English 345.01 Studies in Shakespeare 

11:30 a.m. -12:20 p.m. MWF TLC 050 Fall 2019

Dr. Stephan Flores (sflores@uidaho.edu)

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~sflores/

Office: 122 Brink Hall

Office hours: Thursday 2:30pm-4:00 p.m. & by appt.

Course Prerequisite: English 102 or equivalent, and pre-or-co-requisite of Engl 175, or 257, or 258; English majors must in addition have completed or be co-registered for Engl 215 or enroll by permission of instructor.

Required Text/Options:

The Norton Shakespeare, Third Edition. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. (2015) Two Volume Set with The Norton Shakespeare Digital Edition registration card: ISBN: 978-0-393-26402-9:

https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393938630/about-the-book

Due to my late decision on this main text, print versions may be backordered at the UI VandalStore—if you prefer,

seek out the convenient, more economically priced E-Book edition: ISBN: 978-0-393-26957-4:

https://digital.wwnorton.com/shakespeare3

or seek/find one-volume hardback edition. Online texts, in contrast, lack sufficient explanatory notes and other historical and critical commentaries.

Or wait for the main text to arrive at the Vandal Store, and meanwhile use the weblink in the Much Ado About Nothing folder to the Folger Shakespeare library’s digital edition of that play.

Find additional essays/articles, video clips from plays in performance on film and related resources (such as study questions) online via the class Bblearn site.

Login to Bblearn before our first class meeting by using your UIDAHO NetID. You can update your password at http://help.uidaho.edu/. If you haven't already, setup your NetID at www.vandalsetup.uidaho.edu. If you continue to experience problems accessing BbLearn after changing your password, please contact the ITS Help Desk by email helpdesk@uidaho.edu, or phone (208)885-HELP.

Course Description: We shall study and converse together to develop our understanding and enjoyment of a selection of Shakespeare’s plays and poems, including readings from scholarly perspectives and viewing of filmed performances. Through such assigned readings, class and group conversations, and written analyses, the class shall explore the social, sexual, political, performative, and formal issues that these texts represent, and consider Shakespeare's development as a playwright and poet.

Written work includes a weekly Inquiry-Starter (230 words) and a weekly Peer Response-to-an-Inquiry Starter (100 words)—posted to Bblearn discussion threads—these posts respond to and reflect upon the assigned reading and upon your peers’ perspectives; an in-class essay exam; a short critical ‘reflection’-essay that takes stock your reading of your compiled/cumulative weekly posts in Bblearn as well as your other written work, participation, and studies over the semester; and a Term Essay. The steady-to-brisk pace of our readings is designed to provide for solid inquiry with sufficient 'coverage' to get a good sense of what are regarded as among Shakespeare's most compelling and significant plays and poetry.

Here is a general guiding premise/claim for this 300-level literature course and its outcomes (also see expected learning outcomes noted further below): Literature provides us with a way of understanding how our social life works. Human social life consists of narratives for living, with ‘narratives’ being understood here as an actual life experience spread over time and guided by cultural stories that justify it to participants. Both the cultural and real-world narrative can change; both use frames to exclude norm-dissonant perspectives and values and to ensure that the meanings that support the continuity and homogeneity of the lived process are stable, predictable, and enforced. Who tells the stories in the culture thus largely shapes how that cultural world will be organized. Stories are what people believe and how they believe, and how people believe determines how they act and how they live. Stories can change how people think, perceive, believe, and act. The analysis of the work they perform is thus an important endeavor. And that is what criticism is all about. (An Introduction to Criticism: Literature/Film/Culture--Wiley-Blackwell, 2012).

