an eiland distance education course

Course Calendar & Presentations

portrait of Brothers Grimm

How To Use The Course Calendar
Using all of this information requires a bit of organization, so follow these general instructions. For each week, begin by reading assigned work from the hard text. There will be rhetoric and source material from Hallett and Karasek. The works themselves, listed by title and author, are primarily on the internet or handed out in class. You are then to view the Web pages for the authors and topics for that week, listed as a link on the English Internet Resource List section of the Web site (not all are covered). That means all you have to do is click on the colored (usually blue) label of the name or address of the site. Following that, read the online presentation of the format strategy for the week (Org & Outline, Quoting Your Sources, How To Take A Test, etc.). You are also required to read the thematic presentation for that week in Online Presentations (Character, Theme, Irony, etc.). Finally, read Questions for Reading and Writing. This will allow you to follow the schedule and be topical in the classroom. Read the directions. Assignments and due dates for papers and tests are announced in class. Most of this syllabus is self-explanatory. The following is a plan for the semester.

Tentative Schedule

Week 1
Introduction
ASSIGNMENT:
  • Writing About Literature,
  • Poetry
  • Roots of Children’s Literature, 15-26
  • What I Expect on Out of Class Papers
  • MLA Formatting

Week 2
ASSIGNMENT:
  • Formalist Criticism,
  • Moral Stories, 235-267

Week 3
ASSIGNMENT: Same Old Story, Different Skew
  • Secondary Sources
  • Argumentation
  • Grimm, The Blue Light vs. Andersen, The Tinderbox
  • Grimms, The Goose Girl vs. Donoghue, The Tale of the Handkerchief
  • Jacobs, The Story of the Three Little Pigs vs. Garner, The Three Little Pigs

Week 4
ASSIGNMENT : The Heroic (MALE) Child ,

Week 5
ASSIGNMENT: Bad, Bad Man , 220-222
  • Psychoanalytic Criticism
  • Perrault, Bluebeard,
  • Grimm, Rumplestiltskin

Week 6
ASSIGNMENT: Girls, Girls, Girls:
France: Perrault
  • Reader Response Criticism
  • Perrault
  • Little Red Riding Hood (pt. 1) 27-26

Week 7
ASSIGNMENT: Girls, Girls, Girls:
  • Little Red Riding Hood (pt. 2) 47-62

Week 8
ASSIGNMENT: Girls, Girls, Girls: (cont.)
  • Deconstruction/Post-Structuralist Criticism
  • Sleeping Beauty, 63-93

Week 9
ASSIGNMENT: Girls, Girls, Girls: (cont.)
  • New Historicism, Marxist, and Myth Criticisms
  • Cinderella, 94-138

Week 10
ASSIGNMENT: Girls, Girls, Girls: (cont.)
Germany: The Brothers Grimm
Damsels in Distress, 139-142
  • Grimm, Snow White
  • Grimm, Rapunzel

Week 11
ASSIGNMENT: Girls, Girls, Girls: (cont.)
Damsels Taking Charge,
  • Block,Wolf,
  • Marquez, Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane,
  • Maitland, Wicked Stepmother's Lament

Week 12
ASSIGNMENT:
Usin' Yer Noggin, 204-206
  • Grimm, Brave Little Taylor,
  • Jacobs, Molly Whuppie
  • Perrault, Puss in Boots
  • Lester, Death of Brer Wolf

Week 13
ASSIGNMENT: The 20th Century

Week 14
ASSIGNMENT:
  • PRESENTATIONS
  • Outline for Term Paper due
  • Note Cards for Term Paper due
  • Modern Tales, 290-314

Week 15
Term Paper due/Final Test Prep
  • PRESENTATIONS

Week 16
Finals Week: Final Exam

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Questions for Reading and Writing

Something to keep in mind in your essays for this class:

Be able to answer these four questions somewhere in the context of your essay. Please don't merely list the answers... make them part of your general discussion of the work.

  1. What is the message? Clearly state it and support your response from the text itself. There can be more than one answer.
  2. Who is the speaker of the message? Be as specific as you can. This is NOT necessarily the author. Authors will create characters or "voices" to tell a story or give a viewpoint. In lyrics, this often makes singer appear to be a different person than they really are or hold different values than they really do. In drama, that is all you get... all characters, no narrator.
  3. Who is the audience of the message? There can be more than one, often linked to the message...or a single message may have different audiences wits the audience of the message? There can be more than one, often linked to the message...or a single message may have different audiences with different expected results. Again, be specific and use text for support.
  4. What methods does author use? Be specific, using terms from ENGL 101 -- irony, symbolism, theme, conflict -- and new terms from this course.
    • In poetry, the use of meter and rhyme and condensation of ideas into brief images is common.
    • In drama, the use of character, dialogue and setting are often important.
    • In literature, all of these aspects may be factors.
Once you've gotten this information into your paper, then we apply the critical approaches to discuss HOW EFFECTIVELY the message was delivered by author.

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© T. T. Eiland, December 5, 2005
Last modified: February 17, 2009