course overview

 ENGLISH 490-01: SENIOR SEMINAR

COURSE INFORMATION, FALL 2012

Gary Williams ||| Brink 230 ||| jgw@uidaho.edu ||| 885-6156

Office hours: Mondays 3:30-5; Tuesdays 2-3:30

After extensive faculty discussions and student input, English 490 is undergoing a renovation in the fall of 2012. Previously, 490 relied on faculty mentors providing direction for widely-ranging individual topics. The new model will be a more traditional seminar format, bringing everyone together around a single (but highly inclusive) topic that can be approached productively from creative, theoretical, and scholarly perspectives. The new 490 is an occasion for you to draw on the skills you’ve acquired to produce substantial new work around a common class theme. The centerpiece of the course remains a long project (15-20 pages), developed in stages over the semester; these projects will be works of either literary scholarship or craft analysis, depending on students’ emphases. Those in the creative writing emphasis will now have the chance to produce new writing as part of their final project, though the analytical component will still be the primary focus. Another big change: the old model gave more attention to “retrospection”—asking you to reflect comprehensively on the coursework you’d taken and written work you’d produced in earlier classes. The new version of the course shifts the emphasis to connecting what you’ve learned to conversations and discussions in the larger non-academic world.

This section of English 490 might be subtitled “Imagining Science.”  The class will examine some of the intriguing ways that humanities-based writers are involved with grasping the physical world and its principles of operation.  We’ll start by reading some Darwin—sections of The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man--considering the influence of 19^th-century language on the shape and style of his arguments.  Fast-forward to the 21^st century to examine Darwin’s continuing central position in debates about public education and general understanding of the human position in the universe. But it’s not all about biology: As we move into October, we’ll explore recent notable science/nature writing with various foci.  Throughout, the course will give you a chance to explore a science issue you choose, relying on the particular language-based skills you’ve been practicing, and to see how people with humanities training have a critical role to play in public comprehension of complex scientific principles.
 

TEXTS

Philip Appelman, ed., Darwin (Norton)

Mary Roach, ed., The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 (Mariner)

Ian McEwan, Saturday (Random House)
E.O. Wilson, The Social Conquest of Earth  (Liveright)
Selected essays and book chapters available online

GRADES

1              Response to Dizikes  (5%; thoughtfulness of response)

2              Initial description of project (10%; evidence of substantial research, thought)

3              Summary of scientific article + presentation of its value to your project (10%; diligence in finding useful article; skill in translation for general reader)

4              Handout; lead discussion of class reading (10%; degree of command of material).  Guidelines here.

5              First draft of project (20%; scope, completeness)

6              Presentation of project for faculty (20%; polish, clarity, attention to oral/visual communication skills)

7              Final draft of project (20%; responsiveness to feedback, overall quality of writing)

8              Attendance, participation, engagement (5%; F if you miss more than 2 classes)

The Course This Semester:

We are charting a slightly different course in 490 this fall: there will be heightened focus on discussion of the value of an undergraduate education focused on literature/language/writing.  I want to pose five questions:
 

    What do you know as a result of being an English major?
    How do people react when you tell them you’re majoring in English? (“What are you going to do with that?”)
    What don’t you know because you majored in English?
    What kind of curriculum would you design to position you, an English major, better?
    What do your skills prepare you to do right now? What learning are you prepared to take on that will address real-world concerns?

I think of this course in terms derived from a 2002 report, "Greater Expectations,"  from the Association of American Colleges & Universities.  One section of this report summarizes the skills that employers expect from college graduates.  Employers expect those they hire to be able to "perform consistently well, communicate effectively, think analytically, help solve problems, [and] work collegially in diverse teams."  They also expect technological and information literacy.  Your liberal education has given you a chance to develop these skills, and this course (in part) is intended to help you sharpen them.  I would like you to think of the course as your first post-graduate job.  Engage in it as if you were beginning to make your way in your career.  Perform the work--all of it--as if your continuing livelihood depended on your doing well.

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