Grades & Assignments

If you miss class, contact a classmate for notes, reading assignments and handouts – or, better yet, check Canvas.

Grade Distribution

10% Class Discussion & Participation

20% Weekly Discussion Posts (CLO 1, 2, 3, 5)

25% Annotated Bibliography & Reflective Essay (CLO 4)

25% Team Critical Model Presentation & Essay (CLO 1, 2, 3, 5)

20% Critical Analysis Essay (Final Exam Essay) (CLO 1, 2, 3, 5)

Grading Policy

The Department of English reaffirms its commitment to the differential grading scale as defined in the official SJSU Catalog (“The Grading System”). Grades issued must represent a full range of student performance: A = excellent; B = above average; C = average; D = below average; F = failure.

In English Department courses, instructors will comment on and grade the quality of student writing as well as the quality of the ideas being conveyed. All student writing should be distinguished by correct grammar and punctuation, appropriate diction and syntax, and well-organized paragraphs.

The “A” essay will be well organized and well developed, demonstrating a clear understanding and fulfillment of the assignment. It will show the student’s ability to use language effectively and construct sentences distinguished by syntactic complexity and variety. Such essays will be essentially free of grammatical, mechanical, and usage errors.
The “B” essay will demonstrate competence in the same categories as the “A” essay. The chief difference is that the “B” essay will show some describably slight weaknesses in one of those categories. It may slight one of the assigned tasks, show less facility of expression, or contain some minor grammatical, mechanical, or usage flaws.
The “C” essay will complete all tasks set by the assignment, but show weakness in fundamentals (usually development), with barely enough specific information to illustrate the experience or support generalizations. The sentence construction may be less mature, and the use of language less effective and correct than the “B” essay.
The “D” essay will neglect one of the assigned tasks and be noticeably superficial in its treatment of the assignment–that is, too simplistic or short. The essay may reveal some problems in development, with insufficient specific information to illustrate the experience or support generalizations. It will contain grammatical, mechanical, and usage errors that render some sentences incomprehensible.
The “F” essay will demonstrate a striking underdevelopment of ideas and insufficient or unfocused organization. It will contain serious grammatical, mechanical, and usage errors that render some sentences incomprehensible.

For your final grades, 100-90 is an A, 89-80 is a B, 79-70 is a C, 69-60 is a D, and below 60 is an F. Pluses and minuses are the middle of each range. In calculating the final grade, a set number will represent each letter grade; for example, B+ is 87.5, B is 85, and B- is 82.5.

Within any of the letter grade ranges (e.g. B+/B/B-), the assignment of a + or - grade will reflect stronger (+) or weaker (-) completion of the goals of the assignment.

Course Requirements and Assignments

1-Unit Enhancement

Because this is a 4-unit course, students can expect to spend a minimum of twelve hours per week preparing for and attending classes and completing course assignments. This course will have integrated into the syllabus the following 1-unit enhancement: Undergraduate Research and Information Literacy.

In order to understand how other scholars use theoretical models to analyze literature, this assignment asks students to find and annotate eight contemporary literary critical articles that focus on Heart of Darkness (not in the Heart of Darkness critical edition that we are using for class). A 600-word reflective essay on your research experience will also be required.

Students may have completed an Annotated Bibliography in other courses; however, this particular project requires students to master library research skills of literary criticism, synthesize complex arguments from peer-reviewed articles, assess and analyze those arguments and evidence, and analyze the use of the literary critical models studied in class. Students will begin work on this project during the third week of classes by familiarizing themselves with King Library's research resources. Before the due date, students will learn research methods by participating in a King Library treasure hunt, submit progress updates on finding research materials (with feedback from Dr. Harris), and participate in peer review workshop of drafts of annotated bibliography entries (with feedback from Dr. Harris).

Class Discussion & Participation

This course studies a variety of ways to analyze literature. From the first day of class, your participation in each class meeting is imperative. Since this class is largely discussion-based, arrive to class prepared with the proper readings. Bring Heart of Darkness to every class meeting.

A student’s participation is assessed by his/her contribution throughout the semester. Use the following as guidelines for this portion of your final grade:

To earn a “C,” do the minimum: read and prepare assigned readings so you are never at a loss if you are asked a question, but speak only when called upon, do “ordinary,” plain-vanilla presentations and responses. This is the “bottom line” for getting a “C” in this part of the course.

