Connections A Hypertext Resource for Literature

Fall 2024

Friday, August 30

First day: introductions and course overview

First (brief) assignments, due by tonight at 9:00 p.m. Iowa time

First, go to the self-introductions document in our class OneDrive folder and introduce yourself.

Then, put the following in your Commonplace Document:

  • A statement of interest: based on the readings for this class so far and your previous academic work, write down a topic that you'd like to follow through the term as a way to guide your reading. Examples of possible topics include literary experimentation, sexualities, religion, animal imagery, literary form, narrative technique, race and ethnicity, money and work, and so on. You are welcome to choose any of these or create your own. Just be sure that you select something you will be excited to look for throughout the term.

Monday, September 2

An introductory video and three poems on the United States:

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 1: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Wednesday, September 4

  • Natalie Diaz on using poetic form to find freedom (short video)

  • A fun illustration of the joys of close reading: Stephen Sondheim on the watering can (short video)

  • Professor Simpson's introductory video on Shakespeare's sonnets (use the Pweb link to the class YouTube channel)

  • Connections on the sonnet (use the hard copy Connections packet for class purposes)

  • Erik Simpson, Close Reading section of the Start Small, Start Strange packet

  • William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29 (class packet)

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 2: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Friday, September 6

Note: here and throughout this syllabus, the first (less indented) reading or link is required, while the second (more indented) reading or link is supplemental and optional. Here, for example, the first two readings are required, whereas exploring "for better or verse" is optional.

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 3: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Monday, September 9

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 4: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Wednesday, September 11

  • Robert Dale Parker, "Feminism," from How to Interpret Literature (class packet)

  • Connections on couplets (use the hard copy Connections packet for class purposes)

  • Robert Browning, "My Last Duchess" (1842; read the text and listen to the recording by hitting the play button next to the title)

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 1: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Friday, September 13

Friday writing: Submit the close reading exercise to your commonplace document by 9:00 p.m.

Monday, September 16

  • Parker, "Queer Studies" (class packet)

  • Connections on blank verse (use the hard copy Connections packet for class purposes)

  • Robert Frost, "Mending Wall" (1914, class packet)

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 2: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Wednesday, September 18

Packet of readings related to Imagism:

  • Brief introduction to Imagism (including parts of a manifesto written mainly by Ezra Pound)

  • H. D., "Oread" (1914, class packet)

  • William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow" (1923, class packet)

  • Gertrude Stein, excerpt from Tender Buttons (1914, class packet)

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 3: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Friday, September 20

  • Erik Simpson, Thesis section of the Start Small, Start Strange packet

Read the thesis handout carefully so that you are prepared for an in-class writing exercise about thesis construction.

Monday, September 23

And poetry embodied in performance:

  • Tracie Morris, "Africa(n)" (2008, video #3 on the page)

  • Danez Smith, "Dinosaurs in the Hood" (2014): text and video

  • Ocean Vuong, two pieces from this video:

    • Introductory analogy between poetry and fashion (5:00)

    • "Threshold" (6:45, immediately following the introductory analogy)

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 4: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Wednesday, September 25

By 10:00 the night before class, enter your poetry close reading prototypes into your Commonplace Document. We will workshop your prototypes in class.

Friday, September 27

  • Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing about Film, from chapters 2 and 3 (class packet)

  • Erik Simpson (drawing on Timothy Corrigan), Watching a Film in the Corrigan Mode (class packet)

  • CineFix's Best Shots of All Time, Part 1 (and if you like that, feel free to keep exploring similar videos on the CineFix channel!)

By 10:00 the night before class, make a brief note in your Commonplace Document about one thing that Corrigan's book has helped you understand in a new way.

Monday, September 30

Do the (very short) reading carefully so that you are prepared for an in-class exercise working on transitions.

Wednesday, October 2

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 1: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Friday, October 4

Friday writing: PAPER DUE BY EMAIL ATTACHMENT at 9:00 p.m.

Monday, October 7

By 10:00 the night before class, type into your commonplace document the one sentence (with a page citation) that you most think of as the thesis of Ecks's article. (There is not a single right answer.)

Wednesday, October 9

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 2: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Friday, October 11

Friday writing: Submit the source analysis to your Commonplace Document by 9:00 p.m.

Monday, October 14

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 3: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Wednesday, October 16

  • Hayao, Miyazaki, Spirited Away (streaming, original title Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi)

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 4: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Friday, October 18

By 10:00 the night before class, enter your scene analysis prototypes into your Commonplace Document. We will workshop your prototypes in class.

