Intermediate Composition (205-0-1)
Instructors
Matthew Davis
Meeting Info
University Hall 318: Tues, Thurs 9:30AM - 10:50AM
Overview of class
In this intermediate writing course students will read and write about poems. Students will be asked to prep two to four short but challenging poems for each class. As part of the prep, they will be asked to look up particular words in the online Oxford English Dictionary (and an important secondary goal of the course will be to teach student how to use this amazing resource). The poems to be studied will be examples of traditional accentual-syllabic verse, written from c. 1580 to c. 1960, and some introductory instruction on poetic meter will be included. We will read newer and/or easier poems first and then move on to older and/or more challenging poems. Some possible authors (in reverse chronological order) include Robert Hayden, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, Emily Dickinson, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning, William Wordsworth, John Keats, Samuel Johnson, William Shakespeare, and Sir Phillip Sidney. Each student will write three short essays, each of which will focus on a single poem we have read or a particular crux within a poem. Students will receive guidance on academic writing and will participate in workshops in which they read and comment on each other's drafts.
Class Materials (Required)
R. Williams, The Poetry Toolkit, ISBN: 978-1350032200