Note: If you would like to include some theory based on the novel, you can include some quotes that I have selected from M. M. Bakhtin and Viktor Shklovsky, two leading experts on the theory of the novel.

Here is one interesting quote, dealing with the novel, Bakhtin uses the metaphor of the road to describe the genre of the novel. Novelistic writing often involves random encounters:

      Encounters in a novel usually take place 'on the road.' The road is a particularly good         place for random encounters. On the road... the spatial and temporal paths of the most varied people--representatives of all social classes, estates, religions, nationalities,           ages--intersect at one spatial and temporal point. People who are normally kept separate by social and spatial distance can accidentally meet; any contrast may crop up, the most various fates may collide and interweave with one another. On the road the spatial and temporal series defining human fates and lives combine with one another in distinctive ways, even as they become more complex andmore concrete by the collapse of social distances. (Bakhtin 243)

How is your novel a reflection of Bahktin's metaphor of the road (Bahktin calls this metaphor a chronotope, combining the notion of chronos or time with topos or place)? How do random encounters become meaningful in your novel? Also, how do different ethnicities and characters encounter one another through your novel?

This would be an excellent quote to use in a paper and could help you develop an interesting paper.

Here is another quote that may be of interest to you. Bakhtin describes how the novel is a subversive and democratic genre because it deals with the lower classes and almost always reverses social hierarchies that privilege the elite over the common folk. In this  sense, the novel is an expression of democratic urges: "The novel... is associated with the eternally living element of unofficial language and unofficial thought (holiday forms, familiar speech, profanation)"(20).

How does your novel express unofficial representations of history? How is folklore incorporated into your novel? How does your novel challenge stereotypes and authority?

Again, you could use this quote as the basis for a paper.

Another famous concept by Bakhtin is the notion of the novel as a reflection of heteroglossia. Hetero means different, or multiple, while glossia means voice. So, the translation of heteroglossia is many voices. Bakhtin feels that heteroglossia is found throughout the novel. If some of you feel like your novels have too many characters or too many subplots to find one central theme, then you are encountering the stylistic diversity of voices that Bakhtin refers to as heteroglossia:

"The novel can be defined as a diversity of social speech types (sometimes even diversity of languages) and a diversity of individual voices, artistically organized." (262)

How do the different characters in your novel have different voices, even different languages (Bakhtin uses the concept of language here to refer to the inner language of each character within the novel)? How do the different voices relate to one another? How is your novel an example of heteroglossia?

This would be a particularly effective quote to use in your paper if you find that your novel has multiple characters without one theme.

If you include Bakhtin in your paper, please refer to him in your works cited list at the end of your paper.

Works Cited.

Bakhtin, M.M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson. Austin, Texas: University of Texas P, 2004.

Please write a 7-10 page paper for your final exam. You should turn it into me before the end of next week before the final exam period. Please follow MLA format. Focus on a particular thematic aspect of your book, such as "History in Louise Erdrich's The Plague of Doves." Avoid using excessive quotations, but incorporate quotations into your paper. I will be analyzing how effective your introduction is, how effective your body paragraphs are, and how effective your conclusion is. Develop an outline or a strategy for your paper. Develop a central argument and find quotations in your novel to support your argument. Analyze the quotations and relate them to your thesis. Also, make sure that you have a working conclusion and a works cited page.

Papers due:

Jane Eyre Paper

Idiot Paper

Prison Life in Siberia Paper

7-10 page paper

PLEASE NOTE: I would like ALL OF YOUR PAPERS BY THIS FRIDAY. That way, I can calculate your final grade. Please send them to me as soon as possible. I will also need to see your exam permit before I can issue you a grade. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE THE FINAL EXAM if you turn in all of your papers by Friday. PLEASE SEND ALL PAPERS TO RAPHAELJOHNCOMPRONE@GMAIL.COM.

Suggestions for revising your assignments:

1) Read your assignments out loud. Check for grammatical errors. Try to reorganize your ideas. Check for sentences that do not make sentence. Imagine yourself in the place of your reader.

2) Check whether you have followed MLA format. Here are examples of how you do in-text citations:

In-text citation

Comprone describes "Langston Hughes' fascination with the working class," as wel as Hughes' commitment to the emancipation of the African American working class from oppression (33).

Block quote:

In a block quote, you need to indent, and you must remove all quotation marks. Block quotes are longer quotes:

Comprone states:

       Hughes imagined that African Americans needed to have resilience

       and fortitude in order to survive the rigors of racism and class

       oppression, especially during the Jim Crow period. Segregation

       dehumanized African Americans and taught them that they could only

       accept the inferior conditions of existence that the white majority

          forced them to live in. As a result, Hughes describes how the African        American folk tradition provided African Americans with tools for

       coping with the systematic dehumanization caused by segregation

         and institutionalized racism. (33)

Comprone indicates here that the African American folk tradition is a response to systematic dehumanization.

When citing poetry, count the lines and use forward slashes to indicate new lines of verse:

Hughes states: "I too/sing America" (lines 1-2).

