Welcome to Spring 2022!
COML 1134: Reading Poetry (FWS) #
Poems are puzzles, or are they plants? In this class, we will respond to key questions like “How does this poem work?” and “Why do I like it?” We will also grapple with the paradox of writing about poetry in a closed, concise form without domesticating it, by investigating how reading poetry can teach us how to write anew. How are lines and stanzas related to sentences and paragraphs? Can ideas “rhyme?” Are notions such as deixis, voice, metaphor, apostrophe, prosody, and the “lyric I” essential to producing a cogent and truthful argument in any discipline?
Learning Outcomes #
Attentive Reading. You will leave the course with a heightened sensitivity to lineation, rhyme, meter, syntax, diction, deixis, typography, spacing, and other forms within a poetic text. You will also learn how to describe the world or voice of a poem or poet through corpus-driven, historical, and/or biographical research.
Essay-writing. You will learn to write essays which fit under the genre of “literary criticism,” broadly defined. This means that you will be able to produce close readings of a primary text which address a central thesis. Your writing will reflect on awareness of the stylistic conventions and affordances of the genre and its related sub-genres: the book review, the journal article, and the personal or “lyric” essay.
Values. What makes a particular poem more powerful than another one? To what extent is value dependent on personal taste, and how do preferences and tastes come to be? How do specific methods of reading affect one’s tastes and writing practices? And how can I communicate the importance or relevance of my poetic values to others in different domains? You will be able to articulate answers to these questions by the end of the course.
FWS Requirements #
Essay 0 – “Poetics” – 2-3 pages (Week 1)
Essay 1 – “Rhyme, Line, Meter” – 3-5 pages (Week 4)
Essay 2 – “Poems in Dialogue” – 3-5 pages (Week 8)
Essay 3 – “Literature Review” – 3-5 pages (Week 12)
Essay 4 – “Final” – 8-12 pages (Week 16)
Essays 1-3 count for 20% each, Essay 4 counts for 40%. See individual rubrics for each essay as they are released for exact grading criteria. Essays 1-3 may be revised multiple times up to a week after feedback is received; Essay 4 will go through a drafting process, but may not be revised if the first version is turned in after a specified date.
It is possible to earn an A+ in this class if and only if you receive an A+ on Essay 4. I may nominate up to two students per term to submit work to one of the Knight Institute’s FWS prizes.
Please follow MLA citation and style guidelines, with Times New Roman font. Be sure to put commas and periods inside quotation marks: “Hello,” he said / She said “hello.” There is one special rule for this class: use 1.7 line spacing, not the typical double-spacing.1
You are required to attend class as often as possible, having done the readings, and to participate in class discussions.
You are required to participate in certain preparatory activities, including peer review and discussion board, outside of class.
You are required to meet with the instructor twice over the course of the semester, as detailed on the Schedule, in order to receive feedback on your essays.
Grading #
Your final grade is primarily determined by the grades you receive on your essays, and secondarily by your participation in class. Issues with lateness may affect your individual essay grades as detailed below. Issues with participation can lead to “ceilings” or “caps” on your final grade, as detailed below. The ceilings are not cumulative across categories, but the lowest ceiling will be instituted unilaterally. If you miss six classes and a discussion board post, your maximum grade for the class would be a B+, not a B, and not an A-.
Deadlines. Any essay may be turned in up to 24 hours after its deadline with no penalty to the grade. After that, the student is responsible for sending a daily status update, by email, informing the instructor of their progress. If you miss one status update, then the instructor may apply a late penalty to the essay, meaning that its grade will be “ceilinged” at an A-. A status update must include the following:
- A note in the body of the email articulating what you’re struggling with, and what you think is feasible for you to accomplish by the following day. This can include obstructions caused by another class or by other circumstances. If you haven’t been able to do any work on a given day, still send a “null” report.
- You can replace the daily note with a meeting with me or by a meeting with the Knight Institute’s writing center.
- An attachment that shows your current work on the paper.
Attendance.