Student Learning Outcomes (see longer lists much further below of related and specific learning outcomes):

In English 345 students will learn, develop, and strengthen abilities

- to understand and to explain the historical/cultural dimensions of Shakespeare's works, including social negotiations and ideological debates over valued identities and principles, particularly as such desires and relations are understood as rhetorical functions and effects of the literary text in its particular language/form/structure and contexts, and as such values and meanings are shown to be in flux, narrated and dramatized as being put into question or engaged in a debate among different social, political, class, gender, ethnic, religious/ideological arrangements

-to write a substantial critical essay that engages with Shakespeare's plays and their critical interpretation/reception by identifying problems, developing claims and arguments, and enriching literary understanding, interests, and commitments

Plays:

Much Ado about Nothing (1598)

The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice, Or Otherwise Called the Jew of Venice (1596-97)

The Life of Henry the Fifth (Henry V, 1599)

As You Like It (1598-1600)

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1599-1601)

Twelfth Night, Or What You Will (1600-1602)

The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (1603-04)

The Tragedy of Macbeth (1606-07)

The Tempest or another late play such as Cymbeline or Coriolanus

Poems:

Selected sonnets

The Rape of Lucrece

Venus and Adonis

Requirements:

1. Fifteen Bblearn Inquiry Starters (ISs, weekly)—minimum 230 words each—that is, one Inquiry Starter is due by 9 a.m. each week on Monday, or Wednesday, or Friday—vary your choice of MWFs so that your posts are divided (nearly) equally among those days (five for each M, or W, or Friday over the course of the semester):

Each Inquiry Starter should combine a brief account of and response to some aspect of one or more of the readings assigned for a particular day, with a thesis/problem-driven reflection. Your aim is to present a thoughtful, focused/concise reflection about some aspect of a particular day’s reading assignments—for example, write a concise paragraph about any assigned critical reading (such as from McEvoy’s Shakespeare: The Basics and other headnotes or critical essays/resources, with quotation to illustrate, and write at minimum a concise paragraph about the assigned play or poem: find a couple of points of interest that enable you to take a stance/make a claim, state a point of view/thesis, to include--if possible at times--connecting a specific passage/concept/perspective from our readings that week with the assigned work to enable you to make sense of our readings through illustration and analysis of an aspect of a particular text, including for example, filmed versions of plays. That is, your Inquiry-Starter should demonstrate that you are keeping up with and engaging with our weekly texts in significant ways, particularly as instances of inquiry that may promote further conversation and study.

Inquiry Starters present a means for everyone to share enthusiasms and questions as you delve into the significance, methods, and effects of our study of Shakespeare, and to learn from others' comments; the work of completing these also are designed to help you to develop critical competencies and analytic strengths at somewhat lower-risk stakes than the in-class essay exam and the Term Essay.

Each Inquiry Starter is due no later than 9 a.m. either Monday, Wednesday, or Friday: direct your attention to aspects of the reading for that particular day of the week--in other words, if you post on a Friday, examine and comment on something 'fresh' for that day’s class rather than returning to passages/scenes and discussion from the prior Wednesday or Monday, and follow this practice during the semester as you vary your posts among Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

No late entries—Entries posted any later than 9am will result in a three-point reduction in your semester point total for each missing or late entry; keep in mind that you must cite/address specific aspects of both the critical material as well as the literary text: insufficient posts are subject to point penalties/deductions as part of the evaluation of your accumulated Inquiry Starters. Come to class prepared to talk about your ISs/ideas. Note: you may make up for one prior missing Inquiry Starter by posting an Inquiry Starter on the play or the poetry that you missed, within one week—that is, no later than the Friday of the week following the missed post.

I attend to the ISs as part of my evaluation of your performance in the course--strive each week for a full and thoughtful/analytical entry—avoid posting too brief and/or mainly descriptive entries. Additional note: from time to time I may take opportunities to highlight different ISs, so come prepared to talk about your post with a peer group and with the class as a whole. For examples of solid-to-strong IS posts, see examples in Bblearn. For those who repeatedly miss posting ISs, I will likely send an email to you earlier than mid-October, as a note of advice, caution, and inquiry.

