ENC 1102: Writing about Literature

Instructor: Cathlena Martin

Email: cathlena@ufl.edu
Section: 1693 MWF 9

Office: 501 Rolfs (392-0664)
Office Hours: M 6,7 and by appointment W 6,7

Mailbox: 4301 Turlington
URL: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/cmartin


ENC 1102 Course Objective:
Building on the study and practice of expository and argumentative writing in ENC 1101, ENC 1102 teaches students how to analyze and appreciate literary texts, write critical arguments about literary texts, and employ literary devices in their own writing. While individual sections of the course may involve different literary texts and modes of analysis, all will provide opportunities to work with a variety of literary genres, including but not limited to short stories, novels, poetry, drama, essays, and multimedia texts. The course’s main focus is on the process of producing well-supported, polished, and persuasive writing about texts.

Section 2544 Objective:
This particular section of ENC 1102 is a compilation of technology and children’s literature. Yes, an unusual paring, but an effective one for capitalizing on our NWE (Networked Writing Environment) classroom and for looking at revisionist children’s literature. Our literature, or our texts, ranges from traditional books and fairy tales to video games and interactive fiction. In this course, we will begin a study of texts, how they operate and what purposes they convey in their various mediums. We will learn to write about the texts that we critically analyze as well as learn skills to let our own voice show in the writing. To help develop personal voice and facilitate group interaction, class time centers largely on discussion, which means you are expected to do two things: complete the reading assignments and respect your classmates opinions. Class discussion may be conducted in a more traditional conversation in class or take a technological bent using the MOO. Whether in the MOO or in the classroom, gender and racial slurs are unacceptable.

Departmental Policies
Plagiarism and Collusion:
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged borrowing of someone else’s work and is a serious offense with serious consequences. Plagiarism will result in a failing grade on the paper in question and can possibly result in a failure for the course. Please consult the University of Florida’s Honor Code for a thorough description (www.dso.ufl.edu/stg/code_of_conduct.html).
Academic honesty requires that all work presented in this class be the student’s own work. Evidence of collusion (working with another student or tutor) or plagiarism (use of another’s ideas, data and statement without acknowledgment and/or extensive use of another’s ideas, data and statements with only minimal acknowledgment) will lead to the procedures set up by the university for academic dishonesty. There is a clear distinction between learning new ideas and presenting them as facts or as answers, and presenting them as one’s own idea.
Departmental Procedures for Complaints about Grades:
Complaints about separate assignments should be discussed with the instructor. Complaints about the final grade can be expressed on a form in the English office, 4008 Turlington Hall. The form must be accompanied with copies of every assignment and the instructor’s instructions. The form and accompanying course material will be given to the Director of Freshmen English for further action. Please note that the Department does not review a complaint about a separate assignment, nor will it review a complaint about final grades unless all assignments are submitted along with the instructor's instructions for the assignments. The review committee may decide the grade should remain as is or raised or lowered; its decision is final.

The Gordon Rule:
This course meets the Gordon Rule requirement of 6000 words written work that will receive feedback and a grade. All work must be completed to satisfy the Gordon Rule.

Absence policy:
Absence from class is highly discouraged because of the discussion base of this course. Your opinion will be missed when you are not present. You are responsible for making up missed work, whether it is an excused or unexcused absence. You will be counted tardy if you come into class after we have already begun. This is rude and disrespectful. Three tardies count as one absence. After six absences, excused or unexcused, your final grade will be lowered by one letter grade for every absence after the sixth time.

Required Texts and Materials:
Most required texts are available at Goering’s Bookstore located on NW 1st Avenue

Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland: A Norton Critical Edition edited by Donald Gray
The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition edited by Maria Tatar

American McGee’s Alice (This will not be available at the bookstore. You must buy this from another store or
online. I'd advise checking Best Buy, Media Play, Software Etc., Target, and other local stores).

An MLA handbook is highly recommended.
You will also need a pocket folder to turn papers in

Materials available on-line:
“Little Red Riding Hood” (http://www.6amhoover.com/)

UF Computer and Software Requirement
The following is the official UF policy on the student computer requirement:
Access to and on-going use of a computer will be required for all students to complete their degree programs successfully. Effective with the Summer B 1998 term, the University of Florida expects each student entering the junior year, as well as each student new to the university, to acquire computer hardware and software appropriate to his or her degree program. Competency in the basic use of a computer is a requirement for graduation. Class assignments may require use of a computer, academic advising and registration can be done by computer, and official university correspondence is often sent via e-mail.
While the university offers limited access to computers through its computer labs, most students will be expected to purchase or lease a computer that is capable of dial-up or network connection to the Internet, graphical access to the World Wide Web, and productivity functions such as word processing and spreadsheet calculation.
Refer to the UF Computer and Software Requirement page for any questions (http://www.circa.ufl.edu/computers/)
Requirements:
Using the resources of UF's NEW, we will write through the use of media as well as traditional paper assignments: in addition to other work, each student will spend the length of the semester creating a single MOO room. This room will be the culmination of the written assignments.

