Introduction to Social Literature

Spring 2019 @ Pitt-Greensburg: Class meets face-to-face TH 2:30 - 3:45pm in 137 McKenna Hall, Class number: 31365

Taught by: Elisa Beshero-Bondar (“Dr. B”), Associate Professor of English and Director, Center for the Digital Text @ Pitt-Greensburg

• Office: FOB 204; Spring 2019 Office hours: W 3-5pm, H 4-5:30pm, and by appointment
• E-mail: ebb8 at pitt.edu

Course Description

This course explores how history and literature intersect, and how literature reflects on social issues. We will be reading autobiographical narratives, plays, and novels published in the past two centuries. Like a time capsule, each reading offers us a distinct perspective on a community changing under particular pressures over a span of historic and generational time. These texts are designed to look backwards from the time when they were published, to immerse readers in earlier time and place, and to project a sense of “living memory” in a way that is related to the narrative work of history and ethnography. Our readings—both fictional and nonfictional—investigate how inequality, prejudice, deprivation, and addiction transform communities and individuals, and make people acutely conscious of racial, ethnic, and class differences. Working with digital tools throughout this course, we will investigate how these readings place individual characters in family and community contexts in ways that bring large-scale social forces into perspective.

Objectives

• Study literary fiction and nonfiction that addresses the dimensions and dynamics of communities. Study how literature shows us small towns, cities, villages, and nations, as much as how it develops individual characters.
• Investigate issues affecting how literature is published, distributed, and censored.
• Understand how autobiographies, novels, and plays differ from each other, especially in developing characters and social contexts.
• Boost your vocabulary and reading comprehension by engaging in class discussions, and by conducting your own conversation with the texts as you read and write.
• Improve your writing, and gain experience with digital media and software to organize and visualize ideas.

Texts (in reading order)

1. Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower (Grand Central Publishing, 2000) ISBN: 9780446675505
2. Emily Carr, Klee Wyck, intro. Kathryn Bridge (Douglas & McIntyre, 2004) ISBN: 978-1553650256
3. August Wilson, Gem of the Ocean (Theatre Communications Group, 2006) ISBN: 978-1559362801
4. August Wilson, Radio Golf (Theatre Communications Group, 2007) ISBN: 978-1-55936-308-2
5. Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara (Penguin Classics, 2001) ISBN: 978-0140437904
6. Art Spiegelman, Maus: Survivor’s Tale, vols 1 and 2 boxed set (Penguin, 1993) ISBN: 9780679748403

Grading

Your course grade will be based on Participation and Quizzes (10%), Digital Projects (50%), one Midterm Exam (20%), and one Final Exam (20%).

• Participation and Quizzes: (10%): This portion of your course grade will reflect the quality of your class participation and your performance on announced and unannounced quizzes. If you keep up with the readings listed on the schedule, and come to class each day prepared to discuss them, you will certainly do well with this component. Quizzes and other in-class exercises will account for half of this component, while your participation (your attendance and your vocal participation) will account for the other half.
  • Note: Your attendance is vital to this course and your achievement in it. Missing more than three classes will likely result in a reduction of your Final Course Grade. You may miss three classes for any reason without penalty, but your Participation grade will be reduced for additional unexcused absences. You’ll also be missing lectures, discussions, and in-class activities that will almost certainly affect your performance on assignments and exams. Try not to miss two consecutive classes! You may want to keep in touch with one or two other students in the course so that if you do miss a class, you can find out what you’ve missed and catch up on the notes. Quizzes and in-class writing activities cannot be made up outside of class.

• Digital Projects (5 to 10% each; total 50%): Throughout the course, you will be working on a series of digital projects that involve organizing, processing, and visualizing information and ideas from our course readings. We will be building digital resources to help us review patterns in the readings on a “digital workstation” model, learning to work with a range of digital media and analysis tools. Short writing assignments and exams will be connected with the digital projects we will build in this class. Workstations may involve teamwork as well as individual assignments and expectations.

