ENGL 345 Drama

Spring 2007 -- TU 11:30 a.m.-12:45 p.m.

 

Schedule of Classes | Bulletin Board

 

Professor Westman

106 English/ Counseling Services; 532-2171

Office Hours: T, U 9:00-10:00 a.m. and by app't

westmank@ksu.edu

 

When you watch movies you are so wrapped in the dark that you can be persuaded to believe almost any nonsense. It's part of the fun of movies.... Live theatre is something very different. There is all that light coming from the stage. You are never unaware of surrounding members of the audience, or of the fact that you are observing actors impersonate other people. The result is that you develop bifocal vision, which allows you to appreciate both the fiction taking place on the stage and the skills of the people making it possible.

 

A performance is a spooky, ephemeral thing. Without you, it doesn't exist. When it's over, it's gone. It's never to be repeated in quite the same way again, unlike movies and live-on-tape television that, being frozen in time, are essentially inert.

-- Vincent Canby, New York Times theater critic

 

Required Texts

Drama: A Pocket Anthology, 3rd edition, edited by R.S. Gwynn (Longman)

Sophocles, Antigone, Trans. Richard Braun (Oxford)

Wilder, Three Plays (Harper Perennial)

Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire (Signet)

Course Pack #1, #2, #3 (Available at A&S Copy Center in Eisenhower Hall on 1/5/07)

Course Description

This course will explore how authors' dramatic forms and techniques allow their audiences to re-experience the world around them. As we read, discuss, write about, and consider the performance of their plays, we will investigate how each play accomplishes its task through the cultural language of dialogue, props, costumes, theatrical tradition, and the relationship between actors and audience.

Course Objectives

• To become familiar with drama as a literary genre and its historical and formal conventions
• To develop and apply critical skills for reading, thinking, and writing about literature
  • what a literary text conveys (its themes, its view of the world)
  • how a literary text conveys that knowledge (its aesthetic form, its selection/omission of detail)
• To use relevant cultural and historical information when interpreting a dramatic text or performance
• To develop your communication skills through writing and discussion

 

Readings and Class Participation: Any literature course is a reading-intensive experience, so plan accordingly! You are expected to complete each reading assignment before coming to class. You are further expected to think carefully about what you read and to make notes in the text prior to each class meeting. For each class, bring the appropriate book or xeroxes and additionally mark passages that we discuss; this process will help you understand, remember, and review.

 

This class will be based on discussion, so class participation is expected and will count for 20% of your final grade. "Class participation" is not the same as just showing up and taking notes: you must be an active presence in the class. This grade, then, includes your contributions to our discussions in class (in large and small groups) and to our discussions on the Electronic Bulletin Board. I will expect at least one posting a week from each student on the Electronic Bulletin Board; the guidelines and instructions for using the Bulletin Board appear below.

Attendance: Obviously, you can't participate effectively if you aren't in class. Since the University requires that students attend all classes in which they are enrolled, your attendance is required. If you are absent for more than nine classroom hours -- that is, six (6) class periods -- you will fail this class automatically. If you are absent for more than two, you jeopardize your final grade for the course. Excessive or repeated lateness will also jeopardize your final grade. If you wish to receive a passing grade in this class, then, attendance is very important.

While I appreciate your offering explanations for absences, the only way to excuse an absence is to provide me with an official letter from your advisor or an official notice of illness from the Health Center or your doctor. Classroom work or homework assignments missed due to absence cannot be made up. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to find out from another class member any announcements or assignments.

Quizzes/Response Papers: In most cases, you will have a quiz or a response paper due each day we begin our discussion of a play. Quizzes and response papers are designed to test your knowledge of the reading assignments and the analytical skills we develop and practice during our discussions. The quizzes will consist of identifications and interpretive questions which will help you improve your close reading skills and to evaluate your comprehension of the material; the response papers will be in response to a particular interpretative question. Quizzes and response papers will be graded on a scale of 1 to 5 points: 5=A, 4=B, 3=C, 2=D, 1=F. I will average the points at the end of the course after dropping the lowest grade. Should you be absent on the day of a quiz or response paper, you will receive a zero, unless the absence is excused.

