English 463-071
Writers In African American Literature: Toni Morrison
Instr: Tatham, Campbell
Office: CRT 392; 229-3504
e-mail: ctatham@uwm.edu
Office hours: TBA
Course Information: MTWR; 3:00-4:40pm; CRT 368
Course Description
You will be reading and discussing one of the most important and highly praised African American authors of our time. Toni Morrison has won both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize in literature. We will look at Sula to provide a general introduction to Morrison's approaches and concerns and then turn to the remaining novels to see how she develops those approaches and concerns.
Required Texts: Toni Morrison, Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved Jazz
Assignments:
- Regular Attendance (no more than two classes missed. More than two will result in your final grade being lowered)
- Participation in class discussion - i.e., sharing your thoughts & feelings at least once in each class.
- Participation in an online Discussion Forum (D2L) - you will be expected to post twice per week, one original commentary on the issues raised in the readings and class discussion, the other a response to the posting of a classmate. You will be judged on the depth and quality of your insights, comments, and feedback, not on composition mechanics; nevertheless, you will want to avoid embarrassing careless errors in your postings.
- Reading Notebook - 3-4 typed and single-spaced typed pages per week, in which you record your thoughts, feelings and reactions to the readings and to the class discussions. You will be judged not on the content of your ideas but on the quality of your writing and on the extent to which you demonstrate authentic engagement with the texts and the class. You may use entries from your Notebook as postings to the Forum. Note: you will be handing in your notebook twice during the session, but you may hand it in any time you would like feedback.
- No other papers or exams.
Grades: Reading notebook = 70%; participation in Discussion Forum = 20%; class participation = 10%.
