Course Syllabus
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Course Description: Every poem has a form, a skin that it lives and breathes in. This course will explore the basic tenets of forming poems, and explore the ways that form conveys the poem's content. We will study received and hybrid forms to discover the wide range of formal strategies that poems can deploy and their various effects. Class assignments will include both critical writing and creative experiments in poetic forms to emphasize the matter of poetic craft.
The central component of the course is the workshop. Students will draft 3 major poems and we will workshop those poems—that is to say, we will have a moderated discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the writing. We will discuss your writing in a constructive and honest way.
ENG 352 Course Objectives:
- Sharpening critical thinking via poetry as a genre: Students will describe poetic forms, notice patterns and variations in them, and to analyze these patterns and variations. As well, we will see that poetry has a long, storied tradition, and students will be able to identify some of the key conversations that keep poetry vital and varied even today.
- Sharpening rhetorical knowledge via learning about poetry as a craft: Students will learn to identify poetic and rhetorical strategies and structures, including common key elements of craft. Students will see form as a way of thinking and feeling, not just an idle container into which the poem fits.
- Sharpening analytical skills via writing about poetry: Students will write analytical close readings of poetry in order to hone their thinking and writing skills.
Course Policies
Intellectual Engagement: We will read writers that may challenge the way you think. You may not agree with certain texts; the course does not require your agreement. It does insist upon your intellectual participation and engagement. I expect all of us to respect each member of this classroom community as well as the ideas expressed therein. I expect students to comport themselves as adults do: by engaging texts and each other thoughtfully and respectfully.
Academic Honesty: I won’t tolerate representing someone else’s work as your own. Such academic dishonesty, even at the draft level, will result in serious effects, ranging from failing the class to expulsion. Your responsibilities include understanding "academic dishonesty" as set forth by the Student Handbook. I reserve the right to submit your written work to Turnitin.com.
Timeliness: Turn in assignments when they're due. If you miss class for some reason, I will take emailed work, provided it reaches me by 5:00 pm EST on the due-date. Workshop poems must be turned in by the deadlines indicated on the syllabus. We will not do cold readings of poems in this course. It's imperative that you observe this practice strictly. I will accept late work, but not without a penalty (see "Professionalism").
Correspondence: Please check your email twice daily (once in the morning and once at night) for course announcements. I will do the same, so that I may respond to your questions and concerns promptly. If you email me, I will always acknowledge your email with one of my own. Similarly, if I email you individually about an issue, I expect the same courtesy. Should you need to email work to me, you should attach a file AND copy/paste the contents of the file into the body of the email itself, along with a message (please make sure that your message describes what you're sending to me and precedes any copy/pasted information). Emails should be composed professionally, not as casual or electronic messages.
Grading: I will grade your work quickly and fairly and I will be open to your questions and concerns. Priority is given to the workshop poems, and other work will be graded and handed back within two weeks.
A note about my grading philosophy:
Excellence occurs when students combine effective rhetorical strategies, dazzling syntax, and active voice. It happens when students are able to marshal a variety of evidence, analyze that evidence, and connect their analysis back to the thesis statement, thereby synthesizing points and extending their argument into new territory. Excellent work is polished, and contains few errors in grammar. I encourage you to aspire to excellence.
The word "excellence" entered English parlance in the 14th century. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us the word has roots in Latin (excellĕre: to rise above others, be eminent) and is formed by adding the prefix ex- (out, forth, upward) to the root verb cellĕre, which means to rise high, tower (taken from celsus, an adjective that means lofty). Excellĕre is a verb found only in compounds: to excel is never merely to do one thing itself, but rather is achieved by adding something extra, something extraordinary, to the given.
At the university level, As mean that students have achieved excellence: lofty feats and towering triumphs. Bs denote that students have met the requirements and have achieved excellence in some aspects of the assignment. Cs mean that students have completed an assignment satisfactorily. Ds and Fs mean that the student has achieved satisfactory progress on a few aspects, but that the student has not met the minimum goals of the assignment.
