ENGL 5773 x20 Shakespeare – Graduate Syllabus

Spring Semester 2022

Dr. Peter Fields, assoc. professor of English

peter.fields@msutexas.edu

Office Hours: Mon/Wed – 1:00-3:00 PM; Tue/Thur-12:00-1:45 PM

OFFICE HOURS: I make a point of being in my office in the early afternoon MTWR. If you drop by in person, that’s great—but you may have to share this time with others who drop by.

APPOINTMENT IN PERSON OR BY ZOOM: Make an appointment with me by email for my undivided attention; it can be between 1:00 and 3:00 MTWR or a different time, including Friday. If you would like your appointment by ZOOM, I will send you the link just before the agreed-upon time.

OFFICE PHONE: My campus office phone is 940-397-4246. If I am unable to answer immediately, OUTLOOK will turn your message into an email to me. Tell me your number.

LAND LINE: My students may also call me on my landline 940-766-6319 in the evenings, on Friday, or on the weekend. If I am unable to answer immediately, leave a message with your name and number. Make sure I know you are a student in my class.

Required books:

The Arden Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri. Bloomsbury. Paperback. ISBN 978-1-408133-49-1.

The Arden Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet. Edited by René Weis. Bloomsbury. ISBN: 978-1-903436-91-2.

The Arden Shakespeare: Hamlet. Revised edition. Edited by Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. Bloomsbury. Paperback. ISBN: 978-1-4725-1838-5.

           The Arden Shakespeare: Macbeth. Edited by Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason.

           Paperback. ISBN 978-1-904271-41-3.

Required Outside Source for Graduate Students. Dr. Fields will suggest a title relevant to the course, which the student will purchase. Suggestion: Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt. Norton, 2004. ISBN: 978-0-393-05057-2. This book—or a different title agreed upon by the student and Dr. Fields—must be purchased online (e.g., Amazon); it is not in our campus bookstore.

Course Objectives:       

We will read FOUR important titles from Shakespeare’s canon in the order of their composition, relying on Arden’s definitive editions of those plays. Students will read my notes in the modules for these titles and the pages indicated in our Arden critical editions. Graduate Students: Each graduate student must choose a title about Shakespeare that I approve: e.g., I recommend Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare. I would not approve a book unless I also have read it. The idea is for me to direct the graduate student to specific passages of relevance to that student’s research project. Will in the World is available in used hardback on Amazon for a modest price.

These plays are Shakespeare’s treatments of motifs and concerns already well-known to his audience. Students need to develop a critical awareness of how Shakespeare shapes this material and to what apparent purpose—students will have their own view about what Shakespeare is doing informed by our Arden critical editions.

Since Shakespeare’s time English-speaking popular culture has revisited the motifs and concerns of the titles we are examining. Students need to locate where in popular culture (since Shakespeare) that they see these same motifs recurring. Student will develop their own views as to what we are doing today with the ideas in Shakespeare based on examples they have noticed in their own experience.

Students will develop a PowerPoint for each of our four titles. Each PowerPoint will feature both images and texts. The latter will be DESCRIPTION and SUPPORTING paragraphs. See module for model PowerPoint in CONTENT in our D2L course.  Graduate Students: Each graduate student must include a discussion from the Required Outside Book (e.g., Greenblatt’s Will in the World).

Student will submit an ESSAY on what Shakespeare is doing with an idea or motif in one (or more) of our four titles. The body paragraphs for this ESSAY will be DESCRIPTION and SUPPORTING paragraphs the student already drafted and submitted in the PowerPoints. For the ESSAY, students will add three paragraphs: Introductory paragraph (par. 1), Argument paragraph (par. 2), and Conclusion (last paragraph). Graduate Students: Each graduate student develops their ESSAY as a RESEARCH PROJECT featuring directed use of the Required Outside Book (e.g., Greenblatt’s Will in the World) and specific sources I recommend (from our Moffett-supported databases) that would reinforce those DESCRIPTION and SUPPORTING paragraphs that seem most relevant from the PowerPoints. My suggestions for the Research Project are meant to facilitate the graduate student’s own sense of direction.

Each of the four PowerPoints is worth 20 percent of the semester grade; the ESSAY is worth 20 percent as well.   