If you are citing an Internet source, and it is unclear who the author is, refer to an abbreviated title of the article. If you do know who the author of the article is, refer to the author's last name. In the example  below, the author is unknown, so the title of the article was used in the citation:

Many African American students are not improving their reading skills, and 88% failed a proficiency test in basic reading in the fourth grade ("Proficiency of African American students on basic readiing tests").

When you cite sources, you need to have a works cited list at the end of your paper. Below is an example of a poem, a book, and an Internet source in a works cited list:

Entries are listed alphabetically by the author's last name (or, for entire edited collections, editor names). Author names are written last name first; middle names or middle initials follow the first name:

Burke, Kenneth

Levy, David M.

Wallace, David Foster

BOOK SOURCES

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin, 1987. Print.

Henley, Patricia. The Hummingbird House. Denver: MacMurray, 1999. Print.

WORKS IN AN ANTHOLOGY

Hughes, Langston. "Mother to Son." The Norton Anthology of African American Literature: 2nd Edition. Ed. Gates & McKay. New York: Norton, 2003. 35.

Hughes, Langston is the author's last name followed by the first name. "Mother to Son" is the title of Langston Hughes' poem. The Norton Anthology... is the book where Hughes' poem appears. Ed. stands for edited by Gates & McKay. New York is the place of publication, Norton is the publication company, and 2003 is the copyright date. 35 is the page number where the poem appears in the Norton Anthology.

Here are some common features you should try and find before citing electronic sources in MLA style. Not every Web page will provide all of the following information. However, collect as much of the following information as possible both for your citations and for your research notes:

Author and/or editor names (if available)

Writers are no longer required to provide URLs for Web entries. However, if your instructor or publisher insists on them, include them in angle brackets after the entry and end with a period. For long URLs, break lines only at slashes.

Here is an example:

Aristotle. Poetics. Trans. S. H. Butcher. The Internet Classics Archive. Web Atomic and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 13 Sept. 2007. Web. 4 Nov. 2008. ‹http://classics.mit.edu/›.

"How to Make Vegetarian Chili." eHow.com. eHow, n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2009.

n.d. stands for no date of publication given. Notice that the publication date precedes the date the student accessed the website, e.g. 24 Feb. 2009.

Also, make sure that you put page numbers on the upper right hand corner of your paper (do not put a page number on the first page!).

Put your name, your instructor's name, the name of the course, and the date in the upper left hand corner of the first page.

Do not include a title page (don't waste paper!).

Do not make a separate works cited page (put the works cited listed after your last paragraph).

On all numbered pages, put your last name before the page number (create a header with your last name--do not put your last name and the page number on the first page!).

Thursday, Sept. 23, 2010

D.J.'s assigned books: Ernest Gaines, The Lesson Before I am Dying, and Cormac McCarthy's Sunset Limited.

Please do a presentation on one of these books and be prepared for a midterm exam on the book by the middle of the semester (before October 7th).

Natalie McFarland should do her presentation first in early October.

There will also be an in class essay test on the book you do your presentation on.

Sept. 21st, 2010

You should complete your presentations. In each of your presentations, you need to discuss the theme of your novel, some interesting passages from the novel, the characters, the plot, the historical and cultural context, the background of the author, the central conflict, and irony as well as symbolism in the novel.

You also have the following essays due:

Prison Life in Siberia

Jane Eyre (first chapter)

The Idiot (chapter on his story in Switzerland)

October: Island Beneath The Sea Natalie

October: The Plague of Doves Gale

October: The White Tiger Courtney

August 30th, 2010

August 26th, 2010

Here is  video lecture on The Idiot:

In this course, we will return to the theme of psychology in Dostoyevsky's writing.

August 24th, 2010

Watch my video lecture on Prison Life in Siberia.

Here are some critical thinking questions:

Watch some videos on youtube about prison life in different countries. What insights do you have about the prison system? Do you feel that Dostoyevsky's novel relates to the present day psychology of prisoners in different countries? Do you agree with the statement that prisons are designed for social control of the masses? Is punishment an effective means of social control, or does life in prison generate deviant behavior?

Assignment (due next week) : Read the last chapter in Dostoyevsky's novel. How does he describe the struggle of the main character, Alexander Petrovich, as he leaves the prison? What type of psychological attachment does the main character feel concerning prison life? Write a three to five page essay on the last chapter and incorporate quotes. Use MLA format.

On Thursday, choose one passage from the novel and write about Dostoyevsky's psychological portrait of inmates in Siberia. What insights does Dostoyevsky make on the psychology of prisoners? Also, download The Idiot by Dostoyevsky and begin reading the book. It is also available on google books.  The lecture on Thursday will be on the first sections of The Idiot.

August 19th, 2010

Today, we discussed our goals for this class. You should begin reading Prison Life in Siberia by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. This book is available through google at google books. Here is a link: Siberia 

gulag The gulag is the Soviet penal system, which was known as very repressive and was derived from the earlier Russian prison system in Dostoyevsky's novel.

