Course Info

				Milton English 589 2:10- 3:25 pm Mondays and Wednesdays Humanities Building, Room 121 Professor Jennifer Mylander Office: 332 Humanities Building mylander@sfsu.edu Office Hours: 3:30-5:30pm Wednesdays, 12noon-1:00pm Fridays, or by appointment COURSE DESCRIPTION Recommended: Eng 460 and Eng 480. This course introduces you to one of England's greatest writers: John Milton. Milton was a social radical and a political revolutionary, uncompromising in both his poetry and his life. Extensive readings from Milton set against other major writing from the period. Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, and selections from Milton's early poetry and prose (defenses of free press, divorce, individual conscience, and political liberty) read within the context of religious, political, social, and cultural history. This course fulfills the pre-1800 requirement. Meets with English 789. Textbooks Required textbook: John Milton's Complete Poems and Major Prose, edited by Merritt Hughes Required additional readings: Additional readings from the seventeenth century will be required. These will be made available through iLearn, independent websites, and handouts. You will receive more information about these readings as they come up in the course. Recommended: Audio recordings of Paradise Lost that you listen to as you read along can make the poem much more enjoyable and maximize your learning. I highly recommend Anton Lesser's version (available at iTunes and on cd) of the unabridged Paradise Lost. (Other versions on iTunes are not recommended.) COURSE POLICIES The course policies that follow are designed to ensure that class runs smoothly, fairly, and efficiently. Because failure to abide by these policies will negatively affect the class as a whole, non-compliance will lower your final course grade. Participants who become hostile, shout, use derogatory language, or employ intimidation tactics with classmates or the professor will be asked to leave the course. You should read through these policies carefully. Disability Resources Students with disabilities who need reasonable accommodations are encouraged to contact the professor within the first three weeks of the semester. The Disability Programs and Resource Center is available to facilitate the reasonable accommodation process. The DPRC, located in SSB 110, can be reached by telephone at 338-2472 (voice/TTY) or by email at dprc@sfsu.edu Reading and Participation This course is designed as a seminar requiring active participation of all members for the best learning environment. Although I will often lead the discussion and will sometimes lecture, all class members are expected to prepare for class with topics, questions, and passages that the class should consider. "Participation" is not simply another word for "talking." Voicing a thought, response, or question is an important component of participation, but the best class member is one who participates in the learning environment by also listening attentively, by using body language to show interest in others' contributions, and by coming to class prepared. Even if speaking in front of others is not always fun, it is essential to testing ideas and expanding your learning. Basic participation (grade B-) is earned by being alert, attentive, positive, and contributing a constructive comment once a week. If you would like to do better than a B-, you should plan on participating constructively and enthusiastically on a regular basis. If you are concerned about your participation grade or are having a hard time contributing in class, come talk to me. You can also earn participation credit through email participation or meetings during office hours (see me for further information). While I will sometimes rely on volunteers for discussion, I will also call on people to ensure that a small number of eager students do not dominate the discussion. If you are called on, you are welcome to pass. Feel free to bring drinks to class, but please avoid noisy food and wrappers. If you need to leave c!ass for any reason, get up as quietly as possible and leave. Turn off and put away all mp3 players, newspapers, etc. before class begins. Please cooperate if I ask you adjust your seating or move chairs; even if you cannot see the point of my request, I would not ask if I did not intend to improve class dynamics. Constructive class participation is essential to the success of the class. Students who fail to contribute or who disrupt discussions will be penalized in their final grade. Always read the works listed on the syllabus before that class begins. Always bring the assigned readings with you to class. Without the text open in front of you during our discussions, effective class participation will not be possible. In class, active, thoughtful participation in class discussion and in class work is required of all students. Please be respectful and constructive with your peers. Do not use print or online study guides to prepare for discussion or writing assignments. Attendance Attendance is both expected and required in this course. Promptness and regular attendance are vital not only to your success in the class, but also to the success of the class in general. I expect students committing to this course to miss no more than 2 classes over the course of the semester; if this time commitment does not seem possible given your other academic, work, or family commitments, you should consider taking this course in a different semester. All absences will affect your participation grade. If attendance seems to be a repeated problem I will recommend that you withdraw from the course. Moreover, if you miss 5 or more classes, you cannot pass the course. This policy allows for 2 absences without severe penalty. You do not need to clear the occasional absence with me, although it is your responsibility to get notes and assignments from any days that you miss. Because it is disruptive to have students