Here are the criteria for the PowerPoints:

See the MODEL POWERPOINT in CONTENT. Students are welcome to gut my model and use it as a shell for their own PowerPoint. I created my PowerPoint with images from GOOGLE. I entered search words and added the word “images” for each search. We should strive for at least one image per paragraph.

The PowerPoint should feature both DESCRIPTION and SUPPORTING paragraphs:

DESCRIPTION paragraphs deal with a primary source: that is, the source you found that puts you in mind of an aspect—an idea, situation, or motif—in Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM.

MODEL POWERPOINT: In my model PowerPoint A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM: VICTORIAN ART & SHAKESPEARE’S WORLD OF FAIRY FOLKLORE, my description paragraphs cite images of Victorian paintings and illustrations, some of which directly represent something in Shakespeare’s play while others deal with things RELATED to the play like the PASTORAL mode and faery folklore.

SUPPORTING paragraphs deal with secondary sources: that is, scholarly sources that provide insight into Shakespeare and/or the primary sources you feel are reminiscent of what Shakespeare was doing in his play.

MODEL POWERPOINT: In my model PowerPoint for A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, my SUPPORTING paragraphs quoted from the introduction in our Arden edition, a book on the Arts & Crafts Movement, and a scholarly article about William Holman Hunt I found in ACADEMIC SEARCH COMPLETE, a popular database supported by our own Moffett library.

For YOUR PowerPoint—and you will need a PowerPoint for each of our four titles—you will need both DESCRIPTION and SUPPORTING paragraphs.

What do Shakespeare’s characters have in common?

Shakespeare seems to be talking about modern people. They may not have cell phones or drive cars, but they are modern in every important sense of the word modern. They test the limits of what is possible in their experience. They are not tied to the past. They create their own place in the world. They take risks. They transform themselves as they transform their world. They see the opportunity in change, and they may be the chief instigators for that change.

SOURCES

SUPPORTING PARAGRAPHS: Students need to make relevant use of the critical apparatus—especially the introduction—to each of our Arden critical editions. The MODULES in CONTENT provide my notes, which alert students to key discussions that will give them a good start on the criteria in our course.

DESCRIPTION PARAGRAPHS: Students need to bring in sources that represent and address what we are doing today with ideas and situations we see in our required titles. These sources might be scholarly articles in our Moffett-supported databases; they might be primary works (novels, short stories, movies, games, paintings, illustrations, YouTube videos, etc.) that in some way revisit some aspect of what Shakespeare is doing in our four titles A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, ROMEO AND JULIET, HAMLET, and MACBETH.

TWO Supporting Source & something from the Arden introduction: The core requirement for each POWERPOINT and our ESSAY is that students include DISCUSSION paragraphs featuring at least one use of our introductory matter in our ARDEN editions (as I did with the 10^th slide of my model PowerPoint for A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM). The POWERPOINT should have TWO supporting sources apart from the Arden introduction. The ESSAY will feature supporting paragraphs from the PowerPoints, including at least one supporting paragraph based on an ARDEN introduction. Graduate Students: Each graduate student brings to bear the required outside book and other suggested sources. The latter will be from Moffett-supported databases or online resources that do not required additional expense for the student.

DISCUSSION FORUM, TOPIC, & THREAD

In CONTENT click on the module for DISCUSSION FORUM AND TOPICS FOR THREADS.

Click on the arrow by the title of the relevant forum and bring up VIEW TOPIC.

Then click on START A NEW THREAD. You will see a text box for you to type a description and/or supporting paragraph you may want to use in your PowerPoint. You can also copy and paste from your own document into the text box. This textbox is specifically for input and suggestions on the WRITTEN matter of your PowerPoint—not the images.

ATTACHMENT of PowerPoint-in-Progress: Below the textbox is an opportunity to click on ADD ATTACHMENTS. An UPLOAD option will come up so you can show me the POWERPOINT itself as a work-in-progress. It will have both written matter and images.

POST: Be sure to click on POST to submit your paragraph and/or PowerPoint.

NOTE: A THREAD is NOT submission for grade; it is only for INPUT by me. You still must submit the finished PowerPoint (or ESSAY at the end of the semester) to the drop box for it to count and be graded with a rubric.

NOTE: Submitting your written material in draft form as a THREAD is NOT a requirement. It is OPTIONAL. The THREAD is for those who want my input prior to submitting their work to the drop box to be counted and graded.

