Course Information

Overview. This course is centered around the fundamental question: "What is poetry?" In questing for answers, students must engage in dialogue with the poem and themselves, recapitulating, I believe, the essential motors which make poetry run in the first place: conversation, collaboration and interactivity.

Therefore, the decision to utilize the World Wide Web as a pedagogical tool is not by any means an arbitrary one. It emphasizes these very aspects. And as students will learn by the end of the course, the introduction of Hypertext into the discourse of poetics produces an intriguing and engaging discussion of both subjects.

Course Objective. Build a website entitled, "Introduction to Poetry."

This website will by no means be comprehensive, but it will serve the Internet community well by articulating the essential elements of poetry and poetic analysis. It will make available to students a methodology for approaching poetry by means of conversation, collaboration and interactivity.

By the end of the quarter you will:

		Be able to conduct informed discussions, written or oral, about the essential elements of a poem.
		Develop an understanding of how literary critics approach a poem.
		Learn how to use Hypertext and Internet technologies.
		Develop effective collaborative skills.

Course work All course work will be geared toward existing in our website.

In order to construct our website, however, we must first devote some time to defining our terms in regards to the formal elements of a poem, understanding how these elements coalesce into a gestalt.

With this in mind, course work and its overall worth will be as follows:

		Investigative work (10%) Three definitions of poetic terms (no more than 1/3 page each) Three website reviews (no more than 2 sentences each)
		Three Poetic Analyses (10% each) 3 -- 2-3 page paper in which you engage a specific poem of your choice along the lines indicated in class.
		Poetic Explication and Seminars(15%) 5 papers in which you explicate a specific poem of your choice along the lines indicated in class.
		Midterm (10%)
		Take-Home Final Exam (15%)
		Attendance and class participation (10%) Since this class demands collaboration, conversation and interactivity, a student cannot perform these tasks if s/he does not attend class regularly. More than three absences will influence your grade. If you will have difficulties in meeting this requirement please inform me ahead of time.

Collaborative Work (10%) Poetry is a collaborative enterprise involving the contributions of many people. So is learning. Computer-related projects also require collaboration. For these reasons, projects for this class will often involve collaborative work in groups of 4-6 people. It is especially important that you meet all commitments to the members of your work group, i.e., attending all scheduled meetings both in and out of class. I will not look kindly on people who take these obligations lightly, and reserve the right to adjust individual grades to take account of collaborative activity. A note on plagiarism. Plagiarism dishonors the student and the college and will not be tolerated. It is grounds for expulsion. If you have any concerns or questions regarding what constitutes an act of plagiarism, please consult me during office hours. Since all work will eventually exist on our website, all coursework must be typewritten and submitted to me on paper and on a floppy disk! Overall Note. A student might initially bristle at the word "website" juxtaposed with the word "poetry." But rest assured, no previous knowledge of the Internet is required for this course! The only skills you must possess are the following: How to type on a computer. How to save a file on a diskette. The skills which you will learn are as follows: How to browse the World Wide Web Not too imposing. I'll ask those who seem comfortable with the computers to help out those who seem less comfortable. Required Texts and Other Materials Introduction to Poetry @2 blank 3.5" diskettes

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The contents within these pages are solely those of the author and S.C.C.
should not be held responsible.  ©1999-2009
Last revised: November 19, 2009 by Jan Strever -- jstrever@scc.spokane.edu
Personal site:  http://www.js.spokane.wa.us/