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ENG 470:
Fantasy Fall 2009 |
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All course requirements must be completed in order to
receive credit for the course.
Creation and
Fulfillment of Primary Text Reading Contract Primary Text
Reading Contract
Page count: Area of Concentration: In deciding what texts you will choose, consider the following: If you have already decided on your dissertation or thesis topic, what fantasy literature will supplement that topic? For instance, if you are looking at some aspect of Victorian children’s literature, have you read George MacDonald, Charles Kingsley, Jean Ingelow, John Ruskin? If you are studying an author, have you read the fantasies he or she read or is likely to have read? This kind of author study may take you into fantasy material not traditionally thought of as children’s fantasy. For instance, to study Tolkien, you may decide to read the Prose Edda, the Kalevala, and the Mabinogian, or you might work forward from Tolkien to Garner, Gaiman, and others who have been influenced by his work. If a dissertation or thesis topic is irrelevant to you at this point, do you have a personal interest in a particular motif, genre, or period? For instance, do you have a fascination for superheroes, or, alternately, you just don’t get what the big deal with superheroes is? Are you drawn to horror or Gothic literature? Did you miss Madeleine L’Engle or Diana Wynne Jones when you were growing up? Craft a reading plan that corresponds to your personal needs and interests. What your contract should look like: 1) You should have at least a paragraph that explains the rationale and goals for your reading plan. 2) Your reading plan should be set up according to the semester calendar, noting which books you will be reading each week. Discussion
Questions Submit two discussion questions that relate to the critical readings via email (kscoat2@ilstu.edu) before 10 o'clock Monday morning. Late questions will be accepted, but will count negatively toward your grade.
Progress Reports You will prepare two 10-minute progress reports to present to the class. Share what you are reading (primary and secondary), ask for suggestions, note interesting findings and discoveries. Final Paper
Daybook: 1) Unlike other daybooks, this one should be dedicated to fantasy related materials only (which can include all sorts of geek media) 2) Make a Table of Contents that includes:
a.
Primary texts (This starts right after the identification page.) 3) Primary Text Section:
a.
complete bibliographic information 4) Bibliography of secondary sources
a.
complete citation information 5) Critical vocabulary
a.
include literary and theoretical terms that you run across as you
read; note their origin if possible and applicable (for instance,
intertextuality is a term coined by Kristeva in 1966 (Desire in
Language) to combine notions of semiotics (Saussure) and dialogism (Bakhtin)) 6) Notes and Queries for Further study: a. Note here critical questions that you would like to follow up on, as well as ideas for essays, articles and topics for further study.
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