Send comments to michael.cohen@murraystate.edu
English 400: Senior Seminar
Spring 2001
Michael Cohen, Faculty Hall 7C-4, 762-4534/2401
Office hours: M 1-2:30, T 9-9:30, 10:30-11:30, W 9-12, 2-3:30, Th 9-9:30,
10:30-11:30 and by appointment
Catalog Description: Comprehensive overview of topics in the discipline; required of all English majors.
Purpose: For degree candidates in the English major the course is intended as a review and supplement for course work already taken as well as a look forward at career opportunities. It serves the department also in that the portfolio materials collected in the course and a standard examination help in assessing how well the English curriculum and instruction meet departmental objectives.
Course Objectives: Students will (1) take inventory of their course work, other reading, and English language skills, (2) begin presenting these for potential employers, graduate schools, or professional schools through résumés, placement office dossiers, and perhaps initial contacts with employers or schools, (3) supplement their reading and perfect their language skills through scheduled readings, papers, and oral presentations, (4) observe and present career options in seminar presentations, and (5) compile a portfolio of work from their other courses.
Content Outline: The career exploration portion of the course will be concentrated at the beginning. A schedule of readings will be organized as a chronological survey of English and American literature, with student-led discussions. Seminar projects, adapted to the major option for each student, will be presented in shortened form as oral presentations near the end of the term. All students will take a standardized examination called the Literature Achievement Test and a comprehensive final examination over material covered in the course.
Instructional Activities: A typical class meeting
will include one or more of the following: (1) class discussions of literature
readings lead by individual class members; (2) oral presentations on career
options by members of the class; and (3) presentations by resource persons
from the department and elsewhere.
A schedule of class activities will be provided after students'
individual reading and report schedules have been determined.
Students will be responsible for leading discussion on one reading
and for one co-presentation with a classmate, an oral report on career
options. The seminar project will vary according to the student's
major option: literature majors will write a 2000-3000 word essay based
on primary and secondary sources; creative writing majors will write a
2000-3000 word essay which (1) introduces their own work as it is exemplified
within the portfolio, (2) provides a critical analysis of one writer or
literary movement that has influenced their own work, (3) discusses this
influence by referring to examples within their portfolios, and (4) analyzes
connections between form and meaning in their own work; English education
majors will write a 2000-3000 word essay analyzing problems in teaching
a work of literature and assessing the helpfulness of a number of secondary
sources; professional writing majors will write a 2000-3000 word narrative
about the professional materials within their portfolios, explaining how
these respond to prompts, how they are controlled by style considerations
(students will provide style sheets), and how their rhetorical strategies,
design, and layout are determined by their intended purposes.
Grading Procedures: Students must complete all required work to receive credit for the course. Grades will be based upon the quality of in-class activities--reports, responses to reports, and other participation (%50)--and on outside activities--essays, portfolio materials, and examinations (%50). Grade reductions will be made for late work.
Attendance: Absences beyond two will reduce the grade awarded for the course.
Required Materials: Students are required to have
The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms (Bedford 1997). The
novel we will read is Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse (Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich). No other specific text is required, since the reading
list depends on what the class members have read, but students should be
prepared to search for the readings in anthologies and library holdings.
All students should have a handbook or stylebook that presents in detail
the Modern Language Association style for documentation that has been in
use since 1984.
Prerequisites: Senior standing and 18 or more credit hours in
English courses at the 300 level or above, or permission of the department
chair.
Send comments to michael.cohen@murraystate.edu