I encourage you to aspire beyond the average. On a 10-point scale, for instance, 5 is average (acceptable work). A score of 7 points is above-average. A score of 9-10 means that rare thing, excellence.
Grading Scale:
100 A+ 99-94 A 93-90 A-
89-87 B+ 86-84 B 83-80 B-
79-77 C+ 76-74 C 73-70 C-
69-67 D+ 66-64 D 63-60 D- 59-0: F
Note: There is no college-wide scale. I have researched what my colleagues use and have constructed a fair scale.
Formatting: All work must be typed if it is produced outside of class.
Papers: Please follow these guidelines for non-poetic pieces:
Type your paper using size 12 type, using a professional font (either Times New Roman or Garamond),
and using only one side of the page with one-inch margins at the top, bottom, left, and right.
The very top left of the page should include name, assignment, and date of submission, all single-
spaced.
The title of each paper should be centered and must appear after one single space following the date.
Every line of the paper itself should be double-spaced from the title to the final sentence.
Please reduce the amount of space after each paragraph to be equal to the space between the lines: set it
to 0 instead of 6 pts.
Include a page number (bottom right), starting after the first page (no page #'s on the first page).
Staple your papers if they are more than 1 page.
Poems: Please follow these guidelines:
Do not put your name or any other information on your poem.
center the title (every poem must have a title)
Left-justify the poem's text; if a line is too long, one tab/indent indicates that the line continues
past the margin (like this), unless you are consciously subverting that poetic norm
Single space (Set Spacing in Paragraph Tab before/after to 0 pt)
12 point Garamond font.
Black type.
Use italics or quotes to indicate thought/speech, or to provide emphasis (same with bold)
If the poem goes onto a second page, type either "stanza break" or "no stanza break" on the first line of
the page, right-justified.
Use punctuation unless the lack of punctuation is part of the meaning of your poem.
***Failure to follow these guidelines will mean a deduction in your Professionalism grade.
Electronic Devices Policy: Please keep your focus on the material during class. Students may bring an e-reader or laptop to class on days we are discussing non-workshop material from Canvas, though I reserve the right to require material printed out and brought physically to class if I believe that it would suit the pedagogical purpose for that class day. My policy is that if your phone rings in class, I will answer it and politely remind the caller that you are in class. If my phone rings in class, I will happily allow a student to answer the call.
Course Requirements:
Professionalism (20 pts) Responses (10 points) Close Reading Paper (10 points)
Workshop Poems (30 points) Event Profile (10 points) Final Project (20 points)
- Professionalism (20 points, evenly divided):
- Attendance (10 pts): I take attendance through roll sheets. I only excuse absences if Washington College
requires your presence elsewhere or if you observe a religious holiday not recognized by the College. I must
have written notice (email is fine) 48 hours before the absence takes place. You must meet with me in
conference twice; these count toward your attendance. Grading for attendance is as follows:
0: 10pts 1: 9 pts 2: 8 pts 3: 7 pts 4: 6 pts. 5: 5 pts.
Upon the 6th absence, a student automatically fails this course.
- Participation (10pts): This comprises all interactions with me and with your peers. Come to class prepared. Speak intelligently and constructively about the work under discussion. You can point us to questions you had about the text, engage in level-headed debate with other viewpoints about the text, or make connections between texts, etc. Be engaged with the material in the classroom. You can be intellectually absent just as you can be physically absent. If you are not prepared for class, I will dismiss you and mark you as absent. If you don’t interact in class, expect to earn minimal points. I adhere to the following rubric to determine your participation grade:
If you say almost nothing on most days: 0 – 1 points.
If you make 1 helpful contribution on most days: 2-4 points.
If you make 2-3 helpful contributions on most days: 5-7 points.
If you make 4 helpful contributions on most days: 8-9 points.
If you make countless helpful contributions every day: 10 points.
