1910 04:00P-5:15P MW SPERBER (description below)
1911 09:05A-09:55A MWF ROBERTS
1912 10:10A-11:00A MWF ROBERTS
1913 12:20P-01:10P MWF LEVASSEUR
1914 01:25P-2:15P MWF LIBBY
1915 02:30P-03:20P MWF LIBBY
1916 09:30A-10:45A TR GREGORY
1917 11:15A-12:30P TR BRANTLINGER (Honors section–description below)
1918 01:00P-02:15P TR NORDLOH (description below)
9158 01:00P-2:15P TR SCHROEDER (description below)
1919 02:30P-03:45P TR YANDELL (description below)
1920 04:00P-5:15P TR BOLZ
1921 05:45P-07:00P TR BOLZ
ALL COAS INTENSIVE WRITING SECTIONS.
FOR SPERBER SECTION 1910 (25) 3 cr:
This section of L204 will compare and contrast fiction with non- fiction, specifically the fictional stories that authors write about characters' lives as opposed to the supposedly non-fictional stories that they write about their own lives in the form of memoirs. We will use the Heath Introduction to Fiction, edited by John J. Clayton, and Modern American Memoirs, edited by Annie Dillard and Cort Conley.
Student responsibility in the course will include: a number of short papers on the literary works in the course; a class presentation on an author of the student's choosing; a number of tests; and a major project. This final assignment can consist of: a research paper on any topic connected to the course; OR a creative project, e.g., a short story or personal narrative prompted by the course.
FOR SECTIONS 1911-1916 STAFF (25) 3 cr:
Representative works of fiction; structural techniques in the novel. Novels and short stories from several ages and countries.
FOR BRANTLINGER SECTION 1917 (20) 3 cr:
OPEN TO HONORS STUDENTS ONLY. OBTAIN AUTHORIZATION FROM HONORS DIVISION, 324 N. JORDAN AVENUE.
In this L204 Introduction to Fiction class, we will read and analyze four or five novels and several short stories. Our focus will be on the main structural elements of fictional narratives: character, plot, setting, time and timing, narrative point-of-view, style, and themes or meanings. Novels that are likely to be on the syllabus include Frederick Douglass's The Heroic Slave, William Faulkner's The Bear,, either Toni Morrison's Sula or Charles Johnson's Middle Passage, and either Louise Erdrich's Tracks or Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony. The short stories will be chosen from the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction . Writing assignments will include five short papers (4-5 pages) analyzing some structural aspect of a story or novel. There will also be five quizzes over the readings and lectures during the semester, but no midterm or final. 50% of final grades will be based on the papers; 40% on the quizzes; and 10% on attendance and participation.
FOR NORDLOH SECTION 1918 (25) 3 cr:
The premise for this course is that “fiction” is just "story-telling” with a fancier vocabulary–that the special names given to various elements in the formal study of literature obscure the fact that these elements represent the way all human beings–-not just writers–-organize their world and make sense of it. To understand that fundamental relationship of human perception and formal technique we’ll begin by examining elements of fiction (plot, point of view, setting, symbol, and so on) individually, and we’ll read clusters of short stories by traditional and contemporary writers that demonstrate how the flexibility of each element produces different effects and meanings. We’ll look at several longer fictions (novellas, short novels) more intensively, to analyze elements of story-telling working together. And finally, we’ll look at several novels exploring a central historical and cultural material-–the American West-–but using that material in remarkably different ways and with strikingly diverse results in the application of the underlying elements: the novels will be Frank Norris’s The Octopus (1901), Willa Cather’s The Professor’s House (1925), Leslie Marmon Silko’s Almanac of the Dead (1991), and Cormac McCarthy’s Cities of the Plain (1998).
Class meetings will consist of a mix of lecture and discussion, with discussion gradually dominating. In addition to doing the reading, participants will be asked to submit one online response a week (using OnCourse) on the reading in progress, as a prompt to thinking about issues of fiction and contributing to the general understanding of our topic,and they will write five critical essays (4-6 pages). We will use examples from the essays to assist us in our ongoing discussion of both critical analysis and good writing. No examinations. The reading anthology for the course will be Charles Bohner’s Short Fiction: Classic and Contemporary (4th edition).
FOR SCHROEDER SECTION 9158:
The central aim of this course is to enhance students' ability to examine fictional texts as articulations, conscious or not, of their authors' positions on key issues in society at large. In addition to the elements of fiction (plot, character, symbolism, and so forth), we will examine a series of broad cultural issues that link stories together. Theoretical topics will include feminism, Marxism, reader-response theory, and psychoanalysis; societal and philosophical issues will include the individual vs. the collective, war and the morality of artistic representation, and science in society, among others. Ideally, the course will remain with students as a critically sophisticated method of reading fictional texts that can be applied to pop culture just as readily as to canonical fiction. Class time will be devoted mainly to guided discussion and small-group activities, with occasional mini-lectures on the more abstruse topics (like literary theory). Texts will include The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature (fourth edition), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, H. G. Wells's The Time Machine, and Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Coursework will include four major essays, a guided reading journal, quizzes, a couple of group presentations, and shorter written assignments.
FOR YANDELL SECTION 1919:
At first glance, narrative seems so much a part of human experience that it hardly warrants our taking time to define it. In one scholar's words, it simply consists of "someone telling someone else that something happened." But narrative fiction grows out of authors' choices--a translation, as Hayden White calls it, of "knowing into telling." This transformation is by no means a neat and tidy process, and in this class we will explore many different issues that are at stake when authors shape events into a fictional framework. We will look at topics such as setting, characterization, plot, point of view, and symbolism, using numerous pieces of short fiction as our guide. Our reading will also be punctuated by three longer pieces: Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Morrison's Sula, and Capote's In Cold Blood. A key theme we will return to is that of doublings and ways in which these patterns get shaken up. This course requires a strong commitment not only to heavy reading (a list on which I'm sure everyone will find at least a few pieces they will enjoy), but also to heavy writing.
Five essays will make up the bulk of the writing, and a final exam is also scheduled. Shorter assignments will include leading one Friday class discussion on a short story and creating a narrative guide for each of the three longer works.