First Seminar
Reading Homer

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS.

• Homer, The Iliad, trans. Robert Fagles (Penguin, 1990), ISBN 0140445927
  and
• Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fagles (Penguin, 1996), ISBN 0140268863.

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  In this seminar, we focus on the act of reading.  What happens when we read?  How do we make sense of what we read?  Is reading a literary text different from reading other things?  Why do we sometimes misunderstand what we read?  What do we need to know in order to understand what we read?  In exploring these questions, we read recent theories about reading and comprehension from the disciplines of literary studies, education, psychology, and linguistics.  As a test case, we read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, all the while monitoring and analyzing our preconceptions, responses, questions, misunderstandings, and evolving interpretations.  Students also study the ancient Greek language in Greek 101 concurrently with this class.  THIS SEMINAR IS PAIRED WITH GREEK 101.  ALL STUDENTS WHO ENROLL IN THIS SEMINAR ARE REQUIRED TO TAKE GREEK 101 IN THE SAME SEMESTER AS THE SEMINAR.

GOALS.  By the end of the course, I want you

1. to be more interested in pursuing the study of deceptively simple but, in truth, complex phenomena such as reading,
2. to approach the world, information, and knowledge ever more critically, questioning surface appearances, received opinion, and authoritative answers,
3. to approach research not as a hoop to be jumped through but as a necessity for gathering vital information,
4. to use writing, research, and reading for inquiry, learning, critical thinking, and communicating,
5. to collect, analyze, and interpret information and to communicate it to others in a reliable way,
6. to write essays that are clear, effective, correct (according to the norms of standard American English), and appropriate to an academic setting,
7. to understand better how the literary, visual, and performing arts reflect and inspire the richness of human expression, and how language and other forms of expression convey meaning and story,
8. to be able to analyze how forms of expression are used to reflect, exalt, or challenge the values of a culture,
9. to be able to explain the many purposes for which art is created and the multiple contexts in which it acquires meaning and value,
10. to have developed perceptual habits and conceptual lenses conducive to the appreciation of specific media, genres, and styles,
11. to have pursued a sustained investigation of the idea of literature itself by examining what literature is and how it is culturally, politically, philosophically and/or sociologically defined and influenced, and
12. to demonstrate sensitivity to the concrete historicity and cultural specificity of texts and to the development of literary traditions, cultural values, modes of thought, and uses of language over time and across national boundaries.

REQUIREMENTS.  For this course, you must complete the following graded assignments:

1. PAPER 1 (20% of your final grade),
2. Research Report (25%),
3. PAPER 2 (35%), and
4. 10 response papers (2% each, 20% all together).

ATTENDANCE.  Regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of the graded assignments in this class.  Class exercises and discussion constitute important, useful preparation for the course’s papers and presentations.  If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day’s contribution to your preparation, since it is never really possible to reproduce or recapture the dynamics and flow of information for a missed class meeting (even if you get notes from someone).  If, however, you positively must miss a class, I expect you to find out what you missed and to come fully prepared – without excuses – to the next class meeting.  And please, don’t ask, “Did I miss anything?”  Check out Tom Wayman’s poem about that question.

OFFICE HOURS.  My office is Bliss 216, and my office hours are 1:30-2 p.m., 3:30-4 p.m., and 5:30-6 p.m. on MR.  If you cannot see me during these office hours, feel free as needed to call my office (771-2106) or to talk to me before or after class to arrange an appointment at another time.  You may also contact me by email (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu), or you may leave a message for me in my box at the English department offices in Bliss 124.  Email is generally the fastest way to contact me in an emergency.

EMAIL.  I may, on occasion, want to email everyone in class.  I generally only have access to your TCNJ email addresses, however.  As a result, if you regularly use an email address other than your TCNJ address, I recommend that you have mail from your TCNJ address forwarded to the address that you use more regularly.  That way, if I email your TCNJ address, my message will be forwarded to your other address automatically.  To forward mail from your TCNJ address, just go to http://managemail.tcnj.edu/ and click “Mail Forwarding Manager.”  Follow the directions there to set up the mail forwarding.

If you would like to send an email message to one or more of your classmates, you can do so through SOCS.  To access SOCS, go to http://socs.tcnj.edu and, after you have logged in with your TCNJ email username and password, choose this class from the list of your courses for this semester.  Then, when our course page comes up, click the “Email” button.  From there, you can select individual email addresses or the entire class and send a message to the addresses you’ve selected.