To earn a “B,” prepare assigned readings thoroughly, initiate discussions about them by asking good questions or suggesting ways to interpret readings, do presentations that reveal that you have done good additional work that you can make both interesting and meaningful to our discussions, and participate actively in those discussions.

For an “A,” take it up another level entirely: prepare readings thoroughly, find and talk about connections among them and among other aspects of culture (then and now), take a real leadership role in class discussions, including working actively to get others involved in the talk, make your presentations and responses “sparkle” by bringing to them something really special in terms of your own contributions, interests, skills, and abilities to think in broad even interdisciplinary terms. Most of all, remember that an “A” indicates the very best grade a person can get; that should tell you what sort of work you need to do to earn the grade of “A.”

If you miss class, contact a classmate for notes, reading assignments and handouts – or, better yet, check our Course Website.

Weekly Discussion Posts (10 total)

Because literary criticism is as much about writing as it is reading, each week we will write discussion posts that offer you an opportunity to practice the critical model as it is applied to a piece of literature (approximately 300-500 words). Your understanding of the critical models and class discussion are imperative to produce a sufficient piece of writing. Each discussion post is worth 1 to 10 points and is based on the quality of your response. This weekly post will also allow you to explore methodologies based on focused questions, clarify your thoughts on a theoretical model, or comment on your colleague’s presentations. This weekly writing will also allow you to practice your writing skills. Posts (unless otherwise specified) are formal writing that should conform to MLA style with proper citation format 8th edition and should be edited for grammar and typographical mistakes. Sloppy writing will be penalized by at least 3 points. Use of first person (I/we/us/our) or third person (you) will result in a zero on the post. (See Writing Tips.)

There are no make-ups for discussion posts; you simply receive a zero for that post. A late post will receive a zero. Please be aware that missing even a few of these posts will cause your final grade to drop significantly. On some days, you will write a post for participation points. This will apply not necessarily in terms of finite points, but will instead represent your participation in the class.

See below for scoring rubric:

8-10 points: The post explores the prompt using references from our discussions, details from evidence, and an intellectual exploration of the topic. The post is free from grammatical and writing errors. This level of points is difficult to achieve. Expectations are high for the intellectual rigor of the post.
5-7 points: The post has the beginnings of intellectual rigor but lacks one of the qualities above.
3-4 points: The post regurgitates class discussion without exploring the topic further in addition to lacking evidence. The post contains grammatical errors, informal writing, ignores MLA style.
1-2: The post severely lacks elements from above or does not answer the prompt. This point range also signals a lack of formal writing and a recommendation to visit the Writing Center for help with formal writing style. This point range also signals use of personal pronouns throughout the post as well as a lack of interest in the topic/prompt.
0 points: This represents not submitting the post on time, not at all, using first or third person, or not answering the prompt at all.

Annotated Bibliography & Reflective Essay

In order to understand how other scholars use theoretical models to analyze literature, this assignment asks you to find and annotate contemporary literary critical articles that focus on Heart of Darkness (not in the Heart of Darkness critical edition that we are using for class). A 600-word reflective essay on your research experience will also be required.

MLA style for documentation, in-text citation methods and Bibliography are required. If you need help on MLA style, please see me before submitting anything. (Essay grades will be reduced for inaccurate citation and Works Cited submissions.) See also our Writing Tips for 8th edition MLA style online resources and visit the Writing Center. In addition to submitting your Annotated Bibliography to Canvas, your Annotated Bibliography and Reflective Essay will be submitted to Turnitin.com for verification (via Canvas).

Team Critical Model Presentation & Essay

To gain a better understanding of at least one critical theory, on the “praxis” day teams will give a presentation on a critical model and use a literary text to demonstrate its use. The main goal of this presentation is to provide an example of using a critical model. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session from your peers. A 1200-word team-written essay and teamwork evaluation are due on the day of the presentation.

Final Exam Essay

The final exam/essay (written outside of class) will be based on a literary text to which you will apply two critical models. This text and critical models must be different from those included in your presentation. We will discuss the Final Exam Essay towards the conclusion of the semester.