Note: the 15 Inquiry-Starters along with the weekly shorter Peer-Response Entries are part of what you are required to compile in one document to form part of materials for the Concise Memo on Goals and Learning Outcomes (see #4 below). I advise that you compose your posts in a separate document, then copy/paste into Bblearn.

2. Fifteen Peer-Responses (PRs)—minimum 100 words each—that ‘reply’ to a peer’s Inquiry Starter, in a way that identifies what you found compelling or of interest in your classmate’s observations, and that aims to continue the implied conversation/exchange of views prompted by the Inquiry Starter and texts and ideas under discussion. That is, one Peer-Response is due by 10 a.m. each week on Monday, or Wednesday, or Friday (you do not need to post the PR on the same day that you post your own IS)—vary your choice of MWFs so that your posts are divided among those days (five for each M, or W, or Friday over the course of the semester) and divided among 15 different peers. The intention/purpose here is to foster and develop interpretive competencies and ways of knowing through deliberate exchange, in part to supplement classroom discussions in which not everyone has or takes the opportunity to participate. And as with the Inquiry-Starters, plan to keep a copy of each Peer-Response entry—in a separate document (see #4 below). Missing or late Peer-Responses also will each be counted against your semester point total, with 2 points deducted for each missing or late entry; you may make up for one prior missing Peer-Response entry by posting your late entry within one week—that is, no later than the Friday of the week following the missed response.

3. Main Task for In-Class Essay Exam [see fuller description and quotes in MS Word doc or PDF under left side menu for Criticism, Video clips, etc.): Write an approximately 550 word essay (50 minutes) that draws upon at least one scholarly quote about one or two of the following plays and also use one at least one quote from the play or plays as a point of reference and departure: Much Ado about Nothing, and/or The Merchant of Venice, and/or As You Like It, and/or Henry V.

Guidelines/Directions for in-class essay exam (11:30 a.m.-12:20 p.m. Monday October 7) over one play and/or topic (or two plays, depending on your preference and topic of inquiry) that is developed initially with reference to at least one critical perspective on the play and passage quoted for illustration. Bring “blue or green books” or notebook ruled paper, your Norton/Shakespeare edition text (or other recent edition of Shakespeare but not McEvoy or other texts); you also need to bring one standard (8.5"x11") piece of paper (with your name on it) on which you have written one to three quotes from scholars/critics, and one to several lines (a quote) from the one or two plays that you plan to write about. This piece of paper will be turned in with your exam. In addition to this preparation, any review that you may do of your selected plays, study questions, and McEvoy chapters, Norton and Bedford headnotes, or specific scholarly articles in Bblearn can strengthen your understanding to strengthen your interpretation/analysis/argument.

This exam directs you to explore significant issues and strategies in these plays, that you situate in relation to your choice of one to three critical/scholarly commentary/perspectives on the play and/or genre, and also with a selected quote or two (one to three lines quote) from the play(s) as a starting/anchoring point for your essay; you may select such quotes from among the provided excerpts on Shakespearean history, on comedy, and on tragedy, and/or the scholars'/critics’ comments on respective plays, or by selecting quotes/citations from any of the scholarly articles/chapters from folders in Bblearn. These selected quotes (from scholars and from the plays) serve as points of reference and departure, then, for your analysis and essay.

Your essay is concise, but I encourage you to develop and to support your ideas as clearly and as cogently as space allows, including brief citations of specific lines that illustrate your understanding, and use of summary and paraphrase in support of your exploration and analysis.  It is helpful for your argument (advisable) to include a statement that makes a claim or presents a thesis with explanation and support.  Your interpretation is to be explanatory and implicitly argumentative: an occasion for you to clarify and advance your understanding.  This is a chance to share your perceptions, enthusiasms, and doubts as you delve into an aspect of the play's significance and purpose.  Assume that your audience is familiar with the play(s) and take care to articulate clearly your inquiry into the material, especially problems or contradictions that seem difficult to resolve. See excerpts from our reading, included below, that offer scholars' views on Shakespeare's histories and comedies, as well as excerpts from critics and from the plays to consider as options for preparing your own notes for the exam, on a sheet of paper that you bring and include with your in-class essay, as explained above.