MODEL PARAGRAPHS

DESCRIPTION PARAGRAPHS (Primary Sources) - Description paragraphs describe the primary source—painting, play, literature, video, videogame, movie—that puts us in mind of Shakespeare’s issues and concerns. Description paragraphs should mix descriptive details with explanation:

Movies like Michael Hoffman’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999) suggest that the secret fairy kingdom is a mirror-world of the human kingdom. But 19^th century British illustrator and painter Sir Edwin Henry Lanseer conjured an image of Shakespeare’s fairy world with exquisite depictions of animals. Notice the attention to detail in regard to the rabbits the faeries ride; notice the donkey head of Nick Bottom that seems so expressive of a tender heart. The eyes of the donkey are gentle and wise. The donkey’s ears are long but graceful. The white furry coats of the rabbits seem to glow with their own soft warm light. They graciously bear the weightless denizens of fairydom. They are also wide-eyed and alert to Titania’s will, ready to leap into action. We know that the fairy world is fleet of foot (Robin Goodfellow—Puck—brags of his swiftness). The association of rabbits with faeries makes sense. We easily imagine these hyper-alert rabbits suddenly shooting off into the woods before anyone can think to lay hands on them. We employ and consume animals. But in the secret kingdom, the animals are spared human depredations. The ass-headed Nick Bottom seems truly lovable with infinite patience for the creatures of Titania’s court—notice his open hand. The rabbits do not run from him. We know in the play Bottom speaks with Titania’s faeries and pays them due honor. Animals convey the message of the pastoral world that our modern world is predatory and corrupt. The secret kingdom of faeries protects and honors the innocent realm of animals. Even the lion that shakes the fallen veil of Thisbe is an innocent. The human beings mistook the blood of the lion’s previous prey—now permeating Thisbe’s lost garment—for human blood. The lion, of course, is from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Shakespeare injects Ovid’s tragic and transformational motif into the pastoral framework of faery animals, which Sir Lanseer suggests is not nearly as cruel and violent as the human realm. Queen Titania even embraces Nick Bottom and the two in the painting seem natural together and very happy: “So doth the woodbine,” Titania says soothingly to the sleepy Bottom, “the sweet honeysuckle / Gently entwist; the female ivy so / Enrings the barky fingers of the elm. / O how I dote on thee! How I dote on thee! (4.1.41-44).

Modern people are quarrelsome, but their disputes are messes that the unseen world cleans up. Shakespeare suggests that the secret world of faeries is where contention actually counts: it matters deeply to all living things that the King and Queen of fairydom are at odds over the changeling human child. Indeed, it is their quarrel that would seem to be the most pressing concern. But notice that Oberon takes an interest in Helena’s distress, setting in motion the confusion and resolution of human affairs implemented by Oberon’s assistant, Robin Goodfellow—or Puck. Sir Joseph Paton’s “The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania” is a Victorian era painting that gives us a nighttime forest world brimming over with unseen forces and creatures who intersect and interact with our world in all its tragic aspects. Queen Titania explains to Oberon that she feels responsible for the Indian child. His mother was a member of Titania’s human cult, who became big and round with the unborn child. Titania visited with her during the pregnancy, and they spied on the shores and docks where ships came and went. Playfully, they saw in those bellowing sails an image of the human woman’s pregnant state. Tragically, the faithful votress of Titania would not survive the birth of the child, which immediately passed into the care of Titania. We are subject to the mortality of the human world. We pass away. Conversely, the immortal world in A Midsummer Night’s Dream not only carries on, but it also intrudes on our tragic circumstances, saving the best of what we do and ordering our affairs. We don’t control things. The faeries do as arbiters of nature’s ebb and flow and the guarantors of the change of seasons. If the secret kingdom is out of order, then everything and everyone suffers: “And this same progeny of evil comes,” / From our debate,” Titania warns Oberon. “from our dissension: / We are their parents and original” (2.1.115-17).