FALL BREAK

Monday, October 28

Library day! We will meet in the second-floor classroom of Burling Library to talk about research skills in general and the annotated bibliography assignment in particular.

You are welcome to bring a laptop or other device that you might use for searching the library's online resources.

Wednesday, October 30

  • Fiction section of Connections (use the hard copy Connections packet for class purposes)

We will begin looking at Dubliners in class today. Because of the impending paper deadline, the reading is short, and you have no other written assignment for today.  

Friday, November 1

Friday writing: PAPER DUE BY EMAIL ATTACHMENT at 9:00 p.m.

Monday, November 4

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 1: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Wednesday, November 6

  • Joyce, "Clay," from Dubliners

  • Derek Attridge, "Touching 'Clay': Reference and Reality in Dubliners" (class packet)

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 2: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Friday, November 8

All revised submissions of incomplete work from assignments due before Fall Break are due today by 9:00 p.m. Let me know if you submit any such work for me to review.

  • Joyce, "The Dead," from Dubliners

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 3: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Monday, November 11

  • Michael Levenson, "Living History in 'The Dead'" (class packet)

  • Parker, "Historicism and Cultural Studies" (class packet)

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 4: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Wednesday, November 13

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 1: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Friday, November 15

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 2: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Monday, November 18

  • Jones, "Marie"

    • From The Unfree World (Grinnell class project about Lost in the City): Howard University

Assignment, from the reading routine, due by 10:00 the night before class in your Commonplace Document:

  • Group 3: prepare discussion prompts
  • Everyone else: enter commonplace notes

Wednesday, November 20

By 10:00 the night before class, enter your final paper prototypes into your Commonplace Document. We will workshop your prototypes in class.

We will also do a quick rehearsal of using the class microphone in anticipation of next week's creative reading.

Friday, November 22

Friday writing: Submit the creative response to your Commonplace Document by 9:00 p.m.

Monday, November 25

Your assignment is to work on your papers. In class, we'll have a celebratory collective reading of your creative responses. Be prepared to read 200-300 words from your response. (To be sure to give everyone time to read, this may be a little shorter than your written submission.)

Wednesday, November 27

We declare the day before Thanksgiving to be an honorary Friday, so today is Friday writing: PAPER DUE BY EMAIL ATTACHMENT at 9:00 p.m.

THANKSGIVING BREAK

Monday, December 2

  • Erik Simpson, Titles section of the Start Small, Start Strange packet

By 10:00 the night before class, enter your end-of-term reflection into your Commonplace Document.

We will do an in-class workshop on paper titles today. The reading assignments are light this week to allow you to focus on your papers.

Wednesday, December 4

We will be doing conferences all week, so there is no written assignment for today. In class time, we will do a mock workshop of annotated bibliography entries. I will provide some annotated bibliography entries for you to evaluate as a way of solidifying expectations for this assignment.

Friday, December 6

Friday writing: this is the last day to turn in an optional pre-portfolio revision of one of your papers. (You can revise all of your portfolio papers when you turn in the portfolio during finals week.) The additional, optional revision is due by 9:00 tonight as an email attachment.

For this and all other revisions, please highlight the changes you have made in revision or otherwise mark them so I can easily see exactly how the new version differs from the previous one. (Do not describe your revisions in general terms; make the changes clearly visible on the page. Here is some technical advice for doing so! [pdf])

Monday, December 9

Today will will have a peer review of research products. By 10:00 the night before class, upload to your Commonplace Document a) two full entries for your annotated bibliography and b) two paragraphs taken from current versions of your papers in which you quote an external source.

Wednesday, December 11

Today will will have a peer review of skeleton papers. By 10:00 the night before class, upload to your Commonplace Document a current version of one of your papers that removes the body paragraphs except for the first (transition) sentence of each one. Your version should have a title, first paragraph, transition sentences, last paragraph, and bibliography. In class, you will share this skeletal paper with a group and work through a set of questions to evaluate it.

Friday, December 13

All revised submissions of incomplete work from assignments due after Spring Break are due today by 9:00 p.m. Let me know if you submit any such work for me to review.

Last class day! We will wrap up the term and address any remaining questions about the final portfolio.

Wednesday, December 18

PORTFOLIO DUE BY EMAIL ATTACHMENT AT 5:00 P.M.