4. Concise Reflection on Goals and Learning Outcomes (50 points possible)—due 15 November by 11:30 a.m., uploaded to Bblearn assignment (titled, minimum 600 words, or longer, plus compilation of ISs and PRs): this assignment directs you to write a relatively brief essay/letter that reflects upon what you have learned, done, and sought to accomplish in your studies of Shakespeare this semester, including as demonstrated in the in-class essay exam as well as in the weekly Inquiry-Starter and Peer-Response posts, and as you reflect upon selected aspects of your class participation, reading, and studies, up through mid-November, including as related to at least two of the course’s stated/desired Learning Outcomes (as specified elsewhere in this document). Along with your Reflection, include a document that compiles/copies each of your Inquiry Starters and Peer-Responses up through 15 November, with dates and subject line titles—for copies of Peer Responses, indicate for each entry which/whose Inquiry Starter you responded to. You may also review and/or take some account of others' responses to your posts, and what you may have learned from their views. Place this compilation in an Appendix at the end of your Concise Reflection on Goals and Learning Outcomes.

In your Reflection, aim to address such questions as how—in what specific ways—have your thinking, reading, and writing about Shakespeare’s works, related ideas, and culture/history developed or changed over your studies and conversations this semester? To what extent (and how) might any others (scholars/peers, for example) have played a role in your developing competencies, including in-class group conversations, discussions? What particular goals or aims guided or figured in your choices and practices/efforts? To what degree do you think that you have demonstrably met at least two of the stated Learning Outcomes for the course—how so, and perhaps, why (so)? If you had an opportunity to revisit, for example, one of your Inquiry Starters to revise and to expand upon your observations, which would it be and what might you seek to write, achieve further? Anything else that you wish to express in this reflective essay? Basically, try to identify and state some core idea(s) about what you consider (and have learned to consider) important/compelling/significant about making sense of Shakespeare's work.

5. Term Essay (see related highlighted weblink), with title, due Friday December 6 by 11:30 a.m.—upload to Bblearn (include your last name as part of the document title, such as Smith_345_F19_TE) [see Bblearn folder "Advice on Writing Essays" and see this immediately prior & following highlighted weblink for fuller advice on writing critical essay(s)] on one or more of the plays or poetry that we have studied from our main course schedule this semester (if you choose to do so, you may draw upon and incorporate a relatively small ‘amount’ or ‘degree’ of the content of your essay from the midterm exam or Memo, while also aiming to revise and advance/develop your analysis with greater depth and reach/complexity); approximately 8-9 pages for main body of essay, double-spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman font, with reference to at least two pieces of secondary criticism (selected only from resources in Bblearn folders) beyond our assigned reading in the Norton edition and in McEvoy, with reference to selections posted on our class Bblearn folders for criticism on each play; that is, you must refer to/cite/draw upon at least two substantial article/book chapters from the Bblearn folder for the corresponding play (with proper MLA citation format including a Works Cited bibliography). Do not plan to consult other/outside secondary criticism from scholarly journals and books or to incorporate such sources from ‘outside’ those in Bblearn. You are encouraged to draw upon the Norton headnotes as well as McEvoy's book. You also may draw upon/incorporate/revise one or more of your Inquiry Starters as a means to discover and to develop a topic, but you are not required or expected to do so. I encourage you to send me by email a brief description of your provisional topic and thesis, by Wednesday November 20. The primary aims of this thesis-seeking/problem-posing essay assignment is to engage with one or more plays and critical interpretation/reception by identifying problems, developing claims and arguments, and enriching your literary understanding, interests, and commitments. I am not necessarily interested so much in whether your analysis is 'original' as I am in whether you address an interesting topic, explore interpretive/analytic issues productively, and demonstrate understanding that proceeds from your own reading as well as your research. For anyone, but particularly those of you who are studying to become teachers, especially at the level of secondary education/high school, you might want to write a critical essay that builds an exploration and argument to a make a pedagogical case for why a particular play could/should be taught, and what aspects of your analysis could strengthen your approach for teaching the play (including any appended examples of a 'lesson plan' for your approach)—see more on this option below. Use/learn Modern Language Association format for any notes or works cited (see, for instance, link to MLA format guidelines in the folder on Advice for Writing, and the Norton Shakespeare's online resources/example of developing a research essay. I won’t accept a Term Essay that is late (with accumulated deducted points, .167 points per hour) after 11:30 a.m. Monday December 9. See also University of Idaho Guidelines on Academic Dishonesty (including plagiarism). In accordance with the UI Student Code of Conduct, I report instances of academic dishonesty/plagiarism, to the office of the Dean of Students. See rubric for evaluating the Term Essay further below.