Assignments:
You will be given more detailed instructions and expectations of each assignment. For this class there are three short essays, one long essay, and then a final MOO project that ties the previous assignments together in a creative construction of your own revisionist fairy tale world (room). You will also be required to keep a response journal to the video games and interactive fictions played/read outside of class.

Short essays (500 words each): These three short essays will build to your larger comparison/contrast paper.

Writing about Structure: This essay will focus on our look at the various Little Red Riding Hood stories, poems, and interactive fiction. According to Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale, fairy tales have particular standardized components that combine to create what we know as the fairy tale. Little Red Riding Hood is no different. You will pick one of the following (exposition, complication, crisis, climax or resolution) and apply it to one version of LRRH. In doing so, you will question what makes this particular category significant to LRRH’s archetype and if that structure were changed would we still be able to recognize the story of LRRH. Purpose: to examine the structure of fairy tales through the example of LRRH and dissect what makes them universally archetyped or grouped into Arne-Thompson categorizations.

Writing about Character: This essay will focus on our look at the various Snow White texts. There are numerous characters in Snow White to work with, but you will need to choose one character out of one particular version. After picking a character, develop a central trait or major characteristic and explain your character’s growth or change. What is unique about this character in relation to other members in the story? You may look at central action, objects, or quotations that reveal primary characteristics. For the paper, you are to choose one character from any Snow White story that we have read or that you found on your own and do a character analysis. What this entails is making an assertion about that person's character (i.e. Snow White is a naive character that deserves to die) and then back it up with textual evidence from the story (three times she fell for the witch's trap, she didn't listen to the dwarves, she was such a weak character she had to have seven supporting actors, etc.). Reference the Gilbert and Gubar essay as an example.

Writing about Setting: This essay will focus on our look at the various Bluebeard texts and the central idea of a hidden chamber. Setting is the natural, manufactured, political, cultural, and temporal environment, including everything that characters know and own. Characters may be either helped or hurt by their surroundings, and they may fight about possessions or goals. You will pick one version, either a physical text or the electronic interactive fictive version, and discuss how the setting interacts and affects one particular character. You may discuss setting as symbolic, realistic, used to structure the work or used to accentuate particular qualities or influence of a character.

Comparison/Contrast Paper: A comparison shows how two or more items are similar, and a contrast shows how they are different. In this situation, the compare/contrast essay must consider both the similarities and the differences found in a fairy tale of your choice. This can be achieved through either a subject-by-subject comparison or a point-by-point comparison. Your essay should be six pages, have three outside sources not including your primary text(s), and comply with standard MLA format. This paper will lead into the construction of the MOO scene.

MOO scene: For this creative attempt, you and a partner (or two) will create a fairy tale-esque scene in MOOville. Please note, that this is not simply a reproduction of a fairy tale. We have read several versions or the same tale type, so your scene should not be a direct lift from a story or film.
In your creation, you will utilize the archetypes that are necessary to recognize a story as "Snow White" or as "Little Red Riding Hood." For example, if you decide to recreate the scene in which Little Red first meets the wolf, you might set the scene in a club or on University Avenue in order to revise the scenario of seduction.
For more information about digging in a MOO, visit (http://www.nwe.ufl.edu/writing/help/moo/digging/)
Accompanying this virtual assignment will be a written paper (1,000 words) explaining the choices you made in your revisionist telling.

Response Journal: During the course of the semester, you will be playing American McGee’s Alice at home or in the CIRCA lab. You are responsible for keeping a response journal to the video game detailing your experiences, observations, and comparisons to the original Alice in Wonderland. Starting the second week of class, you should have 150 words per week for ten weeks (1,500 words total), which means you will have five weeks where you may choose not to write. But do not use those free weeks all at the beginning because by the end of the semester you will be spending homework time on your MOO scene. The purposes of this journal are to
1. let me know that you actually played the game
2. help you remember points for discussion because after you play it awhile you will forget what happened at the beginning and you may forget parts you thought were particularly interesting
3. give you points to compare to Carroll's Alice in Wonderland

You may type or handwrite the journal entries, whichever is easiest for you as long as it is legible. Aim for 3/4 of a page entries (double spaced if typed) but don't get caught up on length because it is only about seven or eight pages total and that isn't long at all considering the length of the game. If you fill up seven or eight pages in the first couple of weeks then please keep journaling if you haven't completed the game (refer to reason #1). Some of the entry may be plot points but also attempt critical analysis of the game. Why did the designer make a particular choice? Try and compare it to Alice in Wonderland even though we haven't started reading it yet.


Grade Policy:
Assignment Point Value U of Florida Grade Scale
In class writing/building 50 A = 100-90
Participation 150 B+ = 89-87
Structure paper 100 B = 86-80
Character paper 100 C+ = 79-77
Setting paper 100 C = 76 – 70
Response Journal 100 D+ = 69-67
Comparison/Contrast paper 150 D = 66-63
MOO scene and paper 250 E = 63 and below
Total 1,000