Revised Syllabus for English as of November 5

Reason, Passion, Madness, Revenge, and Justice

Revised Syllabus as of November 5, 2011, post Sandy

Liberal Arts Cluster

Fall 2012

Dr. Van Slyck

Week IX (November 5-8)

Monday November 5: Discussion of Hurricane Sandy: freewrite on your experiences and reactions; Review plans for your Electra projects; second hour: library instruction

Tuesday November 6: Begin discussion of Antigone—discussion of divided duty and competing ideas about justice (we will try to use our classroom, not lab

Thursday November 8: Screening of first part of Antigone—please review material in class coursepak pages 71-78.

LIB hour Thursday with Prof. Sertich or canceled—Dr. Rizzieri and Dr. Van are reading your Laramie essays

Week X (November 12-15)

Continue discussion of Antigone and screening; check in on Electra projects; Begin drafting Antigone essays in Tuesday lab: essay topics are on pages 79 and 80 of your coursepak.  You will need to use ideas about tragedy, Greek values, and the tragic character in your essay.  I will provide updated topic choices based on our discussion.

Essay # 3 (first draft) on Antigone due Thursday November 15—bring hard copy to class; Read pages 1-100 of Zeitoun over weekend. Some of LIB hours in November will be devoted to Electra presentations. 

Week XI (November 19-21): Zeitoun: We will review college website on common reading and develop topics together as we respond to the text.

This is LaGuardia’s common reading and you will receive a free copy.  Start reading ASAP.  You will not want to put it down.

Zeitoun is incredibly relevant to our moment: post Sandy.  We will discuss moral and ethical issues surrounding the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans where a Muslim family resides: Zeitoun is the central character and he undergoes many changes during this experience as does his family. Research areas include Muslim culture; attitudes toward Muslims in the U.S.; National Guard and Katrina; the U.S. war on terror post 9-11 and its relevance to events in New Orleans after Katrina.  We will also compare what happened in New Orleans to areas of New York that have not received adequate support after Hurricane Sandy.

No class Thursday November 22

Week XII (November 26-29)—make sure you finish Zeitoun over Thanksgiving break

Second research project for English will be based on Zeitoun and the LaGuardia Common Reading website.  We will develop topics based on our discussion of the book.  Please read interview with Dave Eggers on the common reading website: how does a good journalist research a story?  What was most interesting about Eggers’ approach, what he discovered, who he interviewed, how he found this family?

Week XII (December 3-6)

Workshop on all projects—finalization of research essays on Zeitoun; theatre projects on Electra to be presented in LIB hour.

Begin discussion of final essay to be submitted in lab Tuesday December 15.

Week XIV (December 10—December 12 last day of class)

Planning for final reflective essay in which you will compare and contrast one of our big course themes (reason, passion, madness, revenge and justice) using two of the texts we have read.  Details to be worked out in class.

Final In-Class Essay (#5) will be done Tuesday December 15 in our lab.

We will reconvene for return of essays and celebration on Monday December 17.