English 611 Syllabus








ENGL 611

The Teaching of Literature

Spring 2017   M 7-9:30 pm

Professor Betsy Klimasmith                                      Classroom: Wheatley 6/047
Office Hours: M 4-6 and by appointment                 Email: betsy.klimasmith@umb.edu
Office: Wheatley 6/089                                               Office Phone: 617.287.6760
Class Blog: http://engl611s17.blogspot.com/

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Designed for prospective and practicing teachers, this seminar is an investigation of how and why we teach literature in the secondary school and college settings. We will read literary texts from a teacher’s perspective, analyze educational research, create unit plans, demonstrate lessons, and respond critically to each other’s work. To clarify and reassess the goals of literature pedagogy, we will attempt to strike a balance between developing practical tools for classroom use and examining theories about teaching and learning. We will address teaching literary genre, teaching canonical and non-canonical texts, teaching poetic and narrative form, and teaching with unexpected materials. In the spirit of collaboration, the seminar will draw on our collective interests, expertise, and experiences to identify useful resources and strategies that will assist our 21st century-students in their responses to literary texts. Students will be expected to teach a lesson to the class, generate practical materials including syllabi, assignment sheets, and lesson plans, reflect upon and write about their developing pedagogy, and develop a curriculum unit to teach a literary text to a specific student audience.

REQUIRED TEXTS

Literary Texts:
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-paper
Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
William Shakespeare, A Comedy of Errors, Folger Edition.
***YOU WILL ALSO BE REQUIRED TO ATTEND THE UMB PERFORMANCE OF A COMEDY OF ERRORS***

Pedagogy Texts:
Sheridan Blau, The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003. ​
Anne Curzan and Lisa Damour, First Day to Final Grade: A Graduate Student’s Guide to Teaching,3rd ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011.
Diana Fuss and William A. Gleason, eds. The Pocket Instructor, Literature: 101 Exercises for the College Classroom. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2016.
Grading Student Papers: https://cte.umd.edu/teaching/resources/GradingHandbook.pdf
(This pdf and selected articles/chapters will be available through the Healey Library website and/or linked to the course blog: http://engl611s17.blogspot.com/.  You must have a Healey Library barcode to access the library’s resources from off-campus.)
§  Blau, Curzan, and Fuss should all be available at the UMB bookstore.  These and the literary texts may also be available (new or used) at other area bookstores or online.
§  I may hand out additional readings in class, email them to you as pdfs, or upload them to the course website. Therefore,
§  You need to check your UMB email frequently or link it to your active email account so that you will receive messages and updates sent via WISER.
§  The beginning of the spring semester often brings inclement weather; evening classes may be cancelled even if day classes have run. Please register for alerts from the university. Directions are here: https://www.umb.edu/preparedness/alert
WORK: Graduate education relies upon and builds your capacity for both independent and cooperative learning.  Everyone in a 600-level course must carry his or her weight: I expect you to prepare all assigned reading thoughtfully and scrupulously, hand in work on time, and show up with something to say, with or without explicit prompting from me.  These are your most basic responsibilities.
Thus, I expect you to have done your reading and/or written work by the time you get to class (i.e. you will need to email written work to me BEFORE class starts).  I expect that you will be prepared to discuss the work you have done.  If you are confused by the reading or feel that you are in over your head, be prepared to ask questions or come to see me during my office hours.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

Generally, you will submit assignments via email by the Monday morning our class meets, which gives me time to read and respond to your responses before our class meets on Monday evening.  I will respond to most of your assignments electronically.

Short papers: Much of the writing you will do for this class will be short papers (1-2 pages, single or double-spaced) due by 9am on Mondays.  These will be graded A, A- or returned to you with comments so you can rewrite them for credit.
Hot Topics: You will write six “Hot Topics” papers on ONE of the two “hot topics” listed for class discussion below.  The topics for these 1-2 page papers vary, but whatever the topic my expectation is that these will be thoughtful, polished pieces of writing.  In my own work, I find that writing short, pithy pieces helps to develop my writing and thinking muscles like nothing else. I hope to pass that discipline on to you. Hot topics papers are due on Monday mornings, unless you are teaching your model class or writing your model class reflection; more on that below. 
Model Class Reflection: Reflective paper on your model class. How did it go? What worked? What didn’t? What surprised you? What was the biggest challenge for you? What might you change if you were to teach this again? This 1-2 page reflection is due on the Monday morning following your Model Class.
Pedagogy Statement: You will write a 2-3 page (single spaced) Pedagogy Statement that lays out your beliefs, goals, and approaches to teaching and learning.

