English 12
English 12 is a course which seeks to prepare
students for continued work in university. That is not, of course, its only, or
even primary, goal. English 12 is most concerned with fostering literate
humans. Literate English teachers and professors is no accomplishment. Society
needs literate doctors, and truckers, and house-husbands, and chemists, and
golfers, and farmers. Eudora Welty, the great Southern U.S. writer, says that
the purpose of an education is to develop taste. Taste implies discrimination,
and it is the purpose of this English course, as it should be of any English
course, to develop taste and encourage the making of fine distinctions.
Both taste and its mother, discrimination, require
knowledge. This course is largely unable to provide you with the knowledge
required to produce the educated person. Nevertheless, it can provide road
maps. How far you wish to travel is-how could it be otherwise-your own
business. In as much as English 12 is part
of the graduation requirements of ARHS, I will require you to jump
through certain hoops. Many of you will do well at this, others not so well.
These hoops (tests, essays, recitations, responses etc.) are merely the
necessary outward signs of progress which any education system must
require. Success or failure in them does not necessarily mean progress in English, but since we cannot measure inward progress, the crucial progress, they will be used to see that you are building the shell of an educated mind. If you are serious about education (not to be confused with training, goodness, character, attitude) you will need to doMUCH
more than this course, difficult as it may seem, can offer.
Education is a life-long quest. It has no end,
offers no final wisdom, ends in failure, makes life more difficult. It is,
however, an effort against ignorance. Marlow notes that the fool and the saint
are beyond its pull, but if we are neither, we may wish to opt for the path of
education. School seeks to kick-start your engine, and to provide a map, but
the highways you must travel yourself. In this course I won't seek poems,
stories, essays which encourage you to learn what you already know. As a
result, what I have chosen will seem difficult. If we went to school to learn
what we already know… well, you get the point. To paraphrase Robert Frost: school
is the place that when you go there, they make you read the books you'd never
read yourself. The two novels I
can squeeze in for one semester must be seen as sacrificial demonstration pieces.
You should be reading, at your age when the mind is still supple, at least a
dozen books a year. You should be reading from the important magazines and
journals several times a week. Seventeen years is old. Your childhood ended
five years ago. We must now "labour to make life beautiful." Life is
a gift. Life in Canada is a gift beyond the wildest imagining of history. To
fail to use that gift is a sin.
Course Outline (minus inscape and instress)
Personal Essays: 4 essays (for in-class examination)
Annie Dillard: On Seeing
Barry Lopez: Who are These Animals we Kill?
Jonathan Swift: A Modest Proposal
W. S. Merwin: Unchopping a Tree
4 essays chosen, read, and responded by you.
2 essays written by you and marked by me.
Elements of Grammar
A comprehensive
"review" of how sentences make meaning. (See the notes and exercises below.)
One major test.
Poetry
30 pages
of poetry from Beowulf to Larkin.
Tests
and assignments.
Shakespeare
Either Macbeth
or Othello
Tests and assignments
Novel
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
MLA style
essay on this novel will produce 15% of course mark.
The Shipping News by E. Annie
Proulx or
1984
by George Orwell.
Assignment.
Internet Responses
Six
responses from my web page as explained below
I have tried to include only those entries to this website
which I feel have real value. I have made my biases fairly clear
("worn them on my sleeve for daws to peck at") and if you feel your
approach to literary criticism is closer to the now increasingly dated
"postmodern" family of critical approaches, or if you would just like
to know more about what these approaches are, you could look at this entry on
the types of critical theory: Theory
page.
Here the bias is the other way, but the definitions
of the critical methods should give a general sense of direction.
By January 06, midnight, I would like every
student to have READ AND RESPONDED TO ONE entry from Five of the
following six pages:
· Personal
Essay
· Poetry
· Literary
Criticism
· Books
· Grammar
and Language
· Education
In addition you must read and respond to ONE entry from:
Arts and Letters Daily
In total, then, you must have submitted 6 responses
by June 01. (of these, you must have 3 completed by April 1)
You must e-mail me your response at bbauld@ns.sympatico.ca (hitting the
reply button is the easiest way).
Address your responses this way: in the
"subject" space put:
"Jane Doe-Grammar" or "John Doe-Books" etc.
Your RESPONSE to the article which you choose to
read should be around 250 words. You should give an honest reaction to what you
have read, but also an intelligent one which shows how closely you have read
the piece. This might require that you read the piece more than once. If
you have something "beyond your years", keep looking - there is much
which is accessible. Please remember that I will ask you to do a response over
if it is inadequate. Hint: I have chosen the pieces because they are
thoughtful, knowledgeable, and well written. Please look again if you are
unable to see these qualities. The better responses are always those which deal
in specifics.
· Selected
answers to "Practice Grammar Sentences"
Notes on Chaucer and the Medieval Period
· Notes
for the English Renaissance & 17th Century
441/541 Poetry:
Elizabethan to Romantic
441/541
Poetry: Victorian to Modern
Robert
Browning's "Fra Lippo Lippi"
Art as
Prophecy in"Fra Lippo Lippi"
Robert Browning's
"Andre Del Sarto
Several
pictures of the painter Fra Lippo Lippi and Andrea de Sartoa>
Miller's
Tale Prologue
Miller's
Tale
Pardoner's
Tale Prologue
Pardoner's
Tale
Wife of
Bath's Tale Prologue
Wife of
Bath's Tale
Read here an
account of the Murder of Thomas a Becket