Professor Westman

108 English/ Counseling Services; 532-2171

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

westmank@ksu.edu

Required Texts

Melissa Anelli, Harry, A History (2009) (Pocket Books)
Jane Austen, Emma (1815) (Oxford)
Roald Dahl, James and the Giant Peach (1961) (Puffin)
Roddy Doyle, The Van (1991) from The Barrytown Trilogy (Penguin)
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950) (HarperCollins)
E. Nesbit, The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904) (Puffin)
Philip Pullman, “His Dark Materials” Trilogy: The Golden Compass (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), The
Amber Spyglass (2000) (Knopf, published Sept 2002)
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) (Scholastic)
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998) (Scholastic)
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999) (Scholastic)
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000) (Scholastic)
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003) (Scholastic)
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005) (Scholastic)
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007) (Scholastic)
J. K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy (2012) (Little, Brown)
Jonathan Stroud, The Amulet of Samarkand (2003) (Miramax/Hyperion)
Class Packs for ENGL 670 (Available at Eisenhower Copy Center)
Additional critical readings, videos (Available online)

Course Description and Objectives

We will explore J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series within literary history by reading the novels themselves and the works of Rowling's antecedents, influences, and contemporaries. To place the series within literary history, we will consider a variety of related issues, including genre, narrative form, audience, marketing, gender, and fan culture. Our over-arching goal will be to map the complex intersection of literary and cultural concerns that both create and perpetuate this best-selling and award-winning series. Our emphasis will fall more towards novels than critical theory, but our secondary readings will prompt theoretically informed discussions about the authors, their works, and the Harry Potter phenomenon.

 

Our objectives are as follows:

• To study the narrative forms and themes of Rowling's series and the literature that informs it
• To study Rowling's series within the cultural context of its production and reception
• To participate in lively and informed discussions about our reading
• To develop and apply critical skills for reading, thinking, and writing about several genres
  – what a literary or cultural text conveys (its themes, its view of the world)
  – how a literary or cultural text conveys that knowledge (its aesthetic form, its selection/omission of detail)
• To contribute to current conversations about Rowling’s series (Grad students: to develop a publishable idea and thus enter the existing critical conversation about Rowling’s series through a research-based, scholarly argument that intervenes in and advances that conversation)

Readings and Class Participation: Given the learning outcomes stated above, this class will foreground discussion. Class participation is therefore expected and will count for 20% of your final grade. This portion of your grade includes your contributions to our discussions in class (in large and small groups) and to our discussions on the online message board (further information below). Excessive absences from our weekly meeting (two or more) may result in failure of the course.

Attendance: Your attendance is important, but I recognize that the unexpected will happen. Therefore, you will not be penalized for your first absence. However, subsequent absences will lower your final course grade; excessive absences (three or more) or excessive lateness/early departure may result in failure of the course. While I appreciate your offering explanations for your absence, the only way to excuse an absence is to provide me with an official letter from the Graduate School or an official notice of illness from the Health Center or your doctor. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to find out from another class member any announcements or assignments.

Leading Class Discussion: Students will sign up in groups to initiate discussion for one of our class sessions, usually for the first half of the session. (A sign-up sheet will be available at our second class meeting.) Questions for class discussion (4-5 in number) should highlight issues or themes or queries you think we should address in our class discussion of the reading assigned for that day. Critical commentaries or historical context assigned for that class session can be included, too, to help us explore the primary reading. After conferring about and drafting the questions, groups leading discussion should email me their questions by 6 p.m. the night before; I will confirm receipt and offer any suggestions for the order or focus of the questions.


Online Message Board : To offer another venue for discussion, we'll be using an online message board in K-State Online. Each week, each student is required to post at least one paragraph-length comment about the materials we're reading and discussing in class. I will read 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 board. I'll provide some weekly question prompts as I follow these conversations, and I may also participate, but I see the message board primarily as a way for you to raise issues we haven't addressed -- or addressed fully or to your satisfaction -- during our regular class meetings.

The weekly message board will run from Saturday to Friday, to encourage you to post soon after as well as before our weekly class discussions, but I encourage you to contribute your ideas throughout the week and to check the board for others' postings. Your postings do not need to be long, but they do 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. Postings will count for half (10%) of your class participation grade (20%). I will offer models of successful comments early in the semester..

