How to reach me:
My office is in Carolina Inn 204, ext. 2595.
My office hours are Mondays 1:30-3:30, Wednesdays 9-11:30, and Fridays 11-noon.
If these times conflict with your schedule, you may schedule an appointment.
For quick, factual clarifications, but not for advice or conferences, you may contact me by e-mail at suchurchill@davidson.edu. In emergencies, you may call me at home, 704-896-3993 (between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m.).
The syllabus is on the web at www.davidson.edu/academic/english/faculty/churchill_home/ENG372_S05_syllabus.htm. It contains links to electronic reserve readings and other resources.
Our class distribution list is ENG372_S05@davidson.edu. When you send a message to this list, it goes to every member of the class, including me. Please use this list to contact me with any questions about the course, especially clarifications of readings, assignments, and due dates. Chances are, if you're confused, someone else is too.
Required texts:
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (Modern Library).
Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Penguin).
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Signet).
Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (Harvest).
E. M. Forster, Passage to India (Harvest).
Elizabeth Bowen, The House in Paris (Anchor).
Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Penguin).
Ian McEwan, Atonement (Anchor).
Books on Reserve:
Ralph Freedman, The Lyrical Novel (809.3 F85l)
Alan Friedman, The Turn of the Novel (823.09 F91t)
René Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel (809.3 G518d)
Frank Kermode, The Sense of an Ending (801 K39s)
Russell Reisling, Loose Ends: Closure and Crisis in the American Social Text (810.9 R377L)
David Richter, Fable's End: Completeness and Closure in Rhetorical Fiction (809.3 R535f)
Maria Torgovnick, Closure in the Novel (808.3 T682c)
Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 33, No. 1, Special Issue: Narrative Endings (June 1978); available on J-Stor.
Class Participation:
Do the reading. Come to class. Since we're all in this class because we love them, let's talk about books.
You may miss two classes without directly lowering
your grade—you don't need to provide any excuses. But use those absences wisely, because except in the case
of verifiable hardship (e.g. Dean's or doctor's excuse), each absence
after two lowers your final grade by 1/3 of a letter. For instance, a
student with a B- final grade who missed three classes would earn a C+ for
the semester.
Papers & Assignments:
I. Papers: You will write four papers and submit a final portfolio, with substantive revisions of each essay.
All papers must be typed in a standard 12-point font, double-spaced with one-inch margins, and stapled. CITE YOUR SOURCES. All papers must provide complete bibliographic citations for ALL materials used, including the primary work(s) discussed, following MLA Style (Although style manuals are available in the reference section of the library, I urge you to purchase your own). You are encouraged to see me for help, to use the Writing Center, and to exchange papers with classmates in this class ONLY, provided you indicate in your pledge who helped you and how.
II. Quizzes: There will be four short, cumulative quizzes. No make-ups.
III. Discussion Leading: Rather than giving a formal presentation, you will co-lead two class discussions.
You will be assigned days to lead discussion, but you may make adjustments by switching with other students AND by emailing ENG372_S05@davidson.edu ASAP. Your goals are to get people thinking critically about the material, to
make the discussions interactive and intellectually challenging, and to use whatever resources or supplemental materials to push us into new ways of thinking about the novels. You might:
• go around the room and ask for responses to a question, passage, or excerpt from a critical/theoretical work;
• ask one person a question, then ask the next to respond to the answer, and so on, in a chain;
• bring in article abstracts or brief biographies NOT included in reading and have class apply them to the assigned readings;
• bring in a primary source, such as a newspaper article, legal document, map, or advertisement from the period, and use it to understand the novel as part of that historical context;
• give a question or quotation and ask students to respond in writing, then mix it up: have each student read someone else's response aloud and respond verbally to it;
• set up a debate, giving each team 10-15 minutes to prepare;
• role play as two real critics who disagree; try to convince classmates to join your "camp";
• divide the class into small groups or pairs, giving each specific topics, then coming together to share insights;
• play Jeopardy (or some other game) to make sure people understand basic concepts before getting into dicussion;
• set up "sides," asking students to take one of two opposed positions on an issue;
• use "degree of agree": left wall = completely agree with a statement, right = completely disagree; ask people to position themselves, then talk about where they stood and why;
• play "wonder ball": toss a ball around and whoever gets it must keep the conversation going;
• show an illustration, a related painting, or a clip from a film adaptation;
• hold class outside or at Summit;
Don't limit yourselves to these ideas. Be creative!
Assignment due dates are listed in the syllabus. Work handed in after these deadlines will be considered late and will be marked down a full letter grade for each day late. If you need an extension, you must clear it with me a week before the assignment is due. NOTE: The Carolina Inn is open from 8 a.m.–5 p.m., M–F, and locked nights and weekends. If you need to drop off or pick up a paper, make sure you get there before lock-up.
Grade Breakdown:
Papers - 40%
Discussion Leading - 10%
Final Portfolio - 20%
Quizzes - 20%
Participation
- 10%
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