ENGLISH 365:
19th-Century British Poetry and Prose
SPRING 2004
Stephen C. Behrendt
319 Andrews
phone: 472-1806
office: 1230-130 TR and by appointment
Joy M. Currie
331 Andrews
phone: 472-1805
office: 1030-1130 MWF
TEXT: The Longman Anthology of British Literature, Second
Edition, Vols. 2A and 2B
The Course Portfolio
Overview
In many courses of this sort it has long been the tradition to require a research paper or project. Usually this project focuses on a single author, theme, feature, or context related to the period under study. But because this course covers a long historical period that includes a great many important figures and events (some of them literary and cultural, some of them not), it makes greater sense to us to require a project that involves and ongoing, day-to-day interaction with the materials we study and the contexts in which we study them. Therefore, we will require of you, instead of the standard research paper, a course portfolio consisting of two major components: (1) a set of reading notes, and (2) a supplementary research and study portfolio. These are described in what follows.
The Reading Notes
During the semester we will expect you to maintain a written record of your responses to our course materials and concerns in the form of an ongoing collection of reading notes. We will collect these from you at several points during the semester, on the dates indicated on the reading list, and will in each case return them promptly with brief responses to your notes, including any suggestions about ways to improve or otherwise modify them. Please note that these notes will become part of your course portfolio and will constitute approximately 20% of your overall course grade.
Because we cover a considerable amount of literary, historical, and cultural material during the duration of this course, it is important that you keep up-to-date notes on the reading and thinking you are doing with the assigned materials, both on their own and in relation to our work together as a class. The required reading notes offer a good way of helping you to think creatively and systematically about these matters, one that will help you to develop a coherent view of the literary and cultural history of Great Britain in the nineteenth century.
These notes will also provide a good source of preliminary material for the course research portfolio you will assemble as the semester proceeds. Indeed, you will probably find that the two parts of the portfolio actually form a sort of "dialogue" with one another and with the required course materials. You will definitely find that you will need to work on both parts of this project on a regular basis; this is not a project that can simply be pulled together at the last moment, when the crush of the semester is already creating considerable stress.
DO NOT simply hand in the notes you take in class as "reading notes." Reading notes are out-of-class written responses to the readings and, often, to the ways in which our class discussion alters or expands those initial private responses.
Format for the Reading Notes
You should maintain (and submit) your reading notes in some
sort of notebook form. Either a standard spiral or a loose-leaf binder will
do; if you work with a computer and printout, the binder is the obvious choice.
While the actual format of the reading notes is largely up to each you individually,
past students have found the following format to be especially helpful —
and easy to keep up with on a daily basis.
For each course day, make notes on that day's assigned reading. These notes
should include your responses to any or all of the assigned readings for the
day. You might simply record your initial reactions to and interpretations of
the readings themselves. Alternatively, you might speculate in your notes about
how any or all of these readings relate to subjects, themes, and other considerations
we have been exploring in the course. Or you may wish to write some about how
they relate to your own personal and professional interests and skills. We do,
however, expect that your notes will be primarily critical and interpretive,
and not just a superficial and impressionistic series of comments about whether
or not you "like" particular works.
We strongly suggest that your reading notes also build upon one another, so
that you will try to think about – and comment upon – each succeeding
author (and her or his works) within the context of the overall body of assigned
readings. This will help you begin to build up a complete "picture"
of the nineteenth-century British literary landscape.
Indeed, it would be very helpful to you if you would take some
time at least once every two weeks specifically to write about this "big
picture" that you should be developing from your readings and from our
class activities. You should consider commenting (where relevant) on the relationship
of the assigned readings to the outside reading you are doing for this course
and for any other framework that is relevant to your personal and professional
work (connections to things you are reading for other majors, for instance,
or for your individual personal development). The emphasis of this "big
picture" commentary should be upon the understanding you are developing
about nineteenth-century British literature in relation to other historical,
cultural, critical, and theoretical contexts. Working out these "big picture"
notes as you proceed through the course will prove helpful to you when it comes
to examinations, of course, but these notes will also help you develop a fuller
and more interdisciplinary way of thinking about our materials.
There is no set format for these notes, nor is there any particular "right"
way to do them. Nor do we expect that you will write about every assigned reading
every day. Be selective: keep the length of the notes manageable. But (BEWARE!)
Do not permit yourself to fall behind. Remember that these notes constitute
a physical demonstration of the extent to which you are (or are not) devoting
the serious and systematic investment of time and intellectual energy appropriate
to a course at this level.
The Research Portfolio
The "research portfolio" part of your portfolio represents an expanded set of study notes that you develop by consulting various sorts of research sources. You may go on-line, of course (remembering that many on-line sites are only as reliable as the persons who set them up, and that many contain vast numbers of errors of fact and inference). Ideally, your portfolio should include at least 50% of its materials from traditional print or other "hard" media sources (photographic reproductions, etc.). Think of the Course Portfolio -- which contains both your daily reading notes and your more elaborate collection of study materials -- as a personal study guide that matches this course to your own particular personal and career interests and expertise. Like the Reading Notes, the Research Portfolio will constitute approximately 20% of your final grade.
You may want to begin thinking about your Research Portfolio by considering the following suggestions about what the finished Portfolio should contain:
1. a cover letter or introductory statement that explains the form, format, and substance of the Portfolio as a whole. It should say why you have chosen to follow the direction you have followed, what principles guided your research and your selection of materials to include, and what you see as the relationship among all these materials (including your reading notes) and the course as a whole. In practical terms, this statement should tell us what to expect in the Portfolio, including why the materials you have chosen are important, both for you personally and for the "picture" they help to draw of the course, its authors, its themes, and its contexts as you see them.
2.a table of contents that identifies each component in the Portfolio in the order in which they appear.
3. a set of research and study materials that reflect your individual efforts better and more fully to understand the materials and the cultural history covered by this course. These materials may take many forms: essays and articles, visual materials, downloaded materials, original work, etc. For each item, you should provide the following information:
a. the exact source of the materials (give complete bibliographical citations for print and visual materials, complete URLs for Internet downloads);
b. a brief statement explaining why you consider the selected item important enough -- or interesting enough -- for inclusion; and
c. another brief comment on the item's relation to the "angle" on the course you are developing in your own work and approach.
4. a summary statement that explains what the value of this entire Course Portfolio project has been to you. What have you learned? What did you discover that you might not have expected (including about your own interests and abilities)? What (if any) additional questions or areas of inquiry have emerged that you have not had time to pursue?
Submitting the Course Portfolio
The course syllabus indicates three points during the semester
for submitting your reading notes. In addition, we will be happy to have a look
at your Research Portfolio at any time in the semester, if you wish, to give
you feedback on what you have collected and prepared to that point. Your
complete Course Portfolio will be due in class on Tuesday, 27 April,
to permit us to return it to you at our last meeting so that you will have it
available as you study for the Final Examination.