• Midterm (20%) and Final Exam (20%): The exams may consist of essay questions, identifications of passages, and brief responses regarding significant events and literary terms we have discussed in class. The Midterm will be given in class. The Final Exam will be given during Finals Week. It will be comprehensive, with emphasis on the material in the second half of the course. Exam scores are converted to percentages and assigned letter grades based on the same scale posted above for Papers.

Grading Scale for Projects and Exams: A: 93-100%, A-: 90-92%, B+: 87-89%, B: 83-86%, B-: 80-82%, C+: 77-79%, C: 73-76%, C-: 70-72%, D+: 67-69%, D: 60-66%, F: 59% and below

Class Policies and Guidelines

• Classes and Readings: This class is fast paced with challenging reading and regular in-class activities. To do well in this course it is vital that you attend class regularly and keep up with the readings! Read all the material assigned before class on the day it is scheduled so that you can discuss the material in class, raise questions about it, and intelligently respond to my questions and comments. Stay alert for any changes to the class schedule, which I will announce in class and online on Courseweb and e-mail.

• Classroom Courtesy: Please take this classroom space and time seriously as a forum for expression, contemplation, and experimentation. Arriving late and leaving early disrupts the important collective mental activity of class. So does in-class texting and checking your cell phone. While class is in progress, talking disruptively, leaving the classroom, texting or using a cell phone or computer, reading a newspaper, or other distracting behavior will be actively discouraged, and may result in a deduction in your Participation grade. Please respect what we do in the classroom: attend class regularly, and come prepared to contribute your ideas.

• When an assignment is due, I expect that you will carefully edit and proofread your documents, and that you will turn in your assignments on time at the beginning of class or by the posted deadline for online assignments. If you need an extension, ask me courteously at least a day ahead of time. Do not ask for an extension on or after the day the paper is due.

• Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism: Plagiarism falsely represents another source’s words or ideas as your own, and the penalty for plagiarism in this course is a final course grade and being reported to the Vice President of Academic Affairs. Representing the voice of another individual as your own voice constitutes plagiarism, however generous that person may be in “helping” you with an assignment. Cheating on exams or exercises will also receive a final course grade of F and be reported to the Vice President for Academic Affairs, as explained in the Pitt-Greensburg Campus Catalog.
  • To avoid plagiarism, cite your sources whenever you quote, paraphrase, or summarize material, or use digital images from any outside source (including websites, articles, books, course readings, Courseweb postings, or someone else’s notes). Turning in an assignment made by multiple people under the name of a single individual is considered plagiarism. When instructed to collaborate on a project, project collaborators share collective authorship and should identify themselves directly as a team. When using the “copy” and “paste” features as you read and research, be sure that you are carefully marking that these passages are unprocessed from their source, so that you know to process it later. Forgetting to do so not only produces sloppy work but (whether you intended it or not) results in a false representation. As long as you make a good faith and clear effort to cite your sources, you will not be faulted for plagiarism, but your work will be penalized if citations are inaccurate, unclear, or lack important information.
• Online policies:
  • SocLit website and Courseweb: Changes to the class schedule, assignments, slides, notes, and other resources for this course will be regularly posted on this site, and I will follow up with an announcement on Pitt’s Courseweb (which should reach you at your Pitt e-mail addresses).
    • SocLit website: https://ebeshero.github.io/socLit/
    • Courseweb: https://courseweb.pitt.edu
• E-mail Correspondence: I frequently send announcements to my classes through Courseweb, which also conveniently forwards them to your pitt.edu e-mail addresses. To make sure you’re receiving my announcements, find out whether your pitt.edu account is active and functioning, and get in the habit of checking your messages daily. If you are forwarding your pitt.edu messages to another account, make sure your forwarding works. All of my announcements will also be posted on the Courseweb announcement page.
  • Send e-mail to me when you have questions or want to meet with me, but please identify yourself by name (first and last), and provide a Subject Line when you do so.

Please let us know: If you have a disability for which you are or may be requesting an accommodation, please contact both your instructor and the Director of Learning Resources Center, Dr. Lou Ann Sears, 240 Millstein Library Building (724) 836-7098, as early as possible in the term. Learning Resources Center will verify your disability and determine reasonable accommodations for this course.