William Holman Hunt was a leading member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, nineteenth century Victorian era artists and poets dedicated to opposing the industrial age with older, more mysterious truths as we see here if we pay close attention to Hunt’s “The Hireling Shepherd.” Notice the profound attention to detail; notice also the moralizing of the painting. The “hireling” shepherd is a substitute; he is careless of his duties. We see the wayward sheep breaking across the ditch, heading for the tall wheat field. We notice the Hireling’s seduction of the woman who is best advised to take stock of the emblematic insect that has lighted upon the open palm of the young man. The Death Head’s Moth is a bad omen of the Hireling’s intentions. Hunt represents something important about the PASTORAL tradition; this convention looks to nature to reveal basic human truths. To the left and below is another Hunt painting of lost sheep: “Our English Coasts (Strayed Sheep).” The sheep wander dangerous slopes. Beyond lies the sea. Missing from the picture is the human agent upon whom the sheep depend. The PASTORAL tradition would suggest that we are missing from this picture because we have been distracted by the cares and hubbub of the industrial modern age. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the faery realm upends the world because of Oberon’s and Titania’s quarreling. But the PASTORAL is concerned mostly with HUMAN corruption especially the vanity and vainglory of the human court. Our wayward lovers—Demetrius, Hermia, Lysander, and Helena—intrude upon the fairy world with their lovers’ quarrel. We impact the secret world with our boisterous and pretentious fighting. The secret world of the faeries must set us right lest our contention destroy us. Notice that in Shakespeare’s play, the faeries make the human world work even though the human court and human aristocrats who people that court by rights should pay the price of human arrogance and vanity. The human beings are spared the worst consequences of their own arrogance, vanity, and fighting as the faery world sorts out their problems and enforces a solution. The result for Nick Bottom is not a nightmare but a visionary experience: “I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of ma “I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was” (4.1.203-205).

Probably the most profound example of the PASTORAL convention might be the 23^rd Psalm. Here the Psalmist speaks of his Lord as that authority who presides over his life’s journey. Significantly, the Lord sees fit not to eliminate the danger of threats against the Psalmist. The Lord has set the Psalmist’s table in front of his enemies. They are so close, they must be champing at their bits, waiting impatiently for their opportunity to descend upon the speaker. But the Lord has ensured that in the midst of the danger, the world of the speaker is both sublime and peaceful—a place of quiet retreat and refuge. The pastoral convention is about mercy, grace, and comfort. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Nick Bottom is abused by Puck, who transforms the man’s head into that of an ass. But the transformation does not seem to be punishment. Bottom is entwined by the loving care of Queen Titania; the Queen’s faeries are put into Bottom’s service, commanded to minister to Bottom’s needs. On the right is the stained glass of Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones, who invites us to look closer at the red-robed shepherd. We notice the Christological touches of the crimson robe (signifying the blood of the crucifixion), the crown of thorns upon the shepherd’s head, and the stigmata visible on both hands. The true shepherd—not Hunt’s Hireling-substitute with the Death’s Head Moth in his hand—is that Lord of Psalm 23. The stained glass is by nineteenth century Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne Jones; it may be found today at Holy Trinity Church of Frome in England. Nick Bottom garbles the scriptural allusion but the spiritual implication remains intact. For Nick Bottom, his sojourn in the forest world was a heavenly experience: “The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was” (4.1.209-12).

SUPPORTING PARAGRAPHS (secondary sources) – Supporting paragraphs feature secondary sources. These are sources that talk ABOUT their topic.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists were part of a larger Arts & Crafts movement, which was influential on both sides of the Atlantic. This movement opposed the uniformity and impersonality of mass production. This movement favored the home-made, simple, and individualistic approach to art and design, including furniture and architecture. Steven Adams in his book The Arts & Crafts Movement describes this form of art as visionary, hoping to create an artistic and social alternative to the industrialism of the nineteenth century: As such, this movement long to reclaim a spiritual and sensibility displaced by the machine age; this movement preferred the workshop to the factory, the hand-made to the mass produced: “Pre-industrial society, then, was understood to retain precisely that element of humanity that industrial capitalism lacked” (10). Art critic John Ruskin in the 1850s articulated the philosophy that would be associated with this movement: “You must make either a tool of the creature or a man of him. You cannot make both” (qtd.in Adams 10). Pre-Raphaelite painter William Holman Hunt epitomized another aspect of Victorian art and design that rejected the modern age: purity of heart in the spiritual sense. Hunt’s painting The Hireling Shepherd shows us the corruption of the heart. According to Nancy Davenport in her article “William Holman Hunt: Layered Belief in the Art of a Pre-Raphaelite Realist” for the journal Religion and the Arts, this painting uses the rustic subject matter of shepherd and sheep to illustrate spiritual degradation: “[…] a negligent shepherd permits his sheep to graze on crops dangerous to their health while he dallies with a young shepherdess, who also serves her woolly lamb ill by permitting it to eat green apples” (33).

