate researching a) Laguna culture and b) critical articles on Ceremony.
May 8	No class; conferences on Ceremony  papers.
May 10	PLEASE ALL COME FOR WRAP-UP DISCUSSION & COURSE EVALUATIONS.                          CEREMONY PAPERS DUE FRIDAY MAY 10 (or Monday May 13 at the very latest.)

COURSE POLICIES:

Attendance. Patterns on attendance have gotten spotty lately and my in-class eye and after-class memory are both rotten.  So I'll keep tabs by passing around a sign-up sheet each class (or, after registration settles down, a list of names for initialling).  Two absences you get as freebies; three of more will affect your grade, proportionately.  Emergency absences will be considered on a case by case basis.

Credit/No Entry exercises or "prep" papers.  These need not be polished but they must be done in time for you to bring them with you to class on the day they are due.  They are intended as warm-ups for that day's discussion, so writing them after the fact defeats the point.

Late papers.  I downgrade at the rate of one-third of a letter grade for each day beyond due date.  Barring true emergencies, I MUST have mid-term papers in time to grade them over Break. 

Your communications with me.  The extra office hours I'll be setting up for paper conferences just before papers are due are intended mostly for draft-stage consultations.  I'd strongly encourage you to see me earlier if you'd like help working out a topic or thinking through your thesis.  If my office hours (Mon 2:30-3:20 and Thurs 4-5) don't work for you, we can find another time.  I would ask you in general to try to see me after class or in office hours for things that need to be discussed, and limit emails to brief items of information.