Model Class: You will teach a 30-minute literature class in which you, as the teacher, teach the class, who play the students.  Your lesson should help to illuminate some aspect of the novel, play, or poetry we are reading during that section of the course.  You should draw on exercises in the Pocket Instructor for your model lesson. Do not duplicate an exercise we have already seen. The lesson will be followed by a debrief in which you can talk about what you hoped to get across to the students, and the students (now back in colleague mode) give you feedback on your lesson. You will then write a short paper reflecting on the experience.
The planning/activities you do for your model class may comprise part of your Unit Plan. The reflection may find its way into your Pedagogy Statement.

Unit Plan:  You will develop a ten-lesson unit plan for teaching one of our course texts in the middle, high school, or college classroom.  This assignment isn’t especially difficult, but it will require a good deal of time. You will want to start work on it before the middle of the semester, especially if you want to get feedback from me before you submit the final version.  Further instructions will follow.

Grading:        Short papers: 25%
                        Model Class: 20%
                        Final Portfolio (Unit Plan plus Pedagogy Statement): 35%
                        Participation (YW minilesson, daily participation): 20%
Attendance:  You must attend class in order to participate. Sometimes, absences are unavoidable, so you may miss one class without consequence to your grade. But for every class you miss after one class, your final grade in the class will drop by one-third (A becomes A-, A- becomes B+ etc).

Assignment Distribution:  We will read and discuss your responses to course assignments frequently this semester. Sometimes distribution of responses will happen via WISER; other assignments will be posted on the class blog.  Do pay attention to the specific instructions for each written assignment as these will vary over the course of the semester.

Communicating:
·      I look forward to meeting with you to discuss your work in the seminar. I am available to meet with you during my scheduled office hours and by appointment.  You can schedule an appointment with me via the English MA wiki: http://english-ma-program.wikispaces.umb.edu/Appointments. I am on campus on most Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, though this may change as the semester progresses. 
·      Email is generally the most convenient way to reach me, especially over a weekend. Please let me know if you will be unable to attend a class.  If you miss several classes and/or assignments by midterm, I will suggest that you drop the course. 
·      I will post any announcements or changes to the assignment calendar on the class blog and via email. Emails will come to you through WISER, which mails to your umb.edu account. If you don’t check your umb.edu account regularly, you should set up forwarding from the umb.edu account to the account you actually use.  Again, you should sign yourself up for updates (text, phone etc) from the University regarding campus closures—just in case!

Disability Accommodations:
Section 504 and the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 offer guidelines for curriculum modifications and adaptations for students with documented disabilities. Students may obtain adaptation recommendations from the Lillian Semper Ross Center (617 287-7430). They must present these recommendations to each professor by the end of the Add/Drop period.

Plagiarism and Academic Honesty:
The University Policy on Academic Standards and Cheating, which includes a lengthy definition and explanation of plagiarism and its consequences, may be found at the UMB registrar's web page (http://www.registrar.umb.edu/).  In brief, “students may not solicit or use unauthorized material or assistance for their own benefit and may not offer or give such assistance to another student. Every written report or similar class assignment must indicate fully the sources from which the information used is obtained, and any verbatim quotations or paraphrases must be clearly indicated as such and properly credited to the source form which they were extracted or adapted.” If you are at all uncertain about the meaning of plagiarism, please be sure to discuss it with me. 

SCHEDULE OF CLASSES, READINGS, AND ASSIGNMENTS

What follows is a brief outline of the term’s assignments, which I will amplify as the semester progresses.  Assignments will also be posted/updated on our class blog: http://engl611s17.blogspot.com/. Please be sure to check your email before you go to class to be sure that you haven’t missed any updates. 

Before Week One: Read The Yellow Wall-paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf


Week 1
M Jan 23: Introductions, Syllabus, Yellow Wall-Paper Intro
FOR NEXT CLASS:
Read: Blau, “Principles for Practice” and “Stories from the Classroom” (1-33); Curzan and DAmour chapters 1-3; Fuss and Gleason, Introduction; Filene, “Understanding Yourself as a Teacher” (handout). Also, scan the exercises in Fuss and Gleason and choose one for your minilesson. Read (or re-read The Yellow Wall-paper)
Prepare: your minilesson on The Yellow Wall-paper if you are in group 1.  You will have ten minutes in which you may teach or explain what you would like to do/get across to students.
Write: A 1-2 page response to some element or idea from this week’s reading. This response can be in notes or outline form, or it can be more polished if that’s your style. Please email it to me by 10 am on Monday, Jan 30 and bring it to class that evening.