If you miss class, send an email letting me know—it’ll help you stay accountable. You may miss up to 3 classes for any reason before your grade is capped at an A-. Missing more than six classes will lead to a B+ maximum, more than nine leads to a B, etc. Arriving more than 10 minutes late three times counts as an absence. Sleeping in class will result in a concerned email from me and counts as an absence, since it can be distracting to others. Please get enough sleep! If you miss more than three classes due to a documented illness or other crisis, I will consider lifting the grading cap, but you must communicate swiftly in order to avoid ambiguity regarding the reasons for your absence.
Participation.
Canvas discussion board posts and peer review exchanges are essential and often time-sensitive. You can submit them up to three days late without any penalty, but a missed assignment will lead to an A- cap on your final grade. This is cumulative, so missing three DB posts would result in a B ceiling.
We use Slack to share brief responses to poems and prompts prior to (and sometimes in) class. You can miss five of these without penalty, after which point your grade will be capped at an A-.
Try to speak up during every discussion, or at very least once a week. If you do not want to speak, take notes on what others are saying. There is no penalty for not speaking in class, but your final grade may be decremented for behaviors which may be distracting to others: sleeping in class, engaging with unrelated materials, making disruptive noises.
Communications #
- Announcements will be sent via Canvas after each class detailing the assignments for the following class. They should also arrive in your email inbox without delay. If an announcement contradicts what is written on the Schedule, trust the announcement.
- Please communicate with me by email, at dp625@cornell.edu. I like to receive questions and messages and typically respond the same day. Do not use Slack to private message me, as I often keep notifications off and respond much more readily to emails.
- If you have questions that might be relevant to others in the class, ask them via #general in Slack. If you find an error on the website, bring it up in #general.
- I am available to meet one-on-one at various times throughout the week. Use the link calendly.com/dp625 to schedule a meeting. Drop-in office hours will occur once a week at a time to be decided by poll. My office in Klarman, KG 54, is located on the left (north-facing) wing of the basement level hallway, opposite Zeus Café.
- If you are unsure about your grade on an assignment or feel concerned about your grade, do not hesitate to ask me about it; I will try to give you whatever guidance is necessary to help you improve on subsequent assignments.
Materials #
All readings will be made available on Canvas, linked to the schedule on this website, or uploaded to Slack. Please do not circulate slides, handouts, scans, or any other course materials online, as some of the material may be copyrighted and only available for private, educational use.
You should always bring a computer to class, so that you can access electronic materials and contribute to Slack. I highly recommend that you use the annotation functions available on your preferred PDF viewer as you read materials for class.
You are always encouraged to read beyond the course materials. Use the library; use JSTOR, use HathiTrust and other databases for academic articles and books. You may also encounter poems and writing on poems in literary magazines like the Paris Review, the LA Review of Books, The Yale Review.
You can check out books from other libraries using BorrowDirect if they are currently unavailable at Cornell. If you’re interested in buying new books, Buffalo Street Books and Odyssey Bookstore are some local options.
Zoom #
Classes will meet on Zoom until February 8, in accordance with university policy. The link is on Canvas, under the Zoom tab. After February 8, if you need to quarantine, you may attend sessions via Zoom. However, the classroom is unlikely to have microphones capable of picking up the sounds of your classmates’ voices, so you may have trouble following the discussion.
Policy #
- This webpage is subject to change at all times. Substantive edits will be announced via Canvas. The instructor may make exceptions to the grading policies listed above if deemed necessary and appropriate.
- Writing submitted for this course may be read and shared among other members of the class on the Canvas site, typically for peer review exercises.
- Writing submitted for this course must have been written for this course and not another and must originate with you in form and content with all contributory sources fully and specifically acknowledged. See Cornell’s Guide to Academic Integrity. Penalty for a violation of the code is normally an ‘F’ for the term.
- This instructor respects and upholds University policies and regulations pertaining to the observation of religious holidays; assistance available to the physically handicapped, visually and/or hearing impaired student; sexual harassment; discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and gender identity. Students are advised to become familiar with the respective University regulations and are encouraged to bring any questions or concerns to the attention of the instructor.
- If you have a disability-related need for this course, provide the instructor with an accommodation notification letter from Student Disability Services. Students are expected to give two weeks’ notice for requested accommodations. If you need immediate accommodations sooner, please speak to the instructor about your need by the end of the first week.
The total minimum page count, 2+3+3+3+8=19, converted to the standard double spacing, satisfies the 20-page minimum mandated by the Knight institute. ↩︎