Accommodations.  The College of New Jersey prohibits discrimination against any student on the basis of physical or mental disability or perceived disability.  The College will also provide reasonable and appropriate accommodations to enable students with disabilities to participate in the life of the campus community.  Individuals with disabilities are responsible for reporting and supplying documentation verifying their disability, and requests for accommodations must be initiated through the Office of Differing Abilities Services (Eickhoff Hall 159).  If you require special assistance, I will make every reasonable effort to accommodate your needs and to create an environment where your special abilities will be respected.

RESPONSE PAPERS.  In the course of the term, you are required to write 10 short, informal papers (about 2 pages each) on the readings for class from Homer.  You may choose for which days you want to write a response paper, as long as you have completed 10 response papers by the end of the term.  For each response paper, choose one of the following topics and analyze the reading assignment from Homer for the day with respect to the topic you’ve chosen:

1. Phenomenology.  Try to follow your own act of recreation in reading the assignment.  What interruptions to the flow of your interpretation occur?  Where does the text evoke the familiar and then negate or unsettle it?  What discrepancies arise as soon as you impose patterns of consistency on the text?  How does your experience of the text reflect on you and your personal values, assumptions, and proficiencies?  By evoking a world different from your own, does the text influence or change your values, assumptions, and proficiencies?  Do you see the world differently from having done this reading?
2. Schemata.  What happens if you assign yourself different perspectives while reading (like the homebuyers and burglars in Richard Anderson’s article)?  Does taking on a different perspective affect what you notice, understand, and retain from your reading?  Were you ever confused, bored, or uncertain during your reading?  Identify idea units in the confusing passage that seemed important to you.  What cultural differences separate you from Homer?  Where do you lack the proper schema to comprehend Homer’s  text?
3. Descriptive Systems.  Identify a descriptive system in the reading assignment for the day.  What are the specific words that form the descriptive system?  What seems to be the nuclear word in the system?  What satellite words and clichés seem to be associated with that nuclear word?  What realities are excluded from the system?  What are the associations and symbolism of the descriptive system?  Is the system still familiar to us?  Do we still respond to it with the same expectations and reactions as Homer’s audience might have?
4. Rules of Reading.  What are Homer’s rules of reading?  Focus on one or, at most, two of the following areas:
   1. What are Homer’s rules of notice?  What details in the text seem to be privileged?  What details don’t seem to be as important?  Is there a pattern to which details matter and which don’t?  What is that pattern?  When do Homer’s rules of notice seem to differ markedly from our own?  When do they seem very similar to ours?
   2. What are Homer’s rules of signification?  What meanings does Homer seem to want us to draw from the details that he privileges?  How do you know?  What external symbolic systems (myths, icons, or stereotypes outside the text) does Homer seem to use to convey quick, shorthand meaning?  How do you know when these symbolic systems are relevant?  When do Homer’s rules of signification seem to differ markedly from our own?  When do they seem very similar to ours?
   3. What are Homer’s rules of configuration?  What larger patterns does Homer seem to expect us to recognize and privilege?  Can you predict what is going to happen next or how an episode is going to end?  What was your starting point before you began reading?  Did you reach any interpretive dead ends or run into any interpretive surprises as a result of your starting point?  What do you think the “proper” starting point was?  When do Homer’s rules of configuration seem to differ markedly from our own?  When do they seem very similar to ours?
   4. What are Homer’s rules of coherence?  What textual disjunctures seem acceptable to Homer?  How is his audience supposed to interpret such disjunctures (as metaphor, subtlety, irony, something else)?  Were there times when a textual disjuncture disturbed your reading?  What did you do to resolve it?  When do Homer’s rules of coherence seem to differ markedly from our own?  When do they seem very similar to ours?
5. Resisting Readers.  Become a resisting reader of Homer.  Question his values and assumptions.  Notice what’s missing from his text.  What does Homer try to keep hidden or unacknowledged?  Who profits from having the world portrayed the way Homer portrays it?  Who loses?  Like Judith Fetterley, you may focus on issues of gender, but you may focus on other issues instead or in addition (race, class, politics, country).

You should have written at least once on each one of these topics over the course of your 10 response papers for the term.  No response papers may be submitted before we begin reading Homer (i.e., before September 18).