Participation is a matter of quantity and also quality.
Late work penalty: If an assignment is late, you will be docked .25 points per day (not per class day) that it is late on your Participation eligibility points. Thus, if you turn in a workshop poem draft one day late, you will be eligible for 9.75 points of Participation, not 10.0 points.
- Reading Responses (10 pts, averaged together) For each of the single-author volumes of poetry we’ll read, you'll turn in a one-page reaction to the book that describes the writer's voice, the writer's theme, and the craft employed in writing about those themes. Specifically, I want you to describe the craft of the poems. Try to summarize how the poet uses a particular poetic tool and to what individualizing effects. The task here is to be succinct, detailed, and analytical at the same time. (Like poems are). Some advice: lead off with your thesis statement, and then move from there to specific detail and analysis.
Excellent (10-9): Shows meaningful engagement with the craft and ideas of the writer's work. Answers:
what are this writer's themes, and how does the writer write about those themes? Describes the writer's
style or voice through an examination of the craft.
Above Average (8-7): Shows meaningful engagement with the writer's ideas and craft, but not both, OR
identifies themes and craft elements, but does not necessarily tie them together, OR achieves the first
two but does not describe the writer's voice or style.
Average (6-5): Engages the writing, but hasn't thought deeply enough about issues of craft. Focuses on theme
more so than on craft; the description of the writer's voice or style shows no insight and is focused on
theme.
Below Average (4-3): Engages only theme, without a deeper analysis of craft, and does not describe the writer's
voice.
Failing (2-1): Something has been turned in but minimal effort has been made to engage the writing in terms
of craft or theme.
- Close Reading Paper (10 points): You will choose a poem from one of the books from class. The poem may not be one that we have discussed (though it may be one you single out in your Response). You will write an essay (2-4 pages) showing how the poem's form conveys its emotional or intellectual argument (i.e., its content/meaning). Essays will be graded on:
Thesis (3 points): Excellent theses are clear, original, and arguable. They are usually located at the end of the introductory paragraph.
Evidence (2 points): Excellent evidence is varied and includes direct (primary) evidence from the text, summative information about the text and its form, as well as more particular evidence that might concern a poem's use of language.
Analysis (2 points): Excellent analysis picks apart each piece of evidence and shows how that evidence supports the thesis. Beyond that, though, excellent analysis connects discrete paragraph's points to the major thesis, and then pushes a little further to arrive at new implications that were not readily apparent in the thesis statement itself.
Structure (2 points): Excellent papers utilize Introductions and Conclusions, topic sentences that control paragraphs, and sentences at the ends of paragraphs that reinforce the thesis and transition to the next paragraph/topic. Excellent structure means that a paper is well-organized and that information is presented in a clear, concise, non-redundant, coherent manner.
Style (1 points): Excellent writing uses active voice, contains little or no errors in usage, and varies syntactical strategies.
- Workshop Poems (30 pts, divided evenly). These poems assignments are designed to help you learn the rules of three basic formal categories. Here is where we learn "the rules"; you will be able to break these rules (meaningfully) in your Final Project.
We will workshop three poems in this course:
- A poem that employs the basic tenets of poetry (line, sentence, stanza, tone, metaphor, and point of
view).
- A poem that employs meter or syllabic pattern and variation.
- A poem that employs a repeating form.
Each poem is worth 10 points and will use the following rubric to determine its grade:
Excellent (10-9): Faithfully follows the poetic form's rules. The poem itself is also effective at
conveying an emotional and intellectual message (i.e., it's clear, devoid of clichés, has a
coherent emotional and intellectual core, and uses specific language and idiosyncratic
description, metaphor, or other figurative language.) What's more, the poem's form and its
message have a clear relationship.
Above Average (8-7): Follows the poetic form's rules with slight interventions in those rules. The
poem may also be less effective in conveying its emotional and intellectual message. Or, the
relationship between the poem's form and its message may be less clear.