I shall attend to the ways that you select, define, and engage questions and contradictions, and to the clarity, imagination, and grace that you demonstrate in presenting your topic, (hypo)thesis, and argument, and the extent to which your work engages with, explains, and contributes to the larger "conversation" of scholarship on the topic and drama under analysis. I do not always expect essays to conclude by "solving" such problems or by "proving" your thesis; I hope that you address interesting topics (questions for debate, interpretation, and analysis) in thoughtful and useful ways. Please feel invited to confer with me during the writing process. See also University of Idaho Guidelines on Academic Dishonesty (including plagiarism). In accordance with the UI Student Code of Conduct, I report instances of academic dishonesty/plagiarism, to the office of the Dean of Students.

Option: write a Term Essay in which you identify and reflect in thoughtful, critical ways upon specific aims (objectives) and strategies for teaching Shakespeare to high school or middle school students. What do you want students to learn about and to engage with or in and why, and what would you do in the classroom and in your lessons/assignments/activities to teach a particular play and related concepts and competencies? Your main essay should be at least six pages (1600 words) and keep in view the advice for writing the Term Essay, including citation of a minimum of two substantial scholarly articles, from Bblearn folders; you also should plan to append pedagogical materials/resources that you create so that the combined total pages from the Term Essay and appended materials totals at least 8-9 pages or more. If you draw upon others’ pedagogical materials, be sure to quote and cite those sources. See some examples of lesson plans and approaches in Bblearn, including a variety of materials in folders on specific plays as well as a weblink to the Folger Shakespeare Library’s site for lesson plans, and also Megan Sampson’s honors thesis on “Shaking up Shakespeare: Teaching Shakespeare for the Contemporary High School English Classroom.”

Concise Advice for the Term [critical] Essay assignment: Work to present a clearly written argument and analysis, based on evidence, about the meaning, power, or structure of the play(s) that you select. Aim to produce a narrative that offers an explanation for the effects of the play—these effects, for instance, include (arguably) the ideas and feelings produced by the text/performance. You will need to describe the evidence you are using, state your interpretations of this evidence, and bring those insights together into a claim (thesis) about the way the play works, what it means, and how and why it has the effects that you claim (such as its emotional impact).  Such an argument aims to analyze examples in order to come to broader conclusions—your argument therefore should demonstrate inductive reasoning that moves logically and persuasively from particular pieces of compelling evidence to broader generalizations that advance, deepen, and enrich understanding. The evidence that you cite and analyze may include, for example, elements of dramatic structure and techniques as well as attention to the play's narrative arc, including its representation of specific cultural, historical, ideological issues, identities, and relationships. The drama typically engages with conflicts, contradictions, and questions or problems, and your analysis may consider to what degree the play seems to answer or to resolve such issues, and how it might open up new perspectives for understanding and experience.