Katorga The Katorga is the Russian penal system that existed during the time Dostoyevsky wrote the novel, Prison Life in Siberia.

Assignment: Bring in a passage from Prison Life in Siberia and be prepared to discuss the issue of human suffering. Be prepared to write about the passage you bring in. Please download the text from google books.

Saint Paul's Department of Humanities & Behavioral Sciences

The Novel

Course Information:                                      Instructor:

English 431-1                                             Dr. Comprone

Fall Semester 2010                                           

Class Time:                                                    Office:

11-11:50 a.m.                                                RH 136

Classroom:                                                     Office Hours:

RH 210                                                                   TBA

Office Phone:                                                 Credit Hours:

contact by email only                                           3

Email: raphaeljohncomprone@gmail.com

Website: www.comprone.info

Pre-requisite: This course is an upper level course primarily designed for English majors.

Required Texts:

You should select two works from the list below for your five page essays and presentations:

Aravind, Adiga. The White Tiger.

Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice.

Allende, Isabel.

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre.

Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights.

Dickens, Charles. Bleak House.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The Idiot.

---. Prison Life in Siberia.

Eliot, George. Middlemarch.

Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man.

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw.

Kipling, Rudyard. Kim.

McCarthy, Cormac. No Country For Old Men.

Muyumba, Walter M. The Shadow and The Act: Black Intellectual Practice, Jazz Improvisation, and Philosophical Pragmatism.

Ngugi, Wa Thiong'o. Something Torn and New: An African Renaissance.

---. Wizard of the Crow.

Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina.

---. War and Peace.

Wright, Richard. Native Son.

Selection of Texts:

We will also discuss the theory of the novel as a genre by studying the works of Lukacs and Bakhtin as well as others.

Course Description:

This course is designed for upper level English students who are interested in developing a comprehensive understanding of the novel. You will learn how to write an effective essay in this course, and you will learn about the theory of the novel as a genre. We will discuss different novels and their historical, cultural, and even political significance.

Course Rationale:

The purpose of this course is to prepare students to write effectively on the graduate level.

Course Goals, Objectives, and Corresponding Program Outcomes:

1 Students will complete two 5 page essays on selected novels of their choice, as well as two Powerpoint presentations

2 Students will develop the ability to write at the graduate level

3 Students will develop critical thinking skills

4 Students will be able to use the tools of contemporary critical theory

Expectations for Student Behavior as Related to Course Objectives and Their Corresponding Program Outcomes:

Please arrange for meeting with me during office hours. Students must behave appropriately by: 1) avoiding talking when the professor is speaking, 2) being punctual (students will lose points for tardiness and excessive absences), 3) ALWAYS bringing their textbooks to class, 4) actively participating in class, 5) not plagiarizing, 6) avoiding the use of foul language and abusive behavior, 8) adhere to the dress code, 9) do not use any slang or inappropriate language in your speeches, 10) being polite to other students, and 11) send all revisions of your assignments with an email to raphaeljohncomprone@gmail.com (you must CLEARLY label your assignment and the attachment when you send it to my email. In the text of your email, put your name, the course you are taking, and the assignment that you are attaching. If you send an assignment to the wrong email, you are responsible for the missing assignment).

The attendance policy is as follows:

       Students missing more than 6 times (EXCUSED or UNEXCUSED) must WITHDRAW or receive a

        failing grade of F.

       This policy will be strictly enforced.

       Students with 2 or less absences will receive an additional 10% for their final grade. Excused absences will not be factored into this calculation, e.g. a student who has three excused absences and no unexcused absences will not receive an additional 10% added to his or her final grade.

       Students cannot obtain excuses for absences after the semester is over.

Class Format, Process, and Methods of Instruction:

Students can only receive incompletes upon permission by the instructor (an incomplete can only be filed for during the semester) and only if they are experiencing financial difficulties or a grave personal matter (I must be notified in person by the student or by a relative before the end of the semester). Excuses will only be accepted from the Provost's office.  I will only accept assignments in person (do not slip any assignments under my office door--I am not responsible if any of these assignments should end up missing). It is the student's responsibility to make up any missing work and to check on his or her grade during the semester. Absolutely no excuses for absences can be issued after the semester is completed (if you do not show me the excuse during the semester--you have to show me the excuse in person, do not put it under my door--I will not give you an excuse--this applies to athletes as well). Athletes must personally give me a copy of their game schedule and indicate to me the days they will be absent. They must also make up any work and or missed instruction the day after their absence. ABSOLUTELY no grade changes are possible after the semester. Please check with me before the end of the semester to see if you have any outstanding work to complete.

In Class Exams and coursework: 50%

Midterm Exam 20%

Final Exam 20%

Participation, classwork, and attendance 10%

Grading Scale:

90-100% A

80-89% B

70-79% C

60-69% D

59% and below F

Course Outline and Assignment Due Dates:

TBA

Tentative List of Assigned Readings and Assignments:

TBA

FINAL EXAM

Recommended Internet Sites: www.comprone.info for updates on assignments, syllabi, poetry club submissions (extra credit)