Average (6-5): Many interventions or fumbles with the form, though it is still recognizable. Or, the
poem is only moderately effective in conveying its emotional and intellectual message, usually
because of clichés, uninspired linguistic choices, vague details, or a syntax that does not make
sense. OR, the poem's form and its message do not sync up.
Below Average (4-3): One may not be able to recognize the form, or the poem suffers from ineffectual
language and does not convey an intellectual or emotional message, OR the poem's form has very little to do with its message.
Failing (2-1): Something has been turned in but minimal effort has been made to engage the ideas of form and
emotional or intellectual content.
Note: Failure to draft any of these poems will automatically earn a failing grade for the course.
Note 2: Any poem that fails to achieve an Average score may be revised. Otherwise, each student may revise one of these workshop poems for a better grade (simply email it to me by the Final Exam period).
- Event Profile (10 points): During this semester, you'll have a chance to hear writers read from their work. You must attend one such event and write a vivid description that profiles your experience of the event. Profiles not only record one's experiences but also make an argument, through idea-bearing description, about your perception of the event. Creative license is encouraged here, though please do remember to advance an argument via specific details and active-voice writing. Due on our last day of class (not the Final Exam day). I have noted several events on the syllabus; you are free to attend one of these or another literary event. Though we will have visits by two writers, these won't count for "events," since they will not be performing a substantive reading of their work for us.
- Final Project (20 points): You will propose your own poetic form, write a poem in that form, and write an accompanying close reading essay of the ways in which your poem's form conveys its meaning. Due at the Final Exam. You'll propose the project in a 1-page (perhaps 1-paragraph will suffice) paper.
You may choose to update an existing poetic form, but it must be almost entirely new. For instance, if I were to write a Stretchy Shakes (a name I've just now made up), I might employ the tripartite structure of a Shakespearen sonnet's argument (here's something, here's something more, and yet moreover….) as well as its epiphanic couplet (But aha!), and substitute anapestic hexameter for iambic pentameter, use end-stopped lines, and write about President Obama (or future-president Hilary Clinton…) instead of the normative Shakespearean sonnet's form/subjects. I would then write the poem. And then I would write a 2-3 page analysis of my poem, singling out the ways that the poetic form helped me convey meaning (i.e., the anapests made Hilary's dialogue subvert the prosaicness of the long line, just as Hilary's presidency subverts patriarchal assumptions about power).
Another way to think about this, though, is to devise your very own form by looking at something you love that is poetic in essence but not yet in form. For instance, I love Cher. If Cher were a poem, what would that poem look like? You could dance to it, for one. It would have some sex in it, like "Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves." It would intertwine feminine endings with iambic pentameter, most likely, since Cher's voice is deep and defies expectations about female voices.
Excellent projects will have a unique and original idea, execute that idea in a surprising and coherent and delightful way, using pattern and variation, and will be accompanied by a well-written, well-organized, well-argued essay. We as a class will determine the point distribution for this assignment (proposal, poem, essay).
Required Texts:
- College-level dictionary and thesaurus.
- Emails and handouts, as indicated on the syllabus and announced in class.
- Jehanne Dubrow. The Arranged Marriage. University of New Mexico Press. March 1, 2015.
ISBN: 0826355536
- Finch and Varnes, An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art.University
of Michigan Press. February 20, 2002. ISBN: 0472067257
- Linda Gregerson. Waterborne: Poems. Mariner Books, February 2004. ISBN: 061838202X
- Matthea Harvey. Pity the Bathtub its Forced Embrace of the Human Form. Alice James Books. July 1, 2002.
ISBN: 1882295269.
- Natasha Trethewey. Native Guard: Poems. Mariner Books. April 3, 2007. ISBN: 0618872655.
Tentative Schedule
September
T 01: Introduction.
What does "poetry" mean? Is that already a formal designation?
What does "form" mean?
