English 202A: Introduction to Poetry
Fall 2015
English 202A:
Introduction to Poetry
Fall 2015
Stephen C. Behrendt
319 Andrews; 472-1806
Office: 1030-1120 MWF
and by appointment
Email Dr. Behrendt
Kazimir Malevich, Still Life (1913)
The Broadview Anthology of Poetry. eds. Herbert Rosengarten and Amanda Goldrick-Jones (Broadview P)
Shira Wolosky. The Art of Poetry (Oxford UP)
This course offers an introduction to reading and understanding poetry. We will pay special attention to the techniques that distinguish poetry from other forms of writing, and to some of the ways in which poets adapt traditional forms to address various historical and cultural circumstances. We will focus primarily upon poetry of the last century and a half, but in doing so we will look also at older poems to discover what they can tell us in 2015 about the history of poetry in English and about the aesthetic, historical, cultural and intellectual traditions that are embedded in that poetry and in the poetry of the present.
Achievement Centered Education (ACE)
By passing this course, you will fulfill ACE Learning Outcome 5: “Use knowledge, historical perspectives, analysis, interpretation, critical evaluation, and the standards of evidence appropriate to the humanities to address problems and issues.” Your work will be evaluated by the instructor according to the specifications described in this syllabus. At the end of the term, you may be asked to provide samples of your work for ACE assessment as well.
Opportunities to achieve this outcome:
The aim of English 202A is to introduce you to the knowledge, theories, and methods necessary for understanding recent poetry in English, 1950 to the present. You can expect to be introduced to some of the most esteemed and honored poets of the past 60+ years, as well as to many whose names may be unfamiliar to you, including your student peers. Poems are not written by “famous people” to puzzle students or to provide test questions in English classes; they belong to our daily experience of both familiar and unfamiliar things. Students sometimes suppose that poetry is always such a personal thing that there can never be “answers” which are right or wrong. That is only partly correct, because poems stimulate and exercise all of our personal resources and intellectual skills, asking us to engage with each poem rather than merely observing it passively. In this course we will do these things both individually, on our own, and as a group.
Opportunities to demonstrate achievement of this outcome:
I approach poems from a variety of perspectives, and with different questions in mind, as you will see. Especially during the first weeks of the course, I will do this to model for you some of the ways we can approach poetry in a serious and systematic way. And I will ask each of you to do the same sort of thing, which will become easier and more productive as you become comfortable with the course, with me, with one another, and with reading poems generally. I expect to have us do some group work as well as regular individual contributions and commentary in our class sessions. I will expect you to build upon these early foundational exercises, and to help lead us in new directions where new approaches, theories or ways of thinking may be called for. You will also do some graded formal writing in 202A, as indicated on the schedule; generally you will work with one or more poems. The final exam is intended to test your ability to apply the knowledge, theories, and methods you have learned in the course.
More specifically, after this course you should be able to:
- Read a variety of poetic texts, comprehend both literal and figurative meanings, and offer compelling interpretations of them.
- Identify larger themes, structures, poetic devices, and rhetorical patterns in texts.
- Place and interpret texts within a discursive tradition and within broader cultural and historical contexts.
- Read poetry aloud with confidence and grace.
In determining course grades, I will evaluate you on your ability to:
- Express an understanding of complex poems.
- Produce a valid interpretation of what you have read, using one or more of the following modes of interpretation: formal, generic, thematic, historical, cultural.
- Write clearly and effectively.
- Communicate verbally with clarity, conciseness, and civility.
Electronics-Free environment
Unless you have a documented disability, you may not use laptops, tablets, or other electronic devices during our class meetings. This rule will ensure your courtesy to one another and to me. Our sessions are short; you will probably discover that you can survive being off line for fifty minutes.Attendance, preparation and participation
Attendance is imperative, not optional! Although I will generally not take formal attendance, repeated absences and serial tardiness will affect your participation grade and will of course impact your performance on examinations. If you must miss class for a legitimate reason, please let me know ASAP. I will expect you to be responsible for all reading and discussion material covered in any class meetings that you miss.If you miss three class meetings your absences will successfully attract my attention, and if you miss four or more class meetings you can expect no better than a C in the class participation portion of your course grade.
Please come to class with all the assigned reading completed in advance, be ready to share your ideas about it – and listen attentively to the ideas of others. If you come to class clearly unprepared, I will count that against your class participation grade. You need to bring your own copies of the assigned readings to class; this includes both our printed textbooks and any handouts I distribute in class or any material I post in the “Course Documents” folder on the Blackboard site.
Your class participation grade will reflect your attendance, your willingness and ability to engage positively in class activities, and your regular contributions during class and on out-of-class projects. On contributing verbally: every little bit matters—from small, brief contributions to the discussion, to significantly larger prominent ones. Your overall course grade can be helped, but it will not fall due to your shyness about speaking in class, as long as you have attended regularly and contributed positively to our work as a group in other ways. Of course your participation in any civil discussion requires tactfulness, sensitivity, and careful listening. If you have any questions or concerns about your ability to contribute to discussions, please come speak with me so that we can work out strategies for your participation.
The reading load for this class is relatively light. You should take advantage of the relative brevity of the assigned poems by reading them more than once before class. Practice reading them out loud if possible: I may ask you to read in class, so you should familiarize yourself with the nuances of each assigned poem. Don’t worry about being nervous; I know that reading poetry aloud can be intimidating, and we will address that “intimidation factor” as part of this course. In case you are interested in knowing more about any of the individual poets we are studying, there are vast quantities of information available on line and easily accessed with some creative googling. Just remember, though, that not all online materials and sources are reliable. My best advice is to rely first upon your own good sense.