Response papers will be graded Pass/Fail.  Think about one of the topics  above; then, write a response.  Don’t worry about answering every question I ask under the particular topic.  In fact, focus on the one question that seems most interesting to you, and be as specific as you can, getting down as much as you can, as quickly as you can.  I don’t want a five-paragraph theme; I want an exploration – as detailed and specific as possible – of the reading assignment for the day.

Normally, as long as you submit a response paper of suitable length, detail, and thoughtfulness (and as long as you submit it in hard copy in class on the assigned day), you will receive all the points that the response paper is worth.  The purpose of the response papers is

1. to help you in your preparation for class discussion,
2. to help me see where you’re struggling with the readings for class,
3. to help you develop your intellectual independence and your confidence as a reader, and
4. to practice the kind of analysis that you will do for PAPER 1 and PAPER 2).

You may submit more than 10 response papers in the course of the semester (to make up for any response papers that do not receive a grade of Pass), but no matter how many extra response papers you turn in, you will not receive credit for more than 10 total.  You may not submit more than one response paper on a single day, nor may you submit a response paper for a day that you are absent from class.

PAPER 1.  Choose an episode or scene that we have not discussed in class but that seems very important to you in terms of developing a theme, character, or idea in the Iliad.  Compose a paper of 5-7 pages in which you argue a clear and specific thesis about the scene and its significance in the poem.  As you think about what to write, I strongly recommend that you use your response papers as a starting place.  Once you’ve chosen a focus for your paper, look very carefully at your scene.  Look for details that reveal or illustrate the significance of the scene in terms of your chosen focus.  Use those details as evidence and illustration in your paper.  You need not use outside sources for this paper (other than Homer); in fact, I would encourage you not to use outside sources (because I'd rather hear what you think than what some published scholar thinks).

A week before the paper is due, you will submit a thesis paragraph (a draft first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) in the “Assessments” module of SOCS, and I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis before you submit your final paper.

Your paper will be graded based on the following criteria:

1. Does the paper have a clear, specific thesis?  Does the thesis offer an interesting perspective or “hook” that is provocative without being gimmicky or offensive?
2. Does the paper’s analysis progress logically?  Does the paper have a clear and consistent overall organization that relates all the ideas of the paper together in support of the thesis (rather than simply a list of random observations without relation to one another or to the thesis)?  Does the paper have appropriate transitions to aid the reader in following the paper’s logic (rather than weak transitions, such as "The first...," "Another...," and "...also...")?
3. Does the paper provide relevant, concrete evidence and logically persuasive reasons for every assertion?
4. Does the paper exhibit confidence and insight when analyzing scenes from the poem not discussed in class?
5. Does the introduction to the paper offer an interesting, helpful preview of the content, logic, and organization of the paper?
6. Is factual information in the paper accurate?
7. Is the writing in the paper clear, effective, correct (according to the norms of standard American English), and appropriate to an academic setting?

RESEARCH REPORT.  About the middle of the semester, you will be required to choose a research topic, approved by me, and to find out as much information as you can about that topic for class.  You will share your findings in a 20-minute presentation in class, and you will submit a written report of your research (5-7 pages) to me one week after your in-class presentation.  This assignment is meant to be intense but short (carried out over just a 2-week period).  There is no specified number of sources required, but a research report that uses only one source (or that relies inordinately on just one source while using others very superficially) will not be a very successful report.  After you submit your written report, I will ask you to give me a xerox copy of one of your sources, chosen at random (so that I can evaluate how well you have understood and used the source).  Your research report will be graded based on the following criteria:

1. Does the report use a variety of sources (rather than rely heavily on a single source)?  Does the report rely primarily on books and scholarly articles (rather than on the Internet or on popular sources of information)?  Does the report synthesize the information from its sources (or does it merely list all information from one source and then all from the next source and then all from the next and so on)?

2. Does the report use its sources critically?  Does the report evaluate the authority and reliability of its sources?  What does the report do if sources contain contradictory information?

3. Does the report engender confidence that the information in the report is authoritative and complete?  Is factual information in the report accurate?  Does the report summarize information from its sources accurately and fairly?

4. Does the report progress logically?  Does the report have a clear and consistent overall organization that relates all the ideas of the report together in a meaningful way (rather than simply provide a list random observations without relation to one another)?  Does the report have appropriate transitions to aid the reader in following the report’s logic (rather than weak transitions, such as "The first source...," "Another source...," and "...also...")?