Th 03: Canvas: "The Four Temperaments and the Forms of Poetry"
What forms does Orr suggest for poetry?
Gregerson: "Eyes Like Leeks" and "Noah's Wife" (p. 1-6)
Class will end promptly at 3:20 in order for us to make Convocation.
T 8: Reading Response Due: Gregerson (by noon).
Th 10: Canvas: Alicia Ostriker, "A Meditation on Metaphor"
Re-read Gregerson, "A History Play" (p. 48-50).
Canvas: Carl Dennis, "Point of View"
Re-read Gregerson, "Grammatical Mood" (p. 60-63) and "An Offering" (25).
Thursday, 9/10: Event Profile Opportunity: Claudia Rankine (poetry/lyric essay). 4:30 pm, Decker Theater.
T 15: Canvas: Stephen Dobyns, "The Function of Tone"
Re-read Gregerson, "Pass Over" (34-38) and "Narrow Flame" (39).
Th 17: Canvas: The line and/vs the sentence: Essays from A Broken Thing.
Please email me at least 1 question you would like to ask Professor Gregerson, grounded in her work, by Monday, 9/21 at 10:00 a.m.
T 22: Dr. Linda Gregerson visits our class (2:30-3:15). Finish our discussion of Waterborne.
Tuesday, 9/22: Event Profile Opportunity: Linda Gregerson (poetry). 4:30 pm, Lit House.
Th 24: The stanza.
Read: Exaltation: Steele, "'The Bravest Sort of Verses': The Heroic Couplet" (107-115); Stefanile, "The Self-
Engendering Muse: Terza Rima" (116-121); and Hollander, "The Quatrain" (122-131).
Monday, 9/28: Poem # 1 Due by 10:00 a.m.
T 29: Workshop Poem # 1.
October
Th 1: Workshop Poem # 1. T 6: Workshop Poem # 1.
Th 8: Reading Response Due: Dubrow (by noon). In addition to your response (at the end), please also include a question that you'd like to ask Prof. Dubrow when she visits our class on 10/13. Please make sure that question is grounded in her work.
Exaltation: Chernoff and Delville, "Strange Tales and Bitter Emergencies: A Few Notes on the Prose
Poem" (262-271).
Dicuss The Arranged Marriage
T 13: Dr. Jehanne Dubrow visits our class.
Read, "Small Safe Boxes….An Interview with Jehanne Dubrow" on CanvasàDiscussions.
Discuss The Arranged Marriage
Th 15-F 16: Fall Break. No classes scheduled.
T 20: Exaltation: Gioia, "Accentual Verse" (15-23) and Ridland, "Iambic Meter" (39-45).
Canvas: Frost, "The Road Not Taken."
Th 22: Response Due: Trethewey (by noon).
Discuss Native Guard.
T 27: class canceled (instructor ill)
Th 29: Discus Native Guard.
Exaltations: Hacker, "The Sonnet" (297-307).
November
T 3: Holley, "Syllabics: Sweeter Melodies" (24-31).
Canvas: Syllabic poems
Wednesday, November 4: Workshop Poem due by 10 am.
Tuesday, 11/3: Event Opportunity: Matthea Harvey (poetry). 4:30 pm, Rose O'Neill Literary House.
Th 5: Workshop Poem # 2.
T 10: Workshop Poem # 2.
Optional: Response Due: Harvey (by noon).
Th 12: Workshop Poem # 2.
From here, we've had to revise the schedule. Here's Scenario A (emailed and also in Files):
ENG 352: Forms
Revised Schedule 11.22.15
Scenario B
Next week: 1 assignment: Close Reading Paper.
Here's what our syllabus says about the Close Reading paper:
Worth 10 points:
You will choose a poem from one of the books from class. The poem may not be one that we have discussed (though it may be one you single out in your Response). [Note: if you do not have your books with you, please find on Canvas, under Files, a document called "Close Reading Choices." There are a smattering of poems there that you may write on for your paper.]
