Catalogue Description

ENGL 2319. BRITISH LITERATURE (3-0) (ENGL 2322). Significant British works with emphasis on ideas and the ways in which they reflect cultural and aesthetic values; emphasis on critical methods of reading, writing, and thinking; at least three genres and six authors considered.

Expanded Description of the Course

This course will introduce students to a study of literature on the college level. The works we will read are drawn from several different historical periods and represent a number of different literary genres. Class lectures and discussions will focus on ways of understanding and interpreting the works and on locating them in their historical, cultural, and intellectual milieus.

Time and Place of Class Meetings

This course is delivered online; there are no class meetings.

Accessing Your Course

This course is accessed through the UTA WebCT portal located on the Internet at http://webct.uta.edu (if you are logged in to the course, clicking on this link will return you to your "myWebCT" portal).

Course Goals and Student Learning Outcomes

There are three interdependent goals that this course will seek to accomplish this semester. Through their reading and discussion, students will become acquainted with a wide selection of works from several genres of British literature, attain a general understanding of literature and, more particularly, the British literary tradition, and become able to read, appreciate, and explicate literature. In order to accomplish these goals, the students will read the assigned literary texts, participate in online class discussions, do online exercises and assignments, respond to queries and quizzes, and write explications of works.

Prerequisites:

Texts

• Geoffrey Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales. Trans. N. Coghill. Penguin-Viking.
• William Shakespeare. Henry IV, Part I. Signet Shakespeare.
• ____________. Hamlet. Signet Shakespeare.
• ____________. The Sonnets (available online).
• Metaphysical Poetry: An Anthology. Paul Negri, ed. Dover Thrift.
• James Joyce. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Dover Thrift.
• Margaret Atwood. Wilderness Tips. Bantam Books.
• W. B. Yeats. Selected Poems and Four Plays. Fourth Edition. Scribners.
• Samuel Beckett. Waiting for Godot. Grove Press.
• Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Grove Press.

Online Reading Quizzes

Except for the first lesson and the lessons in which we are studying poetry, you will have a reading quiz that will make up part of your grade for that lesson.

The reading quizzes are timed and are taken using the WebCT quiz tool. Each quiz consists of 10 to 15 multiple choice questions and are worth 10 to 15 points (i.e. 1 point per question).

Guidelines

Style

Please consider the "Discussions" that are included in each lesson as essays. Please write them as correctly, coherently, and clearly as you can. Use complete sentences; use a topic or thesis sentence to unify your essay.

Length and Substance of Discussion Postings

Try to explore the topic you are discussing in as much detail as possible. As a rough guideline, you can use the number of points as a indicator of how long your essay discussion should be. Please try to write as many "pages" (one page = about 200 words) as the score divided by 10 (that is, if the discussion is worth 25 points, try to write about two-and-a-half pages or 500 words).

Discussion Groups

After the first few weeks of the semester, I may put you into random groups to improve the learning process and make it more efficient.

Toward the end of the semester, I shall ask your opinion on the success of the course by having you complete the Student Evaluation of Teaching Survey.

Active Learning at UTA

The UTA Quality Enhancement Plan (2007) has adopted this working definition of active learning:

Active Learning places the student at the center of the learning process, making him/her a partner in discovery, not a passive receiver of information. It is a process that employs a variety of teaching and learning strategies to place the responsibility for creating and defining the learning environment on the instructor and the responsibility for effective engagement in the learning process on the students. Active learning encourages students to communicate and interact with course materials by reading, writing, discussing, problem-solving, investigating, reflecting, and engaging in higher-order thinking tasks such as application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. An active learning approach draws upon a continuum of teaching and learning strategies, including class discussion activities, undergraduate research, and community-based learning experiences (QEP Executive Summary 2007 p. 1).

Go to UTA's active learning portal for students to read what UTA students are saying about active learning at UTA and how it enhances higher order thinking skills.

To avoid receiving a failing grade due to absences, it is the student's responsibility to drop the class according to university guidelines and time frames.

The University of Texas at Arlington is on record as being committed to both the spirit and letter of federal equal opportunity legislation; reference Public Law 93112-The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended. With the passage of the federal legislation entitled The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) , pursuant to Section 504 of The Rehabilitation Act , there is renewed focus on providing this population with the same opportunities enjoyed by all citizens.

As a faculty member, I am required by law to provide “reasonable accommodation” to students with disabilities, so as not to discriminate on the basis of that disability. Student responsibility primarily rests with informing faculty at the beginning of the semester and in providing authorized documentation through designated administrative channels.

Information regarding specific diagnostic criteria and policies for obtaining academic accommodations can be found at The University for Texas at Arlington Office for Students with Disabilities . They are located on the UTA campus in Room 102 of University Hall, or you may call them at 817-272-3364.

It is the philosophy of the University of Texas at Arlington that academic dishonesty is a completely unacceptable mode of conduct and will not be tolerated in any form. All persons involved in academic dishonesty will be disciplined in accordance with University regulations and procedures. Discipline may include suspension or expulsion from the University.

“Scholastic dishonesty includes but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism, collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for another person, any act designed to give unfair advantage to a student or the attempt to commit such acts.” (Regents’ Rules and Regulations, Part One, Chapter VI, Section 3, Subsection 3.2, Subdivision 3.22.)

The University of Texas at Arlington supports a variety of student success programs to help you connect with the University and achieve academic success. They include learning assistance, developmental education, advising and mentoring, admission and transition, and federally funded programs. Students requiring assistance academically, personally, or socially should contact The Office of Student Success Programs at 817-272-6107 for more information and appropriate referrals.

English Studies at UTA

Rafia Mirza is the subject librarian for the English Department. Go to the Central Library's English Studies page for a comprehensive review of library resources for English students.

The English Studies page includes contact information for the subject librarian, a link to an English Studies Facebook page, and general help with your English research needs.

The University of Texas at Arlington has adopted the University email address as an official means of communication with students. Through the use of email, UT-Arlington is able to provide students with relevant and timely information, designed to facilitate student success. In particular, important information concerning registration, financial aid, payment of bills, and graduation may be sent to students through email.

All students are assigned a UTA email account. Go to MavMail UTA Email for information about activating and using MavMail. New students (first semester at UTA) are able to activate their email account 24 hours after registering for courses. There is no additional charge to students for using this account, and it remains active as long as a student is enrolled at UT– Arlington. Students are responsible for checking their email regularly.