walking in after class has begun, I would appreciate promptness. Habitual lateness or early leaving will hurt your final grade in the class. Should more serious situations occur–extended illnesses or family emergencies, for example, that cause repeated absences (3 or more)–you should contact me promptly so that we can work out a reasonable accommodation. In situations where privacy is a concern, contact a campus advisor or Dean and request that that individual notify me. iLearn and Email Just by being enrolled in English 589, you are automatically enrolled in 589's iLearn site. The iLearn site has Reading Questions to help inform your reading, links to required readings not in your Milton text, images for further review, a pop culture wiki, and a News Forum which will have announcements I have made in class. The Bookstall assignments, which happen 3 times in the first half of the semester, require you to use iLearn to download required course readings and to turn in written work. This site will be updated throughout the term with new information. In addition to checking the iLearn site regularly, you will need active email since I may, on occasion, use email to contact the class. All students should know how to access their SFSU email. If you prefer to use another version of webmail, you should set up a forwarding program so that all emails going to your SFSU account are automatically forwarded to the email of your choice, Check your email program for forwarding possibilities or contact SFSU DolT for information regarding email forwarding. Papers and Exams This course requires two exams, one at midterm and one as a cumulative final, and two papers. Examinations will be based on course reading and information covered in class discussion and lecture. These examinations will have objective sections such as defining key terms or historical chronologies and essay components in which you will write about the literature we have been studying. The first course paper will be due in mid November. A longer, more involved, paper project will be due on the last day of class. I will provide detailed information about these papers in handouts, including the grading scale, expectations for citation, and other relevant information to assist you are you write. I encourage you to come to office hours or to set up an appointment to discuss ideas before you settle on a paper topic or to plan revisions of a portion of a draft. The best writing instruction is one-on-one, and office hours allow you to get personalized attention. Note: Do not use print or online study guides like Cliffs Notes to write course papers; violating this policy is grounds for failure for the course paper. Assignments and paper are due in class at the beginning of class unless otherwise specified on an assignment sheet. Written work not turned in to me at this time will be considered late. Email and disk copies of written work will not be accepted. Papers and exams will be graded on the standard letter scale. Late Papers and Extensions Assignments are considered late if they are not turned in at the time stated on the assignment sheet, usually at the beginning of the class period in which they are due. If you arrive late, do not disrupt class discussion but wait until the end of the period to turn in your paper. Papers collected from my mailbox or office after class will be considered late. Late written work should be turned in to me in person, or slid underneath my office door in Humanities 332. I am open to offering extensions as long as they do not interfere with other course work. Those requesting extensions should do so as soon as possible, preferably no less than 24 hours in advance of the due date. I may only be able to check email once or twice in a day, so do not expect an immediate response .. please keep informed on your progress on major assignments; I would rather arrange to give you an extension than simply not hear from you and not receive the work that is due. Late papers (those turned in after the deadline without an extension) will be penalized 2/3 letter grade for each calendar day they are late (A becomes B+, C+ becomes C-, etc.). After one week, late work will not be accepted. All missing work receives a O. I also may not be able to return late work promptly. Plagiarism and Source Citation Plagiarism is a form of cheating or fraud; it occurs when a student misrepresents the work of another as his or her own. Plagiarism may consist of using the ideas, sentences, paragraphs, or the whole text of another without appropriate acknowledgment, but it also includes employing or allowing another person to write or substantially alter work that a student then submits as his or her own. Any assignment found to be plagiarized will be given an "F" grade. All instances of plagiarism in the College of Humanities will be reported to the Dean of the College, and may be reported to the University Judicial Affairs Officer for further action. In this course you will use MLA in-text style for all formal papers. Handouts will be provided with assignment sheets to guide you with citation. Whenever you use sources not assigned on the syllabus. you will be responsible for citing these fully and accurately according to MLA style. Do not use print or online study guides like Cliffs Notes to prepare for discussion or written work. Plagiarism is the submission of another person's words or ideas as your own. It may result from the willful appropriation of another (whether published or unpublished, electronic or textual) or from inadequate citation. It may include undocumented quotation, paraphrase, or summary. Be aware that plagiarism is grounds far receiving a zero on the assignment, Always cite outside sources that contribute to your own ideas even if you are not sure to what extent these sources have influenced vou. COURSE GRADE BREAKDOWN Midterm Exam 15% Paper #1 10% Paper Project 30% Final Exam 25% Participation (including bookstall assignments) 20%