ENG 144 Shakespeare

Announcements
03/01/05 -	class cancelled, Tue., 3/1. still responsible for keeping up with reading schedule (through Act V of Merchant of Venice for Thu.).
02/21/05 -	reading schedule updated for rest of semester
01/27/05 - -	schedule updated with readings for February Christina Russo added to Hamlet group (#?)
01/26/05 -	scene project groups added
03/01/05 -	schedule added; meeting days corrected.

Catalog Number: A ENG 144
Class Number: 2362
Semester: spring 2005
Meeting: TTh 10:15AM-11:35:AM, Education 125
Instructor: Daniel Gremmler
Office: HU 364
Office Hours: TTh 1-2pm
Phone: 442-2648
E-mail: [email protected]
Web Site: https://www.albany.edu/faculty/dg6349/ENG144_SP05/

Course Description & Requirements

Description

ENG 144L is an introduction to the variety of Shakespearean genres�comedy, history, tragedy, romance, and sonnets�in light of both their Renaissance context and their relevance to contemporary issues. This course is intended for non-majors and underclassmen planning on becoming English majors. The course will begin with an introduction to the life and times of the author. Then we will read six or seven of his major works. Students will be required to read assigned primary and secondary readings (obviously), perform group-scene projects, write a creative piece using characters from the plays we read in class, become familiar with the library and literary periodicals, write a research paper, take periodic reading quizzes, and complete any daily assignments (e.g., 1-2 page response papers, discussion questions, etc.). Works that we will explore include Midsummer Night's Dream, Taming of the Shrew, Merchant of Venice, Richard III, Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, The Tempest.

General Education Requirements

ENG 144L fulfills the General Education requirement for the Humanities. As such, it meets the following criteria:

Characteristics of all General Education Courses

1. General Education courses offer introductions to the central topics of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields.
2. General Education courses offer explicit rather than tacit understandings of the procedures, practices, methodology and fundamental assumptions of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields.
3. General Education courses recognize multiple perspectives on the subject matter.
4. General Education courses emphasize active learning in an engaged environment that enables students to be producers as well as consumers of knowledge.
5. General Education courses promote critical inquiry into the assumptions, goals, and methods of various fields of academic study; they aim to develop the interpretive, analytic, and evaluative competencies characteristic of critical thinking.

Learning Objectives for General Education Humanities Courses

Humanities courses teach students to analyze and interpret texts, ideas, artifacts, and discourse systems, and the human values, traditions, and beliefs that they reflect.

1. Humanities courses enable students to demonstrate knowledge of the assumptions, methods of study, and theories of at least one of the disciplines within the humanities.

ENG 144L will enable students to demonstrate the following:
2. an understanding of the objects of study as expressions of the cultural contexts of the people who created them
3. an understanding of the continuing relevance of the objects of study to the present and to the world outside the university
4. an ability to employ the terms and understand the conventions particular to the discipline
5. an ability to analyze and assess the strengths and weaknesses of ideas and positions along with the reasons or arguments that can be given for and against them
6. an understanding of the nature of the texts, artifacts, ideas, or discourse of the discipline and of the assumptions that underlie this understanding, including those relating to issues of tradition and canon

Texts

Students are expected to have the specified text. Please note that there are a myriad of different texts available. I very specifically chose the Norton Shakespeare. Readings from that text will be assigned that do not appear in any other Shakespeare collections. Additionally, different collections of Shakespeare present students with variations in the texts. This affects page and line references, but it seriously affects certain plays rather than others. Specifically, we will be reading the Folio version of Lear. Most Shakespeare collections do not include this particular text.

Course Requirements

Grading

Attendance

Students are expected to attend all classes and all examinations and to complete all course requirements on time.

Faculty have the prerogative of developing an attendance policy whereby attendance and/or participation is part of the grade. As noted in the following section, �Syllabus Requirement,� instructors are obliged to announce and interpret all course requirements, including specific attendance policies, to their classes at the beginning of the term; an instructor may modify this or other requirements in the syllabus but �must give notice in class of any modification� and must do so �in a timely fashion.�

Students will not be excused from a class or an examination or completion of an assignment by the stated deadline except for a compelling reason. Students who miss a class period, a final or other examination, or other obligations for a course (fieldwork, required attendance at a concert, etc.) must notify the instructor or the Dean of Undergraduate Studies of that compelling reason and must do so in a timely fashion.