5. Does the introduction to the report offer an interesting, helpful preview of the content, logic, and organization of the report?
6. Is the writing in the report clear, effective, correct (according to the norms of standard American English), and appropriate to an academic setting?  Is the report properly documented in a recognized, consistent documentation style?  Does the report summarize its sources without unintentionally plagiarizing the language or ideas of those sources?

PAPER 2.  As in PAPER 1, choose an episode or scene that we have not discussed in class but that seems very important to you in terms of developing a theme, character, or idea in the Odyssey.  Compose a paper of 6-8 pages in which you argue a clear and specific thesis about your chosen scene and its significance in the poem.  You need not use outside sources for this paper (other than Homer); in fact, I would encourage you not to use outside sources (because I'd rather hear what you think than what some published scholar thinks).  As with PAPER 1, I strongly recommend that you use your response papers as a starting place.  PAPER 2 will be graded based on the same criteria as PAPER 1.  About a week before the paper is due, you will submit a thesis paragraph (a draft first paragraph of your paper or just a paragraph that describes what you plan to write about) in the “Assessments” module of SOCS, and I will give you feedback on your proposed thesis before you submit your final paper.

COURSE SCHEDULE.  This schedule is subject to revision at the discretion of the professor.  Changes in the schedule will be shown in red.

Dates	Assignments
R Aug 31	Introductions
M Sep 4	NO CLASS (Labor Day) – class will be held on Tuesday instead
T Sep 5	Wolfgang Iser and Richard C. Anderson (in SOCS under “Resources”)
R Sep 7	Michael Riffaterre (in SOCS under “Resources”)
M Sep 11	Peter Rabinowitz (in SOCS under “Resources”)
R Sep 14	Judith Fetterley (in SOCS under “Resources”)
M Sep 18	Homer, Iliad, Books 1-3
R Sep 21	Homer, Iliad, Books 4-6
M Sep 25	Homer, Iliad, Books 7-9
R Sep 28	Homer, Iliad, Books 10-12
M Oct 2	Homer, Iliad, Books 13-15
R Oct 5	Homer, Iliad, Books 16-18
M Oct 9	Homer, Iliad, Books 19-21
R Oct 12	Homer, Iliad, Books 22-24; THESIS PARAGRAPH for PAPER 1 DUE in the “Assessments” module of SOCS
M Oct 16	Bring whatever you have done on your paper so far to class.
R Oct 19	PAPER 1 DUE in the “Dropbox” of SOCS
M Oct 23	NO CLASS (Mid-term Break)
R Oct 26	Think about a potential research question to explore in your RESEARCH REPORT.  What do you wish you knew more about for your reading of Homer?  Think about how you would go about researching that topic.  You will sign up in class for your RESEARCH REPORT presentation.
M Oct 30	Bring to class everything that you have found so far for your RESEARCH REPORT. CONFERENCES
R Nov 2	RESEARCH REPORT PRESENTATIONS CONFERENCES
M Nov 6	RESEARCH REPORT PRESENTATIONS
R Nov 9	RESEARCH REPORT PRESENTATIONS; Homer, Odyssey, Books 1-3; WRITTEN RESEARCH REPORT DUE in the “Dropbox” of SOCS (for those who presented on November 2)
M Nov 13	Homer, Odyssey, Books 1-3 4-6; WRITTEN RESEARCH REPORT DUE in the “Dropbox” of SOCS (for those who presented on November 6)
R Nov 16	Homer, Odyssey, Books 4-6 7-9; WRITTEN RESEARCH REPORT DUE in the “Dropbox” of SOCS (for those who presented on November 9)
M Nov 20	Homer, Odyssey, Books 7-9 10-12
R Nov 23	NO CLASS (Thanksgiving)
M Nov 27	Homer, Odyssey, Books 10-12 13-15
R Nov 30	Homer, Odyssey, Books 13-16 16-18
M Dec 4	Homer, Odyssey, Books 17-20 19-21
R Dec 7	Homer, Odyssey, Books 21-24 22-24; THESIS PARAGRAPH for PAPER 2 DUE in the “Assessment” module of SOCS
Finals Week	PAPER 2 DUE in the “Dropbox” of SOCS