Many Victorians, whether part of the Arts and Crafts Movement or not, subscribed to Hunt’s visual argument that also featured a meticulous attention to physical details as if to imply that if we got back to a natural pre-industrial world, we would see more clearly what it means to violate the conscience. The two shepherds are destructive of the least of these—the innocent sheep—as they become preoccupied with temptation: “Their attention is focused not on each other’s tempting charms, but on a death’s head moth accurately represented by Hunt and in the young man’s hand, symbol of the fatal folly resulting from neglect of duty” (33). A great example of Hunt’s interest in purity of heart would be his 1853 painting “the Awakening Conscience,” which depicts the sudden moment when a young woman realizes she has been drawn into an illicit relationship. Davenport argues that the young man—the woman’s social superior who is taking advantage of her—inadvertently woke her conscience with a song he played on the piano; she has allowed the aristocratic young man to set her up in her own housekeeping, but she now is “suddenly made aware of her plight and her sinfulness because of the song her careless and more privileged lover sings to her” (33). Bringing everything back home to a rustic Pastoral motif, Hunt depicts the Savior knocking on the door of the heart, which has become grown over with weeds. It is a garden shed long abandoned in the countryside. No one cares about it anymore except for the Savior carrying the lantern, that light which the Death’s Head Moth and the woman’s wide-eyed expression both represent. According to Davenport, “The Light of the World” represents an awakening of Hunt’s own soul: “This conversion experience, which he briefly described in a letter, resulted in the first of his great religious paintings, The Light of the World, in which he depicted the human soul as a locked vine and bramble-covered wooden shed, unresponsive to the radiant Christ as Savior patiently and eternally awaiting entry” (33).

Sukanta Chaudhuri in his introduction to our Arden edition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream reminds us that Shakespeare’s play is a great example of a motif called the Carnivalesque (87-97). This type of story inverts hierarchies and privileges characters who otherwise would be seen as lower caste/class. These characters—both the faeries and the artisans (Nick Bottom and his fellow amateur players)—allow us to experience life turned-upside-down and in violation of the usual behavioral norms: “It is formalized disorder, a conventional breaking of convention. The established order allows itself to be briefly defied so as to absorb the forces that might have destabilized it” (88). What Chaudhuri calls a “rite of disorder” (89) is very old and traceable to Greek and Roman antecedents, which survive in Shakespeare’s day (and our own) as traditional holidays, belying their pagan origin: “Most of these festivals originate in fertility rites and have strong magical and supernatural associations” (89). The Pastoral and supernatural world of the faeries give the audience an alternative “transgressive” (95) milieu where conventions came be overthrown just like Carnival celebrations in New Orleans and throughout European and Latin American cultures. How do William Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelites and other Victorian moralists fit into the “carnival” mode? Hunt embodies that Pastoral model which—like the Gospels themselves—calls people out of a social model which may be familiar and conventional but which has become corrupt and hypocritical. The Victorians looked to the childlike Nick Bottom and the mischievous Robin Goodfellow (Puck) to lead them to a place of spiritual and moral renewal.

Works Cited

Adams, Steven. The Arts and Crafts Movement. London, New Burlington Books, 1987.

Chaudhuri, Sukanta. Introduction. The Arden Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare, Bloomsbury, 2017, pp. 1-115.

Davenport, Nancy. “William Holman Hunt: Layered Belief in the Art of a Pre-Raphaelite Realist.” Religion and the Arts, vol. 16, no. 1/2 2012, pp. 29-77. Academic Search Complete, DOI: 10.1163/156852912X615874.

Graduate Students: Research Project

The Research Project will use description and supporting paragraphs from the PowerPoints. Students need to add SEVEN paragraphs: Paragraph One (Introductory), Paragraph Two (Argument), and Conclusion (last paragraph of the essay.

Paragraphs 1-3 – Introductory

These paragraphs offer the overall argument and key points the reader will see developed in the description and supporting paragraphs.

Paragraphs 4-6– Argument

These paragraphs explain the key ideas that inform the description and supporting paragraphs.

