Literature Course VT & DT year 3

an introduction

Instructor: Jenny Denman

Literature Blocks 1 & 2 5 ECTS READER: download this from my website, print it out and bring it to class each week Books and plays: bring the right one to class each week!

Mandatory attendance, (extra assignment if you miss a lesson) Extra assignment: a reading report in your own words on the book or story that we dealt with in the class you missed (ca. 350 words) Hand this in at the next class AND put it in your final dossier!

Marking (three marks on Osiris):

25% for presentation 25% for test after block 2, 50% for essays and worksheets (Final Dossier)

LiteratureRequirements:* Read all of the works on the list* Do an in-class presentation of one of the works* Post or comment on the Literature Blog Greater Expectations for each of the works one day BEFORE CLASS!* Active participation in discussions and activities* Fill in a Literature Overview Worksheet for each book/play/story, and hand in the complete dossier together with your essays* Write two essays (ca. 1,200 words, one at the end of each block) in your own words on at least two of the works (compare and/or contrast) * Test after block 2 (practice test on my website and on N@tschool)

Final dossier due date: VT: Jan. 28, 2014 (TEST WEEK)

DT: Jan. 30, 2014 (TEST WEEK)

If you miss this deadline you can hand in your final dossier in the resit week after block 3. If you miss the resit deadline , you must register for the course again next year and hand in your dossier after block 2, 2015 in order to get points.

Help! Can I do all this?You can!

Order or borrow the books in time. Set aside specific times each week to read. Use your holidays and weekends: reading can be relaxing! Keep track of what you read, your own opinions and feelings, and

any secondary sources (websites, books, articles, etc.). Fill in a Literature Overview Worksheet for each book as you go

along. Post or comment on the blog as soon as a topic appears. Prepare your presentation well in advance. Communicate! Don’t wait until the last minute to choose an essay topic. Make an

appointment if you need help.

J.L.Denman@hr.nlhttp://Greater-Expectations.blogspot.com

Literature: a definitionWork in groups of 3.

Try to find answers to these questions:

1. When is a work ‘literature’ and when is it NOT ‘literature’? What’s the difference? Give some examples.

2. Should English teachers read literature? Why or why not?

3. Should pupils read literature? Why or why not?

Can you name some examples of classics or masterpieces?

In Literature: Novels Short

Stories/Novellas Plays Poems

In other art forms: Visual arts Music Film Architecture Anything else?

What makes them ‘great’?

“A classic is something everyone wants to have read and no one wants to read.”

- Mark Twain

One list of the characteristics of literature (Meyer, 1997, “What is Literature?”)

Literary works are written texts Literary works are marked by careful use of language,

including features such as creative metaphors, well-turned phrases, elegant syntax, rhyme, alliteration, meter (literary or stylistic devices)

Literary works are in a literary genre (poetry, prose fiction, or drama)

Literary works are written and read aesthetically (with an appreciation of beauty, taste, or artistry)

Literary works contain many weak implicatures (are deliberately somewhat open in interpretation)

Literature Defined

According to S.T. Esch: “Literature is a verbal art, an art which explores what it means to be human from the inside. It's the inside story. It's a million and one snapshots of the human heart in all its mystery and perfection, and imperfection. It's philosophy, psychology, sociology, ideology and history rolled together without any attempt to clear up the unanswered questions. It's the questions, it's the questioner. It's you and what you make of it.” (2004)

In other words, your opinion matters!

The Effect of Great Literature Inspires big, unanswerable questions Makes us feel Makes us think Involves us by moving us rationally and emotionally.

In English teaching methodology, reading is often called a “passive” skill. Is this accurate?

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth)

Poetry: Structure, Sound and Sense Consider that words have:

Sound Weight Color Texture

A poem’s meaning is often formed from these sounds and textures, colors and weights, as well as what these words actually mean.

The poem is itself “being”: it doesn’t have to tell a story, but it can.

Or this:“Chicken-Licken”

She was afraid of men,

sin and the humors

of the night.

When she saw a bed

locks clicked

in her brain.

She screwed a frown

around and plugged

it in the keyhole.

Put a chain across

her door and closed

her mind.

Her bones were found

round thirty years later

when they razed

her building to

put up a parking lot.

Autopsy: read

dead of acute peoplelessness.

Maya Angelou

Prose

Fiction: written works that are made up of imaginary happenings and characters. e.g. Plays, Novels, Short Stories, Poetry.

Non-Fiction: written works that are not imaginary. e.g. History, Biographies, Memoirs, Diaries,

Instructional Work, Academic Articles.

Prose literature: genres Drama: plays

Meant to be performed: this affects the length of the work, its language, characters, and interpretive possibilities. Drama is also meant to be a visual art – requires imagination if it is merely read and not seen.

Novels

Short Stories or Novellas (longer short stories)The Short Story – as old as the oldest tale, older than Biblical

Scripture or other religious writing - satisfied a need for compact story-telling.

Our prose reading list: what genre? Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë Great Expectations by Charles Dickens  Othello by William Shakespeare The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf (chapter 3) The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

Elements of a novel What elements does a novel have to have?

What are we reading for? Plot Characters Structure Setting Point of view (narration) Themes Symbols Irony?

8 Elements of Fiction Plot: the major “happening(s)” in the story; “the meat on the bone.”

The plot of fiction is sometimes described as a process:

Put a man up a tree Throw stones at him Get him down

The plot components can include: Exposition, complication, conflict, dilemma, crisis, climax, resolution, epiphany (an action or line of dialogue that reveals a truth; a sudden insight)

Stucture: how the work is constructed: chapters, scenes, flashbacks, narrative threads. Can also include stories within the story, e-mails, pictures, etc.!

Character(s): the “people” in the story:Protagonist and Antagonist, flat or round, static or dynamic, major or minor.

Point of View: Who is telling the story?Narrator, omniscient narrator, limited omniscient narrator, objective “camera

eye” narrator, first-person narrator, reliable/unreliable narrator.

8 Elements of Fiction (continued)

Setting: Place and Time; the scene; where and when a story takes place; can be realistic or symbolic.

Theme: a general point, or points, that can be inferred from details in the story: character, plot, setting. Quoting Esch (2004):

“Enduring literary works can bring the truths inherent in that time and place and communicate them in ways that reach audiences beyond their immediate ones. They are able to express truths that are "timeless" and "universal," able to interest people across cultures and across the centuries.”

Symbols: Any person, object, image, word, or situation represented in literature may be capable of evoking a range of additional meanings, beyond its original, literal one, leading to levels of meaning. A symbol stands for the thing itself , but also something else.

Irony: the perception of a clash between appearance and reality, between what ‘seems to be’ and what ‘is’.

Literature: let it take you away!

ppt: J .Denman 2013