To post to the message board, follow these directions:

1. Go to my homepage at http://www.ksu.edu/english/westmank/ and click on our course (ENGL 670), and then "Message 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 670, click on "Collaboration" and then select "Message Board.")
2. You should see all the messages posted to date and the newest threads and messages 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. Please change the subject line so it reflects the content of your message

Critical Writing: During the semester, you will be doing different kinds of critical writing: not only informal postings to the message board, but also more formal papers. All students will write one shorter paper (4 pages in length); undergraduates will also write a longer paper (7-8 pages in length), while graduate students will also write a longer paper with secondary sources (8-10 pages in length), an abstract of that paper, and an essay review of four articles or a book-length study about one of our authors on the syllabus. You will have a choice of two topics for Paper #1, and you will have a choice of text for Paper #2. Both papers should follow the general rules of composition and be typed or word-processed with standard double-spacing, 1-inch margins, and either 10- or 12-point typeface. Title pages and cover sheets are unnecessary. Pages should be numbered, stapled together, and spell-checked. Papers are due by the date and time on the syllabus; late papers will be penalized one grade (i.e.: A to B) for each day late. (Note: The University's Honor Code obliges you to cite the source of any idea that is not your own. Otherwise, you have plagiarized. If you do plagiarize, you will fail this course.)

You will also write four response papers (2 pp in length) in response to our readings. Response papers are designed to ready you for class discussion and to explore ideas you could develop further in your longer paper. Everyone will write a response paper for our first set of readings on school stories; for the remaining three response papers, you may choose which three novels or reading assignments you would like to discuss, being sure to choose one that is not a novel in Rowling's series and two that are. In your response paper, you should not repeat previous class discussions or provide a mere summary of the reading. Instead, your response should begin to analyze the primary and secondary reading assigned for that class session, selecting an issue or theme or question you feel to be significant. I recommend that you select a word, phrase, or short quotation from the reading to initiate your response. These responses are due the day we discuss the material.(See sample response distributed in class.) Responses will be graded on a 1-5 scale: 5=A, 4=B, 3=C, 2=D, 1=F. I do not accept late response papers.

A note on sources: a "Works Cited" page should accompany any assignment that cites books and other 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.

Multi-Media Project: You will choose one of four possible multi-media projects to complete during the semester. Your multi-media project can be submitted on any class day but must be turned in no later than Tuesday November 27. Each project should demonstrate insight and understanding of the text with which it connects, should be thoughtfully constructed, and should be presented professionally with attention to detail.  Refer to the grading rubrics (posted in K-State Online as of August 28) for detailed grading criteria. The assignment will be distributed next week, but here are brief descriptions:

• Option 1: Create a soundtrack cd to accompany one of the texts we're studying. It must have 5-6 tracks and be accompanied by a written explanation (2 pages in length) of how each selected song relates to the text and its themes.
• Option 2: Using events, situations, or characters from a text we're studying, create a fictional front page of a newspaper about that text. Format appropriately (single spaced, columns, headings/headlines), and include a written explanation (2 pages in length) about your process of selection, research, or design, in light of the text's themes.
• Option 3: Create a collage of pictures and words (cut from magazines or assembled from digital images/print) that connects with a text we're studying. Include a written explanation (2 pages in length) explaining why you chose those particular images and/or words for that text and why you arranged them as you did, given the text's themes.
• Option 4: Locate an instance of Harry Potter in American popular culture of the past three years: a reference or allusion, a moment in which people invoke or depict Rowling's Harry Potter series. Capture this reference in digital form and provide details about where to locate it. Then, provide a close-reading (2 pages in length) interpreting this cultural instance. For what purpose does it invoke Rowling's series? How does the creator view Rowling's series? How do you know? What does it tell us about the cultural significance of Rowlin's series within contemporary American culture?

Online and video resources: Along with some required online reading and viewing, I will refer you to additional resources available online or on video to complement our readings and discussions. Links within the online "Schedule of Classes" will take you to related online resources. I will add and update these resources as the semester progresses; if you locate a site or page which you find valuable, please let me know, and I'll consider adding it to the existing links.

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 throughout the day, but please remember that I am not perpetually online.

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 exams or papers are due, or if you have questions about material we discuss in class. Please feel free to stop by during office hours (M, W 9:00-10:00 a.m.), 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: Undergraduate Students: The two papers will count for 35% of your final grade (15% and 20% respectively); the response papers will count for 15% of your final grade; the multi-media project will count for 10% of your final grade. Class participation (20%) and a final exam (20%) complete the requirements.
Graduate Students: The shorter paper will count for 10%, the essay review will count for 10%, and the longer paper and its abstract will count for 20% of your final grade. The response papers will count for 15% of your final grade, and the multi-media project will count for 10% of your final grade. Class participation (20%) and a final exam (15%) complete the requirements.