Phone: 240-567-1617

Preferred email: via course email tool

Course Description

How have people used story telling to make sense of their lives and the world around them? How has the shape of stories changed over time and across cultures? Do stories serve the same purpose today that they have, historically? What role have stories played in the past? In this course, you will read many short stories written by authors from many different time periods, nations and cultures. Some may be familiar to you; most will be new and exciting discoveries. You will also learn a great deal about this literary form. You will discover how the short story has evolved from myths, parables, and the oral tradition.

You will learn that throughout time people have used story to communicate ideas and feelings that were exceptionally important to them. They used stories to share knowledge, to forge connections with one another, and to create knowledge. Native peoples have long used story as a way to communicate the importance of universal truths. We will read many important authors of short stories, including Aesop, Eudora Welty, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and many others. We will also read about their lives, their ideas, and the worlds they wrote about and lived in.

Text: Dana Gioia and R. S. Gwynn, The Longman Anthology of Short Fiction: Stories and Authors in Context. Compact Edition. Longman Publishers, 1991.

Objectives:

In this course, students will learn

literary terms, critical approaches, and content acquisition

about the short story as genre
how to respond to and analyze texts
to give and receive constructive editorial feedback
critical approaches to texts and discipline standards for analyzing and criticizing texts
to produce a sustained and coherent analysis of a literary text, using outside information and documenting outside sources
to collaborate, share ideas and insights
to introduce new materials to the course and further their own knowledge beyond the course’s contents
to use outside sources without plagiarism

A typical week in this course:

New Course Content material is made available on Friday by 5:00 pm.
Read the Introduction to the week's readings, posted in the appropriate Course Content module.
Do assigned reading for the week.
Quiz is made available on Friday by 5:00 pm.
Take a weekly reading quiz by Tuesday at 11:00 pm. You are allowed only one attempt and have 15 minutes to complete them.
Friday 2:00 pm is the cut-off point for answering a question posed by the instructor, on the week’s reading assignment. Post your response on the Discussion Board, under the appropriate heading, “Week ___, Lead Question.”
Post one response to another student's posting on the Discussion Board.
Wrap-up: By the following Monday at 4:00 pm, instructor posts summary observations of week's discussion and provides clarification and additional information on assigned readings.
Where applicable, visit some of the recommended links in each week’s lesson presentation, to supplement your knowledge on this period, author, and/or text. This information may inform your discussion in response to the “Lead Question.”

Requirements and Grading Criteria:

A large chunk of your grade for the course is based on participation and collaboration. Check the Calendar and Course Content modules for specifics on each assignment.

There will be three formal assignments in the course, worth 10%, 15% and 15% of your term grade. One of these will be a final portfolio. You must share your drafts with a classmate, for feedback. They will be graded using a 100-point range.
A group presentation will be graded Pass/Fail and will be worth 10% of the term grade. Chats will be organized and held in group-work areas as well as on the Discussion Board. All students are expected to participate fully. (See guidelines on group work in separate handout.)
Reading quizzes will be worth a total of 15% of your grade, or 1% each; they are graded Pass/Fail and demonstrate that you’ve done the reading. You may miss one without penalty.

Class Participation Includes your responses to “Instructor’s Question.” In order to get full credit in this area, you must post a minimum of 12 good ones for the semester; this means that you must provide responses that enlighten us as to the specifics of the text. Stay away from generic and vague evaluative statements. You are also required to respond to the postings of your classmates and thus engage in substantive discussion at least once a week. (See separate handout on quality of postings.) Worth 40%.
Extra credit assignments will earn you credit toward other missing assignments or work that has gotten an “Unsatisfactory” or simply a “Satisfactory.” You may do 3 of these during the semester. Generally, extra credit opportunities will be responses to prompts such as: “Provide additional information on the author, time period, or critical perspectives on the text. You must paraphrase or summarize your discoveries with us, and acknowledge the sources. You may also supplement this information with links to good sites.”
You will submit a portfolio of your finest work at the very end of the semester. It will demonstrate your understanding of literary terms, critical approaches, and content acquisition. This portfolio will contain what you consider to be your best work for the semester, including reader-response journals, extra credit work, postings, etc. (Worth 15%; see above.)

Class Policies:

Creating and sustaining a community online is not always easy. Your participation will shape the course. Each student will learn as much from peers as from the readings and the instructor. Because of this and very collaborative nature of the course, attendance policies are strict:

Failure to participate in the weekly discussions on the readings will result in failing the course. Students who miss more than 4 discussions will be dropped from the course.

Late assignments are not accepted unless you have made arrangements with me for an extension before the assignment is due.
You will be timed out of taking a quiz and posting to a specific topic, so please keep an eye on your due dates--lateness is not acceptable.
Please post your homework-related questions on Q&A and check it regularly.
Post your essay-related questions under the appropriate Discussion Board topic.
All assignments must be submitted using MS Word and must be labeled with your last name and assignment title.
Important: Discussion board and Course Content areas will be timed out, so it will not be possible for you to go back to make up missed work.

A Note About Academic Honesty:
The Montgomery College Student Handbook provides detailed descriptions of what constitutes "academic dishonesty." You must familiarize yourselves with this information and abide by the college's rules against plagiarism. For our purposes in this course, any paper (or posting) that uses others’ writings or ideas without acknowledging them is guilty of plagiarism and will fail. Other possible penalties include failing the course and/or additional punishment.