Week 2
M Jan 30: Yellow Wall-Paper minilessons: Casey, Kassidy, Tricia, Amanda, Emily, Justin.
Reflections in light of readings: How is teaching literature similar to/different from other kinds of teaching we’ve done? What kinds of skills, attitudes, ideas might transfer from one setting to another?
Freewriting: What is it, where does the theory come from?
Practice: What’s the best literature lesson—not a literature course, but an individual day in class—you can remember?
Discussion of Model Classes, Hot Topics, and Unit Plan.
Scheduling model classes.
FOR Monday, February 6
Read: Blau, “Which Interpretation is the Right One?: A Workshop on Literary Meaning” (60-78), Peter Elbow, “Toward a Phenomenology of Freewriting,” https://wac.colostate.edu/jbw/v8n2/elbow.pdf 
Prepare: Prep your YW minilesson if you are in group two (Jordan, Matt, Halla, David, Molly, Clarissa).
Short Paper 1: Go back to the freewriting we did in class: What’s the best literature lesson—not a literature course, but an individual day in class—you can remember? What made it so good? How can you make that happen for somebody else?  Revise it into a more formal statement (1-2 pages) in light of some principle from our readings (focus on the reading for this week’s class) and your hopes for yourself as a teacher.
Please email this to me by 9am on Monday, Feb 6.

 Week 3
M Feb 6: Yellow Wall-paper minilessons: Molly, Clarissa, Halla, Matt, Jordan. discussion of Blau, teaching statements. Model class demonstration.
FOR NEXT CLASS:
Read: Blau, “From Telling to Teaching” (34-59), and Curzan/Damour chapter 3. Also read assigned poems (handout).
HW: Short Paper 2: Write a 1-2 page reflection on your minilesson in light of the class readings (focus on this week’s readings).  Please email this to me by 9am on Monday, Feb 13.
Prepare: Your lesson plan (if you are teaching on Feb 13).


Week 4

M Feb 13: CANCELLED DUE TO SNOW. 



For February 27

Read: Blau, “What’s Worth Saying About a Literary Text?” (123-150), and “Writing Assignments in Literature Classes,” (151-186); Curzan/Damour chapters 5 and 6. Read The Handmaid's Tale.

Write: Hot Topic Paper or Prep Model Class.

Please email Hot Topic paper to me by 9 am on Monday, Feb 27. For the Hot Topic paper, choose ONE of the two topics for next week’s discussion (“Owning” the Text/ Reading Journals (in any media)). If appropriate, refer to class readings (or do some research to find an article that addresses the topic to refer to in your paper).  

Prepare: Model lesson for 2/27 (Casey, Clarissa) You may also want to start thinking about your unit plan.



Week 5

M Feb 20 NO CLASS: Presidents’ Day Holiday.



Week 6: FICTION

M Feb 27: The Handmaid’s Tale

Model Lessons and Discussion: Casey, Clarissa

Hot topics: “Owning” the Text/Reading Journals (in any media)

FOR NEXT CLASS:

Read: Freire, Paolo, "The Banking Concept of Education." http://puente2014.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/87465079/freire_banking_concept.pdf; Ravitch, Diane, “Common Core Standards: Past, Present, Future.” Profession (22 January 2014)  http://profession.commons.mla.org/2014/01/22/common-core-standards-past-present-future/ ; Graff, Gerald, “Clarifying College Readiness: The Common Core State Standards.” Profession (22 January 2014)  http://profession.commons.mla.org/2014/01/24/clarifying-college-readiness/

Write: Hot Topic Paper (Banking vs. Problem Posing, Writing and the Common Core) or Model Class Reflection. Please email Hot Topic or Reflection paper to me by 9 am on Monday, March 6.

Prepare: Model Class for 3/6.



