Course Description: This course will provide an introduction to poetry, myth, essay, fiction, and drama, as well as certain skills which are essential for interpreting literature and writing a research paper.

Required Texts:

— Keating and Levy, Lives Through Literature: A Thematic Anthology

— A good college-level dictionary

— A Writer's Reference, Diana Hacker. St. Martin’s/Bedford.

— Parable of the Sower. Octavia Butler. Warner pb.

Other Required Materials

— a folder for response writings, to be used only for the work of this class. Note: Please keep your responses to Butler in a separate pocket of the folder.

— a family photograph to write Paper II from.

Course Outline:

Read each assignment before the week noted, including questions after each reading. Write a one-page response to each reading. After class, write at least two pages expanding your ideas about each reading. I will look at your response folders during the weeks marked with an asterisk. In addition, there may be quizzes on the readings.

Week 1: Before "Fiction": Folktale, Ballad, Myth

"The Story of Cain and Abel"
"Cinderella" (Grimms' story, Bettelheim's commentary)
"My Son David," Traditional Border Ballad. Instructor will sing.

Week 2: Focus on Fiction

"I Stand Here Ironing," Olsen

"Everyday Use," Walker,
"In Georgia’s Swept Yards, a Dying Tradition," Anne Raver. New York Times. August 8, 1993. (handout)

Week 3: A Story and a Theory

ML von Franz, "The Realization of the Shadow,"
"The Rich Brother," Tobias Woolf

*Week 4: Introduction to Parable of the Sower.

Week 5: Introduction to the Essay

Maxine Hong Kingston, "The Woman Warrior..."
"Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter," Simone de Beauvoir
"Sisters and Brothers," Lyly Hayslip
"El Doctor," Julia Alvarez

PAPER I DUE WEDNESDAY

Week 6: Paired Readings: Essay/Fiction

"Teacher Wei"
"Raymond Carver: A Still Small Voice," McInerney
"Cathedral," Raymond Carver

*Week 7: Parable of the Sower.

Week 8: Essay, continued. "Marrying Absurd," Didion.

MIDTERM

Week 9: Introduction to Poetry—PAPER II DUE

Glück, "Gretel in Darkness"
Capetanakis, "Abel"
Heaney, "Midterm Break"

Week 10: Paired Readings: Poetry/Myth

Hayden, "O Daedalus, Fly Away Home"
Rukeyser, "Waiting for Icarus"
Reid, "Daedalus"
"The Myth of Daedalus and Icarus"
Roethke, "My Papa's Waltz"

*Week 11: Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler

VIDEO: "Apocalypse and Utopia," Critical Art Ensemble

FOCUS ON DRAMA

Weeks 12: PAPER III DUE

"True West," Sam Shepherd, Act I. Excerpt from Uta Hagen's Challenge to the Actor. Handout.

Week 13: "True West," Act II." Excerpts from Gunfighter Nation, Richard Slotkin. Handout.

*Week 14: Excerpts from Jean Baudrillard’s America (handout). Continue discussion of "True West."

Week 15: REVIEW

EXAM WEEK: PAPER IV WILL BE DUE AT THE EXAM.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT EVENTS

Response Folder Review Week 4
Paper I Week 5
Response Folder Review Week 7
Midterm Week 8
Paper II Week 9
Response Folder Review Week 11
Paper III Week 12
Response Folder — Final Review and Grading Week 14
Paper IV Due at the final exam
Final Exam week; date T.B.A.