6. Participation: Please take advantage of opportunities to share your insights and to listen and reply to others' ideas. I hope that questions and discussions will enable you to move the class in directions you find most helpful, give you opportunities to develop critical skills through collaboration, and provide for a productive, interesting exchange of perspectives among the class. You may meet periodically in small groups in class primarily for sharing Inquiry-Starters and Peer-Responses and to prompt our class discussions. I expect you to contribute productively to class discussion (seek opportunities each class and at least each week to do so); I will occasionally make an effort to call on you directly, especially if you tend not (!) to pitch in to share your views and questions. It is helpful, if you wish, to keep a weekly log in which you track your participation in class discussion, by jotting down in several sentences during or following each class meeting a brief notation of what you contributed to each class meeting—this ‘journal’ may be particularly helpful for the Memo assignment (#4) and engaged participation is taken into consideration as I evaluate the Memo on Goals and Learning Outcomes (#4 above).

7. All required work is due when specified on the due date—work turned in late will be graded accordingly. Required graded written work will be downgraded one notch (for example, B+ to B, converted to points for each assignment) for each day late. See assignments for deadlines for limits on late essays. I will grant short extensions for medical and family emergencies—but talk with me as soon as possible to request an extension. Always keep copies of your work.

8. Attendance: always attend class (unless you are sick). One to three absences--excused or not--will not affect your semester grade; a fourth absence will lower your semester point total by two points only if you reach five absences, with a two-point reduction for each additional absence (five absences=minus four points, six absences = minus 6 points); eight or more absences is sufficient cause for you to receive a failing grade for the course, regardless of your semester point total. All absences will be counted—excused or not—if something extraordinary occurs, talk to me. I note absences in the Bblearn Grade Center by entering -.1 for each absence—as a minimal notation/placekeeper—until five absences have occurred, then the larger deduction is shown. It may be helpful near the end of the semester for you to remind me which absences were due to illness, preferably with a doctor's note.

Another category of absence has to do with conflicting university commitments that are academic (such as a theater majors' trip to regional conference) or perhaps directly related to next steps in your professional life/career (such as a job interview) or if you are a UI athlete, absences that are due to a team trip, or for documented and timely notice of illness that creates an occasional absence. To make up for such absences--on an absence-by-absence basis--select an assigned text for the day on which you have an absence and post an extra Inquiry Starter for that week (to be posted no later than a week following the missed class), and send an email to me with the content of that post (sflores@uidaho.edu). Aim to include reference to some critical perspective/scholarly article in that post.

9. Grades: In-Class Exam (65 pts.); Concise Reflection on Goals and Learning Outcomes, with compilation of ISs and PRs as well as overall participation/engagement (65 points); Term Essay (120 pts). These required assignments add up to a maximum of 250 points. Thus 225-250 points equals an A, 200-224 equals a B, 175-199 equals a C, 150—174 equals a D, and anything below 150 receives an F. As noted above, Incomplete or missing inquiry-starter entries and peer-response entries will be counted against your semester grade, with -3 points for each missing or incomplete Inquiry Starter, and -2 points for each missing or late peer response entry. Please consider that the weekly reading and writing and attendance/participation comprise a vital aspect of building cumulative, sequenced competencies and understanding prior to the midterm, the memo of goals and learning outcomes, and through the end of semester. If you are falling short of basic, competent work prior to the midterm, I will let you know that both through the Bblearn Grade Center and in some cases of great concern, by individual emails from me. If you want my sense of how you are doing, please ask.

10. Office hours. I encourage you to confer with me—especially before assignments are due—to talk about your interests, intentions, and writing strategies. If you cannot make my regular hours (in 122 Brink Hall), we’ll arrange another time. I also welcome communicating with you by E-mail (sflores@uidaho.edu). If you know that you plan to stop by my office, please let me know in advance by email, and include the desired or likely time frame, and what you'd like to discuss.

11. Use of laptops, tablets, and cell phones during class is acceptable only for accessing course materials: our assigned reading/texts. Do not participate online during class on email or other social media/forums.