Week 7

M Mar 6: The Handmaid’s Tale

Model Lessons and Discussion: Jordan, Amanda

Hot topic: Writing and the Common Core

FOR NEXT CLASS

Read: Blau, “Where do Interpretations Come From?” (97-122); Curzan Chapters 4 and 5,
Discussion tips from Pedagogy Unbound: http://www.pedagogyunbound.com/tips-index/?category=Discussion

Write: Hot Topic Paper (Generating Discussion/Group Projects) or Model Class Reflection. Please email Hot Topic or Reflection paper to me by 9 am on Mon, March 20.

Prepare: Model Class for 3/20.



Week 8

M Mar 13: NO CLASS Spring Break

Read: A Thousand Splendid Suns; maybe also read A Comedy of Errors. Work on Unit Plan.  I will be around over spring break. If you want preliminary feedback on your unit plan--or just want to discuss it, please make an appointment to meet with me over the break.



Week 9

M Mar 20: Poetry plus A Thousand Splendid Suns. 

Model Lessons: Justin, Matt

Hot topics: Generating Discussion/Group Projects

FOR NEXT CLASS:

Read: Blau, “What’s Worth Saying About a Literary Text?” (123-150), and “Writing Assignments in Literature Classes,” (151-186); Curzan/Damour chapters 6 and 7; "Why I Started Grading First Drafts, and Why I Stopped." https://chroniclevitae.com/news/936-why-i-started-grading-first-drafts-and-why-i-stopped

Write: Hot Topic Paper (Planning Writing Assignments/

Grading Writing) or Model Class Reflection Please email Hot Topic or Reflection paper to me by 9 am on Monday, March 27.

Prep Model Class.



Week 10

M Mar 27: A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Model Lesson: Kassidy 

Hot topics: Planning Writing Assignments/Grading Writing

FOR NEXT CLASS:

HW:  Write Hot Topic Paper (Incorporating Performance/ Difficult Language) or Model Class Reflection

Prep Model Class for April 3. Please email Hot Topic paper to me by 9 am on Monday, April 3. 

Read: A Comedy of Errors. Karen Manarin, “Reading Value: Student Choice in Reading Strategies” Pedagogy (2012) 12(2): 281-297; Acting Company Comedy of Errors Teaching Guide: rhttp://theactingcompany.org/media/pdfs/Comedy2001.pdf



Week 11

M April 3: A Comedy of Errors

Model Lesson:  Halla, David

Hot Topics: Incorporating Performance/ Difficult Language

FOR NEXT CLASS:

Read: Blau The Foundations of Literary Knowledge (187-218), Karen Manarin, “Reading Value: Student Choice in Reading Strategies” Pedagogy (2012) 12(2): 281-297.

HW:  Write classroom activity for "Creative” Assignments or Incorporating Performance. Also, for Molly's lesson, please choose two characters in THE COMEDY OF ERRORS who do NOT get together romantically in the traditional plot, who you’d like to endorse as a romantic couple. Pick a passage of dialogue between these two characters that can support your argument that these two have romantic potential.  Please email assignment or reflection paper to me by 9 am on Monday, April 10.

Prep: Model Class for 4/10.



Week 12

M April 10: A Comedy of Errors. 

Model Lesson: Molly

Hot Topics: “Creative” Assignments/ Cultural capital in the classroom

FOR NEXT CLASS:


Write: Hot Topic Paper (Teaching Poetry) or Model Class Reflection. Please email Hot Topic or Reflection paper to me by 9 am on Monday, April 24.

Prep: Model Class for 4/24.

**If you want feedback on your unit plan, submit drafted material to me by Friday, April 21.**



Week 13

M April 17: NO CLASS: Patriots’ Day Holiday.  

Draft Pedagogy Statement; work on Unit Plan.



Week 14: POETRY

M April 24: Model Lessons: Emily, Tricia

Hot Topics: Teaching Poetry/The bottom 10%

FOR NEXT CLASS:

Write: Model Class Reflection (final teachers only).  Pedagogy Statements due by 9 am Monday, May 1.  Please bring these to class and be prepared to read them aloud. Read Weissman, "The Virtue of Misreadings," College English, Vol. 73, No. 1 (September 2010), pp. 28-49;  Helen Sword, "Teaching in Color: Multiple Intelligences in the Literature Classroom” Pedagogy Spring2007 7(2): 223-250.



Week 15

M May 1: Pedagogy Statements

FOR NEXT CLASS: Finish final portfolios.



Week 16

M May 8: Reflective Seminar/Evaluations/Final Portfolios Due


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