You will write an essay (2-4 pages) showing how the poem's form conveys its emotional or intellectual argument (i.e., its content/meaning). Essays will be graded on:
Thesis (3 points): Excellent theses are clear, original, and arguable. They are usually located at the end of the introductory paragraph.
Evidence (2 points): Excellent evidence is varied and includes direct (primary) evidence from the text, summative information about the text and its form, as well as more particular evidence that might concern a poem's use of language.
Analysis (2 points): Excellent analysis picks apart each piece of evidence and shows how that evidence supports the thesis. Beyond that, though, excellent analysis connects discrete paragraph's points to the major thesis, and then pushes a little further to arrive at new implications that were not readily apparent in the thesis
statement itself.
Structure (2 points): Excellent papers utilize Introductions and Conclusions, topic sentences that control paragraphs, and sentences at the ends of paragraphs that reinforce the thesis and transition to the next paragraph/topic. Excellent structure means that a paper is well-organized and that information is presented in a clear, concise, non-redundant, coherent manner.
Style (1 points): Excellent writing uses active voice, contains little or no errors in usage, and varies syntactical strategies.
Please upload the paper to Canvas. If you have trouble doing that, you may email it to me instead. If you email it to me, include both an attachment (doc, docx, or rtf) AND copy/paste it into the body of the email. Remember, I will acknowledge your email with one of my own.
Due: Wednesday, November 25: Close Reading Paper Due by Wednesday, 11/25 (before 11:59 pm). This has always been the due date, but I realize you all are extra-stressed. ***In order to accommodate the stress of the past few days, I will accept a revision of this paper at our Final Exam. (Email by exam time is fine).
December
T 1: Finish workshopping Poem # 2. (3 poems: Death Drips, To My Father, King of the Forest). If you haven't, please send poem comments for "King of the Forest" to me by 10am on Monday, November 30th via email. Thank you!
Exaltation: Kumin, "Gymnastics: The Villanelle" (314-321).
Th 3: Exaltation: Gotera, "The Pantoum's Postcolonial Pedigree" (254-261).
Exaltation: Ali: "Ghazal: To Be Teased into DisUnity"
Exaltation: Turco, "Sestina: The End Game" (290-296)
Sunday, 12/6 by noon: Poem # 3 due by noon.
T 8: Workshop Poem # 3. Final Project Proposals Due (via Canvas).
Th 10: Workshop Poem # 3.
Saturday, 12: Finish workshopping Poem # 3.
Event Profile Due (via Canvas).
Monday, December 14 Final Exam Period:
Final Project (Poem and Essay) Due.
Close Reading Paper Revision Due.
Course Evaluations.
Friday, December 18 at 3:00 pm: Workshop Poem Revisions Due. Note: Because of the extra stress of the semester, I will allow you to revise all 3 poems. Please submit them in ONE document via email. Your grade can only stay the same or improve, so do not be afraid to take risks.
ENG 352: Forms
Scenario B: Due Dates Run-down
Wednesday, November 25: Close Reading Paper (draft) due by 11:59 pm (Eastern Standard Time).
Monday, November 30: If you haven’t turned in your comments for Brian’s poem, “King of the Forest,” please do so by Monday, November 30 at 10:00 am.
Sunday, December 6: Poem 3 (Repeating form) poem due by noon via Canvas.
Tuesday, December 8: Final Project Proposals Due via Canvas.
Saturday, December 12: Event Profiles Due via Canvas.
Wednesday, November 16, 4-6:30pm: (Final Exam): Close Reading Revisions Due (via email or hardcopy). Final Project (Poem and Essay) due. Please bring at least the poem in hardcopy; we will share these poems with the class as a way to celebrate what we’ve learned and the hard work we have accomplished this semester.
Friday, December 18 at 3pm: Workshop Poem Revisions (Poems 1-3) due via email in ONE document. (Please do not attach 3 different poems to the email).
Course Summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
|---|---|---|