12. Do not submit work for this class that you have submitted or intend to submit for a grade in another course; as always, be careful to cite anyone else's work that you draw upon, this includes not only formal citation of secondary resources/scholarship for the primary, graded written assignments but also informal commentary, such as in the Inquiry Starters (do not, for instance, copy/revise material from such sources as SparkNotes, to substitute for your own critical observations and insights). In accordance with the UI Student Code of Conduct, I report all such instances to the Dean of Students Office, and do not offer the option to re-do a plagiarized assignment, which will receive zero points. See highlighted link in Bblearn folder on Advice on Writing to a useful guide to avoiding plagiarism, and a link to information on the university's policies regarding plagiarism. See also University of Idaho Guidelines on Academic Dishonesty (including plagiarism).

Plagiarism includes the using of ideas, data, or language of another as one’s own without specific or proper acknowledgement or citation, lack of knowledge of proper citation is not valid excuse for plagiarism as it is the responsibility of the author writing the material to know the proper methods for appropriate citation and/or seek guidance/help when using another’s work.

Plagiarism can be committed in any type of assignment and includes, but is not limited to, the following behavior that also does not include the full, clear and proper acknowledgement of the original source:

The copying of another person’s work, published or unpublished;

The paraphrase of another person’s work, published or unpublished;

Using another person’s ideas, arguments, and/or thesis from a published or unpublished work;

Using another person’s research from a published or unpublished work;

Using materials prepared by a person or agency in the selling of term papers or other academic materials.

13. Classroom Learning and Civility: To support learning and discovery in this course—as in any university course—it is essential that each member of the class feel as free and as safe as possible in his or her participation. To this end, we must collectively expect that everyone (students, professors, and guests) seek to be respectful and civil to one another in discussion, in action, in teaching, and in learning. Because knowledge and learning are constructed and construed through social inquiry and exchange, it is vital that course dialogue and debate encourage and expect a substantial range of reasoned, expressive, and impassioned articulation of diverse views in order to build a stronger understanding of the materials and of one another's ways of knowing. These practices strengthen our capacities for understanding and the production of (new) knowledge. As with the critical writing assignments for this class, our primary aims include engaging with texts and their varied critical interpretations by identifying problems, developing claims and arguments with supporting lines of evidence and explanation, and enriching our literary understanding, interests, and commitments.

Should you feel our classroom interactions do not reflect an environment of civility and respect, you are encouraged to meet with me during office hours to discuss your concern. Additional resources for expression of concern and avenues of support include the chair of the Department of English, Dr. Jodie Nicotra, the Dean of Students office and staff (5-6757), the UI Counseling & Testing Center’s confidential services (5-6716), or the UI Office of Human Rights, Access, & Inclusion (5-4285).

14. Disability Support Services: Reasonable accommodations are available for students who have documented temporary or permanent disabilities. All accommodations must be approved through Disability Support Services (885-6307; dss@uidaho.edu; www.uidaho.edu/dss) located in the Idaho Commons Building, Room 306 in order to notify your instructor(s) as soon as possible regarding accommodation(s) needed for the course.

List of General Course Learning Outcomes: English 345

General:

• Reinforces close reading, research skills, and analytical writing strategies

• Help students investigate how these literary texts shape and reflect their particular contexts, including differences in treatment of issues across the time period covered

• Helps students engage with and develop investment in the plays, poems, and related texts/criticism—using a range of assignments and resources, including online writing/discussions

• Helps students engage in scholarly conversations about literature—building from their research skills and use of evidence and related texts in previous classes to position themselves in dialogue with critical discussions

• Requires and directs students in ways to write sustained analytical essays (with selected research) that evidence close reading of the literature to include well-developed theses/argument, engagement with critical sources, and ability to ask meaningful questions of the literature and its construction. Students are required to sustain an analysis of eight or more pages in the Term Essay, and to write additional pages of analysis during the semester (including an in-class essay exam, memo on goals and learning outcomes, and weekly online inquiry starters and peer response entries). Evaluation of each student’s Term Essay includes instructor's use of a rubric to identify specific areas assessed.