Papers: You will write only one paper (4-5 pages) in this class, given the other projects you'll be working on. If your paper is late, it will be penalized a full letter grade (i.e.: A to B) for each day it is late. Papers must be typed, double-spaced, with one inch margins (one page = at least 250-300 words); the pages should be spell-checked, proof-read, numbered, and stapled or paper-clipped together. Your name, my name, the date, and the type of assignment should appear in the upper-left hand corner of the first page.

A note on sources: a "Works Cited" page should accompany any assignment that refers to outside sources, and you should use the MLA method for documenting sources. When you turn in a paper, you pledge that the work is your own and that you have faithfully abided by the guidelines for documenting sources. The University's Honor Code obliges you to cite the source of any idea that is not your own. If you quote, paraphrase, or use another's ideas, you must give credit to the person whose ideas you are using. Otherwise, you have plagiarized. If you have any questions, please ask. If you do plagiarize, you will fail this course.

Performance Review: You will write one performance review. The review will discuss the video-taped performance of one of the plays on our syllabus. Further information will follow shortly.

Performance Troupes: By the end of the first week, I will divide the class into performance troupes. Troupes work together to perform a scene (or scenes) from a play on the syllabus (about 10 minutes of performance). You will meet outside of class with your troupe and, if needed, with me to prepare for your roles as directors, costumers, and actors. The troupe's in-class performance of the scene(s) as well as a written production review (a Director's Checklist and a Character Analysis) will count 15% towards your final grade for the course; please see the details following the schedule of classes.

Computing: Technology increasingly plays an important role in our academic and professional careers. Consequently, you will be asked to participate in some different kinds of technology, including an Electronic Bulletin Board discussion and electronic resources for research. Our work with technology is designed not only as another forum for exploring our reading, but as a way for you to sharpen your communication skills, media skills, and web skills for an increasingly technological age.

 

Electronic Bulletin Board:

Beginning the first week of class, I'll establish an electronic bulletin board for our class. Each student is required to post once a week about the materials we're studying in class. I will monitor these discussions and assess a grade (at the end of the semester) based on the thoughtfulness of your comments, their ability to foster discussion among your classmates, and their responsiveness both to our readings and to your classmates' comments in class and on the list.

An average posting should run about one or two paragraphs in length. In other words, your postings do not need to be long; however, they need to be substantive: they must be long enough to convey clearly the problem you are taking up and your point of view, connecting your comment to others' comments whenever possible. I will offer models of successful comments early in the semester. Your grade for these postings will become part of your class participation grade.

To post to the bulletin board, follow these directions:

1. Go to my homepage at http://www.ksu.edu/english/westmank/ and click on our course (ENGL 345), and then "Bulletin Board" to login to K-State Online and go directly to the "Message Board." (You may also login to the K-State Online course page for ENGL 345, click on "Collaboration" and then select "Message Board.")
   
2. You should see all the messages posted to date and the newest threads ones first.
   
3. To post, choose to "reply," so you can engage directly in the conversation and your message can "thread" beneath the one you're responding to. I also encourage you to change the subject line so it reflects the content of your message.
   
   

Email: I highly recommend email as a way of touching base with me about your work for the class - a kind of virtual office hours. You can send me queries about reading or writing assignments, your thesis statement for an essay, or anything else that could be handled with a quick exchange of messages. I check my email in the morning before class, in the afternoon, and in the evening before 10 p.m.

Examination: You will have a cumulative final exam. A missed exam counts as a zero; no make-up exams will be offered without a dean's excuse.

Conferences: I want you to succeed in this course, and I am happy to meet with you about your work and your progress. I encourage you to see me before writing assignments are due, or if you have questions about material we discuss in class. Please feel free to stop by during office hours (T, U 8:00-9:00 am), or contact me by phone or email to arrange a more convenient time to meet.

Note: If you have any condition such as a physical or learning disability that will make it difficult for you to carry out the work as I have outlined it or which will require academic accommodations, please notify me in the first two days of the course.

 

Grading:

Quizzes/Responses 20%

Class Participation 20%

In-class 10%

Postings 10%

Paper 15%

Performance Review 10%

Performance Troupe 15%

Final Exam 20%

Schedule of Classes (Subject to change.)

Note: The full text of the play should be read for the first day of discussion, except as noted.

[CP1], [CP2], [CP3] = Course Packs.