Conclusion – last paragraph

This paragraph is NOT a review of the essay. It offers description of a relevant work—either something we have not seen heretofore in the essay or a detail about something we already have—and a relevant thought.

DAILY SCHEDULE & DUE DATES

January 10-14. Week 1. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM – See NOTES in MODULE

Read Shakespeare’s play and Sukanta Chaudhuri’s introduction, which also serves as an introduction to Shakespeare in general. As Chaudhuri explains, Shakespeare did not invent the motifs of fairy lore. He did not invent the tragic scenario of Pyramus and Thisbe and the misunderstanding that led to their self-slaughter (that’s Ovid). He did not invent the Pastoral, a genre of literature that celebrates the simple joys and virtues of the countryside versus the corruptions of court and city. Shakespeare is doing something with the ideas, conventions, and motifs he has inherited—reworking them for his purposes. What might those purposes be? Where in recent popular culture do we see these same conventions and dynamics at work?

January 17-21 Week 2. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM – Your own PowerPoint.

In CONTENT, see the module for PowerPoint model. Feel free to gut the model and make it your own with your words and your choice of images. Do NOT adapt my paragraphs. Do not use my images. You do NOT need to do anything with Victorian paintings. Follow YOUR inspiration.

SUGGESTION: In CONTENT click on the module for DISCUSSION TOPICS FOR THREADS. Click on the ARROW by THREAD FOR A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM for VIEW TOPIC. Click on VIEW TOPIC and you will find a text box to type your description and discussion paragraph(s) you plan to use in your PowerPoint. You may copy and paste from your own document into the text box. You can also use the attachment function to show us your PowerPoint (as whole—both images and text) as a work in progress.

January 24-28. Week 3. A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM – Due Date THUR January 27.

DUE DATE: JAN 27. PowerPoint 1 – A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM due in the drop box before 11:59 PM Thursday January 27. The drop box will mark subsequent submissions as late. The penalty for lateness is capped at 10 points out of 100.

January 31- February 4. Week 4. ROMEO AND JULIET – See NOTES in MODULE.

Read Shakespeare’s play and the introduction by René Weis. See my notes in the module for ROMEO AND JULIET and the accompanying YouTube videos. What is an example of recent popular culture that addresses a motif or concern we associate with Shakespeare’s play?

February 7-11. Week 5. ROMEO AND JULIET.

POWER POINT 2 – ROMEO AND JULILET. Start a new PowerPoint pertaining to ROMEO & JULIET. We need description paragraphs and discussion paragraphs. Do NOT adapt my paragraphs. Do not use my images.

SUGGESTION: In CONTENT click on the module for DISCUSSION TOPICS FOR THREADS. Click on the ARROW by THREAD FOR ROMEO AND JULIET for VIEW TOPIC. Click on VIEW TOPIC and you will find a text box to type your description and discussion paragraph(s) you plan to use in your PowerPoint. You may copy and paste from your own document into the text box. You can also use the attachment function to show us your PowerPoint (as whole—both images and text) as a work in progress.

February 14-18. Week 6. ROMEO AND JULIET. Due Date THUR February 17.

DUE DATE: February 17. PowerPoint 2: ROMEO AND JULIET is due in the drop box before 11:59 PM Thursday February 17; the drop box will mark subsequent submissions as late. The penalty for lateness is capped at 10 points out of 100.

February 21-25. Week 7. HAMLET – See NOTES in MODULE

Read Shakespeare’s play and the introduction by Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor. See my notes in the module for HAMLET and the accompanying YouTube videos. What is an example of recent popular culture that addresses a motif or concern we associate with Shakespeare’s play?

February 28 – March 4. Week 8. HAMLET.

SUGGESTION: In CONTENT click on the module for DISCUSSION TOPICS FOR THREADS. Click on the ARROW by THREAD FOR HAMLET for VIEW TOPIC. Click on VIEW TOPIC and you will find a text box to type your description and discussion paragraph(s) you plan to use in your PowerPoint. You may copy and paste from your own document into the text box. You can also use the attachment function to show us your PowerPoint (as whole—both images and text) as a work in progress.

March 7-11 Week 9. HAMLET.

POWER POINT 3 – HAMLET. Start a new PowerPoint pertaining to HAMLET. We need description paragraphs and discussion paragraphs. Do NOT adapt my paragraphs. Do not use my images.