Although the Office of Undergraduate Studies provides letters to instructors asking that students with compelling reasons be granted consideration in completing their work, faculty are strongly encouraged to use their best judgment when students have appropriate documentation for legitimate absences and not to rely on Undergraduate Studies when it is not necessary.

If the student foresees a time conflict in advance that will prevent attendance at a class or examination or completion of an assignment, the student is expected to bring this to the attention of the instructor or the Dean of Undergraduate Studies as soon as the conflict is noted. In the case of an unforeseen event, the student is expected to notify the instructor or the Dean of Undergraduate Studies at the student�s first opportunity to do so after the fact.

This timeliness is important since if the reason cited by the student is not considered a sufficient excuse, the student will need to know this as soon as possible. Even if the reason warrants granting the excuse, a student�s delay in contacting the instructor or the Dean of Undergraduate Studies may make it more difficult for the University to assist the student with acceptable options of making up the work that was missed.

My policy is simple enough: you're allowed to miss two weeks of class without penalty. This semester, that translates into 4 classes. A fifth absence will result in a 10% drop of your overall grade in the course (the equivalent of a "full letter grade," i.e., an A would become a B).

I don't care why a student is absent. The fact of the absence does not change. This means that even if you have a compelling reason to miss class (i.e., a reason that either myself or the Dean's Office approves), that still counts as an absence. Pay attention; this is where it gets tricky: absences for compelling reasons alone will not result in a grade penalty. In the unlikely event of 5 excused absences, a student will not be penalized a letter grade. However, any combination of excused and unexcused absences WILL result in a grade penalty. I don't care if you have 1 excused and 4 unexcused or 4 excused and just 1 unexcused. The fact of the matter is that ANY unexcused absence is one too many. My concern is that a person missing more than two weeks of class time isn't participating in the course.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is probably the highest 'crime' one could commit in the academic community. Below is the University's definition of plagiarism as defined in the Undergraduate Bulletin:

Presenting as one�s own work the work of another person (for example, the words, ideas, information, data, evidence, organizing principles, or style of presentation of someone else). Plagiarism includes paraphrasing or summarizing without acknowledgment, submission of another student�s work as one�s own, the purchase of prepared research or completed papers or projects, and the unacknowledged use of research sources gathered by someone else. Failure to indicate accurately the extent and precise nature of one�s reliance on other sources is also a form of plagiarism. The student is responsible for understanding the legitimate use of sources, the appropriate ways of acknowledging academic, scholarly, or creative indebtedness, and the consequences for violating University regulations.

EXAMPLES OF PLAGIARISM INCLUDE: failure to acknowledge the source(s) of even a few phrases, sentences, or paragraphs; failure to acknowledge a quotation or paraphrase of paragraph-length sections of a paper; failure to acknowledge the source(s) of a major idea or the source(s) for an ordering principle central to the paper�s or project�s structure; failure to acknowledge the source (quoted, paraphrased, or summarized) of major sections or passages in the paper or project; the unacknowledged use of several major ideas or extensive reliance on another person�s data, evidence, or critical method; submitting as one�s own work, work borrowed, stolen, or purchased from someone else.

When a faculty member has information that a student has violated academic integrity in a course or program for which he or she is responsible and determines that a violation has occurred, he or she will inform the student and impose an appropriate sanction. A faculty member may make any one or a combination of the following responses to the infractions cited above:

Warning without further penalty; requiring rewriting of a paper containing plagiarized material; lowering of a paper or project grade by one full grade or more; giving a failing grade on a paper containing plagiarized material; giving a failing grade on any examination in which cheating occurred; withholding permission to withdraw from the course after a penalty has been imposed; lowering a course grade by one full grade or more; giving a failing grade in a course; imposing a penalty uniquely designed for the particular infraction.

If a willful act of plagiarism comes to my attention, the offending student will be failed immediately. That means failure of the course, not just the particular assignment. If I deem the incident unintentional, then I will require the assignment to be resubmitted, provide an alternate assignment, and/or lower the grade of the particular assignment accordingly.