Meeting Times, Location, & Course Delivery Details
Contact Information
Textbook
Name: Beowulf
Edition: Translated by Seamus Heaney
ISBN:978-0393320978
Author:
Publisher:
The Tempest
Folger Library edition
978-0743482837
William Shakespeare
Oroonoko
Penguin
Aphra Behn
978-0140439885
To foster critical thinking, reading, and writing skills To develop more advanced skills in literary and cultural analysis. To introduce students to medieval, Renaissance, Restoration, and eighteenth-century British literature.
Tentative Schedule
Subject to change during the semester. Adequate notice of changes will be given.
dnesday, 8/26—Middle ages introduction and poems, commonplace book demonstration
Friday, 8/28--Beowulf, part one
Monday, 8/31--Beowulf, part two
Wednesday9/2-- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, part one
Friday, 9/4--Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, parts two and three
Monday, 9/7—no class--Labor Day
Wednesday, 9/9—Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, part 4
Friday, 9/11-Marie de France, Lanval, Arthurian wrap up
Monday,9/14—Marie de France, Bisclavret
Wednesday, 9/16-Chaucer, "Miller’s Tale"
Friday, 9/18—Chaucer, "Wife of Bath’s Prologue"
Monday, 9/21—"Wife of Bath’s Tale”
Wednesday,9/23—Synthesis exercise in class
Friday, 9/25--Thesis workshop; York mystery plays
Monday, 9/28—peer editing of paper 1 in class
Wednesday, 9/30—Renaissance intro and the sonnet, Paper 1 due
Friday,10/2— Wyatt and Sidney—Court poetry
Monday, 10/5--Tempest, Acts 1-2
Wednesday, 10/7—Tempest, Act 3
Friday, 10/9—Tempest, Act 4
Monday, 10/12--Tempest, Act 5
Wednesday, 10/14—Carpe Diem poems
Friday, 10/16—Mid-term exam in class
onday, 10/19—Fall Break--no class
Wednesday, 10/21—Poems TBA
Friday, 10/23—Poems TBA
Monday, 10/26—Religious poems
Wednesday, 10/28—Metaphysical poets
Friday, 10/30—Genesis chapters, Paradise Lost Book 1
Monday, 11/2—Paradise Lost, Book 2
Wednesday, 11/4 --Paradise Lost highlights
Friday,11/6—Restoration lecture
Monday, 11/9—Restoration drama
Wednesday, 11/11—Restoration drama
Friday, 11/13-- Rochester and Behn poems/Swift and Montague
Monday, 11/16-- Oroonoko
Wednesday,11/18-- Oroonoko
Friday, 11/20—Print Culture--Tatler, Spectator, and Female Spectator; Defoe, Pepys, Montague, etc,
Monday, 11/23—Writing Workshop in class
Wednesday, 11/25— No Class--Thanksgiving
Friday, 11/27— No Class--Thanksgiving
Monday,11/30— Novel Tasting and Rambler #4
Wednesday, 12/2— Swift, “A Modest Proposal” and Peer Editing in class
Friday, 12/4— Pomfret, “The Choice,” Watts and Cowper poems
12/7-- Goldsmith, Crabbe, and Gray
12/9--Final Review
The grading scale will be as follows: A 94-100 A-90-93 B+87-89 B 83-86 B-80-82 C+77-79 C 73-76 C-70-72 D+65-69 D 60-64 F 59 . . .
Instructor Course Policies
CLASS ATTENDANCE
The success of this class depends on commitment and mutual support. Regular attendance is expected, and absences can affect your grade. Students who must miss class for any reason should notify me as far in advance as possible and make sure that any assignments are handed in before class. Because a great deal of writing
assignments will be done in class, it is important to make sure you keep up with what is happening in the class. I will track attendance in Blackboard so you know where you stand. You should make sure that doctor’s appointments, sporting events, and other commitments are scheduled at a different time. If you know you will miss class, make sure to contact me and other class members to discuss missing work. You will also be responsible for getting notes and changes to the syllabus from your classmates. You will need to be assiduous about participating in discussions and revision exercises.
WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY?
“A meta-analysis of the relationship between class attendance in college and college grades reveals that attendance has strong relationships with class grades (k = 69, N = 21,195, ρ = .44) and GPA (k = 33, N = 9,243, ρ = .41). . . . class attendance [is] a better predictor of college grades than any other known predictor of academic performance, including scores on standardized admissions tests such as the SAT, high school GPA, study habits, and study skills”
Credé, Marcus, et al. "Class Attendance in College." Review of Educational
Research, Volume 80, Issue 2, 1 June 2010, https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654310362998.
Accessed 8 Jan. 2026.
“A new paper indicates that giving college students more autonomy leads to better attendance and improved performance. In one experiment, students were given the choice to make their own attendance mandatory . . . 90% of students in the initial study chose to do so, committing themselves to attending class reliably or to having their final grades docked. Under this . . . policy, students came to class more reliably.”
Kish, Stacy. “More Freedom Can Boost College Student Attendance and Learning,”
Futurity, 30 July 2024, https://www.futurity.org/autonomy-college-student-attendance-
performance-3242402/. Accessed 8 Jan. 2026.
SO . . . YOUR CHOICE
Attendance policy tracks
A) Optional—Attendance will not affect your grade
B) Mandatory-- You can miss 4 classes with no penalty and no explanation needed. If you miss 4 classes or less, you get a 3% bump to your final grade. If you miss more than 4 classes, you get a 3% deduction from final grade.
C) Modified Mandatory—You can have 2 unexcused absences (excused absences are—a college-sanctioned event like a lobbying trip, field trip, athletic game. This means that you will need an email from the Athletic Department, your instructor, or a doctor’s note for illness). If you have 2 unexcused absences or less, you get a 3% bump to your final grade. If you have more than 2 unexcused classes, you get a 3% deduction from final grade.
The unauthorized use of chatGPT and any generative AI tool (including many aspects of sites like Grammarly and Quillbot) is expressly forbidden for this class and will be considered plagiarism and reported accordingly.
Institutional and Program-Level Policies
All exams will follow the Final Exam Schedule. Students scheduled to take three or more final examinations on one day may request to arrange their examination schedule, so no more than two exams occur on one day.
Requests for early or late exams are considered only under extreme circumstances. Prior to the exam period, the student must file a written request on the Early/Late Exam Form available in the Student One Stop Center, Academic Records, and on the WC portal. The form must be signed by the Instructor and the Academic Dean, approving the alternate exam time. This process must be completed prior to the scheduled exam period.
Undergraduate: FA26 Final Exam Schedule
Out-of-class Work Expectation A minimum of 2 hours of out-of-class student work is expected for each hour of in-class time for traditional face-to-face courses. For online and hybrid courses, the combination of face-to-face time and out-of-class work should be equal to 3 hours per credit hour per week. |
Instructional Course Delivery Definition of Courses |
Academic Integrity Policy The use of generative AI is prohibited except where expressly allowed in assignment instructions. Academic Integrity Policy |
Class Attendance Policy Institutional Class Attendance Policy |