SPRING BREAK March 14-18

March 21-25 Week 10. HAMLET. Due Date THUR March 24

DUE DATE: March 24. PowerPoint 3: HAMLET is due in the drop box before 11:59 PM Thursday March 24; the drop box will mark subsequent submissions as late. The penalty for lateness is capped at 10 points out of 100.

March 28 – April 1. Week 11. MACBETH

Read Shakespeare’s play and the introduction by Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason. See my notes in the module for HAMLET and the accompanying YouTube videos. What is an example of recent popular culture that addresses a motif or concern we associate with Shakespeare’s play?

April 4-8. Week 12. MACBETH

SUGGESTION: In CONTENT click on the module for DISCUSSION TOPICS FOR THREADS. Click on the ARROW by THREAD FOR MACBETH for VIEW TOPIC. Click on VIEW TOPIC and you will find a text box to type your description and discussion paragraph(s) you plan to use in your PowerPoint. You may copy and paste from your own document into the text box. You can also use the attachment function to show us your PowerPoint (as whole—both images and text) as a work in progress

POWER POINT 4 – MACBETH. Start a new PowerPoint pertaining to MACBETH. We need description paragraphs and discussion paragraphs. Do NOT adapt my paragraphs. Do not use my images.

April 11-13. Week 13 MACBETH – Due Wednesday April 13

DUE DATE: April 13. PowerPoint 3: HAMLET is due in the drop box before 11:59 PM Wednesday April 13; the drop box will mark subsequent submissions as late. The penalty for lateness is capped at 10 points out of 100.

HOLIDAY BREAK Thursday and Friday, April 14-15.

April 18-22. Week 14 – RESEARCH PROJECT

We need introductory paragraphs (pars.1-3), argument paragraphs (pars. 4-6), and conclusion (last paragraph of the essay). Students can choose from the paragraphs in their PowerPoints for description and supporting paragraphs. Students may REVISE the paragraphs they take from their PowerPoints according to comments in the grading rubrics for those PowerPoints.

April 25-29. Week 15 – RESEARCH PROJECT

Suggestion: Submit a THREAD for the introductory paragraphs 1-3, argument paragraphs 4-6, and conclusion for my input and suggestions

Finals Week: RESEARCH PROJECT – due in drop box Monday, May 2. RESEARCH PROJECT is due in the drop before 11:59 PM Monday May 2. A late essay will be penalized 10 points. 

Plagiarism

Any use of a non-documented source as if it were a student’s original work is academic dishonesty. The grade will be a “0” (no points) for the assignment and the student can no longer attend the course.  If early enough in the semester, the student can bring the instructor a withdrawal slip for a penalty-free W. Otherwise the semester grade must be an F.

Language too close to source

Students sometimes borrow the phrasing of the play or their scholarly sources as if it were their own. Students certainly can use key words from their sources, but they must use their own phrasing—not the source’s.

Readability & Originality

The rubric has a category devoted to legibility and originality. Student writing must be readable and original. Students should NOT adapt material from either the instructor’s models or the paragraphs other students submit in a THREAD for input by the instructor.

Attendance

In D2L the class list (under communication) indicates the most recent date the students have logged into the course. I will use D2L to track attendance.

Submission to the Drop Box/Special Access

All assignments must be submitted to the drop box in order to be graded and counted.

Students with disabilities

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) guarantees reasonable accommodation. If you believe you have a disability requiring an accommodation, please contact the Disability Support Services in Room 168 of the Clark Student Center, 397-4140.

Writing Proficiency Requirement: All students seeking a Bachelor’s degree from Midwestern State University must satisfy a writing proficiency requirement once they have 1) completed 6 hours of Communication Core and 2) earned 60 hours. Students may meet this requirement by passing the Writing Proficiency Exam, passing two Writing Intensive courses, or passing English 2113. If you have any questions about the exam, visit the Writing Proficiency Office website or call 397-4131.

ENGL 5773 Grading Rubric (tentative/approximate model)

CRITERION

EXCELLENT

(96-100)

GOOD

(86)

SATISFACTORY

(76)

PASSING

(66)

FAILING

(50)

Topics pertain to Shakespeare’s motifs & scenarios in our required play.

Remarkable, exceptional

Promising, interesting

Topic idea about modern people

The topic idea is problematic.