• Supports exploration of theoretical perspectives on literary and cultural studies, enabling students to reflect upon, compose, and articulate the ways that they engage with critical theory and practice

•Helps students understand applications of English studies with references to contemporary events/situations that show similar problems depicted in the texts recurring in present day life and social relations

•Expects and monitors that students' writing exhibits correct usage of grammar and of MLA formats and citation conventions

Learning outcomes specific to Engl 345 Studies in Shakespeare: Students will study, explore, and seek to learn about

-Shakespeare’s use of language, including rhetorical purposes and figures/tropes in verse/poetry and prose

-the nature of theatrical performance and conditions of staging and dramatic action in Shakespearean theater/drama, including the plays’ self-referential attention to their status as non-realistic: as therefore fictive and performative

-the production and reception of Shakespeare’s plays on film

-the question/problem of classifying Shakespeare’s plays by genres of comedy, history, tragedy, and romance

-the shift from prior character and theme-based critical approaches to historically-situated analysis of the cultural and socio-political contexts and functions/purposes of Shakespeare’s work

-an understanding of Shakespearean comedy, including to what extent the playful rebellion of young lovers against parental authority is absorbed and transformed by cultural and state power into the socially sanctioned form of marriage, or whether the representation of subversive, rebellious energy demonstrates the possibility of more egalitarian and desirable relationships between men and women, and perhaps even among/across a different continuum of gender-identifications

-the function of language in the comedies to enforce the status of the powerful even as this conflicts with those who challenge predominant meanings and relationships

- how the plays’ show an awareness of the transition from a past feudal world to a political world in which monarchs seek absolute power

-that the histories, in particular, show royal power claiming divine support to serve/justify their power as monarchs, monarchs whose success depends to a substantial degree upon their respective ability to convince others through theatrical performance of their role as rulers

-that the histories also show that women’s potential to undermine men’s right to inherit is kept in check by the threat of violence

-that because the plays/theater reveal their own constructedness, we see that our understanding of historical narratives are inflected by the concerns of the teller and the interests of those who interpret/receive/reproduce these works/meanings

-that characters in the tragedies are shown to live in an early modern world whose secure basis is slipping away; moreover, these characters’ acts/beliefs reveal internalized contradictions, competing values and conflicts that make their lives impossible

-that the tragedies may show a heightened, focused attention to the social operations of power to reveal how the stories and displays of those in authority work to convince those with less power of their superiors’ right to rule even though such narratives/rights may well be baseless

-that the tragedies also highlight the nature of representation and questions of ethics/principles

-that though we are not studying directly plays in the genre of romance, students will learn that these works tend to show how women and the next generation redeem the errors of men and the older generation

-that the romances also show that though women are either unruly or beautiful/fertile beings, they nevertheless possess qualities that will make the world better because they save men from the harsh injustice of masculine desires for power and control

-that some critics argue that Shakespearean romances show how the passage of time may dismantle structures of belief and power except for those presented as common to our humanity, and that this utopian appeal to the generative capacities of fiction/imagination that we hold in common creates the basis for a more egalitarian future, one of equality and fairness

-the history of Shakespeare studies/critical orientations/theories, including the shift from early liberal humanist and character-based perspectives to contexts/relations of gender, race, and sexuality in history/politics/culture, with questions of justice, and even finer modes of historical specificity and analysis, juxtaposed to ‘presentist’ interests/claims to understand Shakespeare in relation to our own lives, and also recurring interest in ethics and ecocriticism or ‘green’ issues represented in Shakespeare’s works

-See also weblink in Bblearn to excerpts from our reading selections that offer scholars' views on Shakespeare's histories, comedies, and tragedies.