Late submission policy
Whenever you submit any assignment, that assignment will lose 1/3 of a letter grade for each day of the week (not each class day) that the assignment is late.
In any writing that you do for this course (and for every other course you are taking), you must cite the source for any and all writing that you have taken from “outside” sources like books, published essays, articles, and book chapters; newspapers and other periodicals; and any online or other digital sources, including video and audio files. This requirement applies both to direct quotations (which you should indicate by using quotation marks) and indirect references, paraphrases, or summaries. Any time you use material that is not your own, whether quoted directly or paraphrased or summarized, and you fail to cite the source from which you’ve taken it, you are plagiarizing. You should also cite primary sources (like the texts of poems you write about) such as textbooks, handouts, and online sources.
Understanding plagiarism
Properly acknowledging the work of others is part of the process of generating new knowledge through honest effort, and doing so will earn you the respect and esteem of your professors, colleagues and professional peers.
As students and scholars, we are constantly engaging with other people's ideas: we read them in texts, hear them in lecture, discuss them in class and encounter them on the web. Inevitably, we are influenced by the ideas of others and incorporate them into our own thinking and writing. To facilitate the free and honest exchange of ideas among scholars, we are expected give credit to those from whom we borrow words, images or ideas.
In simplest terms, writers must distinguish their own words from the words of others by placing the words of others within quotation marks, and by giving appropriate citations to the sources of quoted text. Neglecting to do so is plagiarism: stealing the words, images or ideas of others without clearly acknowledging the source of that information. It is academic shoplifting, in other words, and it is patently dishonest and disrespectful.
The prohibition of plagiarism is not unique to educational institutions. If the expression of an idea is recorded in any way or fixed in some medium — such as a piece of writing, drawing, photograph, painting, or web page — it is considered intellectual property and is protected by U.S. Copyright Law. To plagiarize is to steal the property of someone else; it is actually a blatant infringement of the law and can be legally punishable. Think of how businesses (and universities) protect their products, names, slogans, and logos from use by unauthorized persons or companies. It’s the same issue.
Plagiarism in any form, however minor, is a violation of the UNL Student Code of Conduct, section B.1.1c, which defines plagiarism as: “Presenting the work of another as one's own (i.e., without proper acknowledgment of the source) and submitting examinations, theses, reports, speeches, drawings, laboratory notes or other academic work in whole or in part as one's own when such work has been prepared by another person or copied from another person.” If you are discovered to have plagiarized, you will normally fail the assignment; instructors are, however, permitted to fail students who plagiarize for the entire course and they are strongly encouraged by the administration to report all violations of the plagiarism policy to the office of Student Judicial Affairs.
If you have questions about the proper way to cite someone else's words or ideas in your own writing, ask me or contact an adviser in the Writing Assistance Center, 115 Andrews Hall, 402-472-8803.When to give credit
To avoid plagiarizing, give credit every time you:
- use or refer to another person’s idea, opinion or theory that has been published in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium
- cite or state any facts or statistics that are not common knowledge
- quote another person’s exact spoken or written words, either taken from the media listed above or heard first hand through conversation, interview or email (and these words must be placed within quotation marks)
- reprint (or use as a basis for graphics you create) any graphics, illustrations or pictures from any of the media listed earlier
- paraphrase another person’s spoken or written words
You can contact me by email at sbehrendt1@unl.edu or by using the email link on Blackboard. I watch my email pretty closely, so I will normally respond to your messages pretty quickly. I can’t stress enough just how important it is for you to communicate with me—especially if you have questions and problems. I will be much more understanding and lenient if you give me a heads-up in advance about any problems or questions. Please do be in touch.
Writing is always a process of learning and everyone needs assistance. None of us, you or me, ever get to the point at which our writing is so good – so perfect – that we no longer need any help or advice. Trust me about this! You can always ask me about anything having to do with your writing; probably it’s best to do this in person at my office. Just contact me for an appointment; I am around Andrews Hall a lot more than just at my “official” office hours, and we can work out a mutually convenient time to chat.
If you need help with writing projects for this class ― or for any class you are taking ― I encourage you to visit the Writing Assistance Center in Andrews Hall (402-472-8803), where you can arrange for one-on-one help from a writing tutor who can assist you with any aspect of the writing or editing process. Go early, so that you can get an appointment for help before it gets to be “crunch time.” You will find that the Writing Center people are friendly, open, and happy to assist you; they make no judgements about you as a person or as a student, but simply want to help you to put your best self forward when it comes to your writing.
Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) provides individualized academic support for students with documented disabilities. Support services can include extended test time, textbooks and handouts in alternative formats (electronic texts, Braille, taped texts, etc), classroom notes, sign language interpreters, and transcriptionists. SSD not only accommodates students that have visible disabilities, but students with other varying types of disabilities that impact college life. If you have a documented disability that is impacting your academic progress, please call SSD at 472-3787 and schedule an appointment. If you do not have a documented disability but you are having difficulties with your coursework (such as receiving low grades even though you study more than your classmates or find you run out of time for test questions when the majority of your peers finish their exams in the allotted time), you may schedule an appointment to discuss the challenges you are experiencing.
I encourage any student with disabilities to contact SSD for a confidential discussion of her or his individual needs for academic accommodation. I will also be happy to chat confidentially with anyone about how to take advantage of SSD’s services. It is the policy of the University of Nebraska - Lincoln to provide flexible and individualized accommodation to students with documented disabilities that may affect their ability to fully participate in course activities or to meet course requirements. To receive accommodation services, students must be registered with the services for students with Disabilities (SSD) office, 132 Canfield Administration Building (see contact numbers above).