Topic ideas seem to be missing

Insights Paragraphs discuss relevant ideas; offer significant insights.

Remarkable, exceptional

Promising, interesting

Insights come just before a quote. 

Insights are problematic.

Insights seem to be missing.

Description Specific “sensory” details capture what we are seeing and hearing in the film.

Remarkable, exceptional

Promising, interesting

Descriptive details are sufficient

Entry lacks adequate description.

Description seems to be missing.

Quotes Description pars end with quote from movie; sup. pars end with quote from the sup. source w. parenthetical page if provided in PDF.

Remarkable, exceptional

Promising, interesting

Student provides relevant quote to close paragraph.

Quotes are problematic.

Quotes seem to be missing

Readability, Visual effect, Originality. Avoids adapting or copying someone’s thread or PowerPoint.

Remarkable, exceptional

Promising, interesting

Mostly readable, visually effective; always original.

Problematic 

Profound Concern

Comments:

Attendance is tracked through D2L login history and class progress.

The late penalty is 10 points out of 100.

Note: You may not submit a paper for a grade in this class that already has been (or will be) submitted for a grade in another course, unless you obtain the explicit written permission of me and the other instructor involved in advance.

Plagiarism is the use of someone else's thoughts, words, ideas, or lines of argument in your own work without appropriate documentation (a parenthetical citation at the end and a listing in "Works Cited")-whether you use that material in a quote, paraphrase, or summary. It is a theft of intellectual property and will not be tolerated, whether intentional or not.

Student Honor Creed

As an MSU Student, I pledge not to lie, cheat, steal, or help anyone else do so."

As students at MSU, we recognize that any great society must be composed of empowered, responsible citizens. We also recognize universities play an important role in helping mold these responsible citizens. We believe students themselves play an important part in developing responsible citizenship by maintaining a community where integrity and honorable character are the norm, not the exception.

Thus, We, the Students of Midwestern State University, resolve to uphold the honor of the University by affirming our commitment to complete academic honesty. We resolve not only to be honest but also to hold our peers accountable for complete honesty in all university matters.

We consider it dishonest to ask for, give, or receive help in examinations or quizzes, to use any unauthorized material in examinations, or to present, as one's own, work or ideas which are not entirely one's own. We recognize that any instructor has the right to expect that all student work is honest, original work. We accept and acknowledge that responsibility for lying, cheating, stealing, plagiarism, and other forms of academic dishonesty fundamentally rests within each individual student.

We expect of ourselves academic integrity, personal professionalism, and ethical character. We appreciate steps taken by University officials to protect the honor of the University against any who would disgrace the MSU student body by violating the spirit of this creed.

Written and adopted by the 2002-2003 MSU Student Senate.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a federal anti-discrimination statute that provides comprehensive civil rights protection for persons with disabilities. Among other things, this legislation requires that all students with disabilities be guaranteed a learning environment that provides for reasonable accommodation of their disabilities. If you believe you have a disability requiring an accommodation, please contact the Disability Support Services in Room 168 of the Clark Student Center, (940) 397-4140.

The professor considers this classroom to be a place where you will be treated with respect as a human being - regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, political beliefs, age, or ability. Additionally, diversity of thought is appreciated and encouraged, provided you can agree to disagree. It is the professor's expectation that ALL students consider the classroom a safe environment.

All instructors in the Department have voicemail in their offices and MSUTexas e-mail addresses. Make sure you add your instructor's phone number and e-mail address to both email and cell phone lists of contacts.

All students seeking a Bachelor's degree from Midwestern State University must satisfy a writing proficiency requirement once they've 1) passed the 6 hours of Communication Core and 2) earned 60 hours. Students may meet this requirement in one of three ways: by passing the Writing Proficiency Exam, passing two Writing Intensive Courses (only one can be in the core), or passing English 2113. If you have any questions about the exam, visit the Writing Proficiency Office website at https://msutexas.edu/academics/wpr, or call 397-4131.

Senate Bill 11 passed by the 84th Texas Legislature allows licensed handgun holders to carry concealed handguns on campus, effective August 1, 2016. Areas excluded from concealed carry are appropriately marked, in accordance with state law. For more information regarding campus carry, please refer to the University’s webpage at https://msutexas.edu/campus-carry/rules-policies.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact MSU Chief of Police at police@msutexas.edu.