Mid-Term Essay Criteria

The mid term paper, fifteen hundred words in length, is due June 29th in lecture. This assignment requires you to apply the views of any one of our three writers on Drama -- Plato, Aristotle, or Dr. Johnson -- to any of our three dramas assigned for reading to date: Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, Shakespeare's Henry V, George Bernard Shaw's St. Joan. Put another way, you are to analyse any one of these three plays according to principles, values and ideas of your choice of the three great theorists. Your analysis must include direct reference to three specific insights from course lecture: you will identify these three insights using authorised footnote or endnote format.

Your esssay must conform to the English Department Style Guide (permanently linked under the "Permanent & Impermanent" here on the blog.) Your paper will be graded according to the strength & originality of its analysis, the structure, arrangement & rational cohesion of its argument, and the correctness of its English grammar.

In lecture Tuesday June 12th, I will go over these criteria & demonstrate effective essay-writing mechanics. You are encouraged to visit your tutorial leader during Office Hours to discuss the conception of your essay, and, subsequently, to go over a draught of your thesis paragraph; again, during Office Hours.

Course Outline

"Theatre is Life; Film is Art; Television is Furniture”

If the notable saying in our course title is true, millions of us would rather furnish than live. But then, for as long as there have been plays, there has been someone else to write about what plays mean. In this course we join in the fun. We find out for ourselves whether or not theatre is indeed superior to film and television. We will read, study and enjoy four very famous (and still influential) plays – one ancient, one middle-aged, one modern, one foreign – alongside four equally famous critical commentaries, one from each period. We then study the screenplay of a popular recent film in comparison with what we will have learned in class. And while this is going on, you and a group of your class fellows will be watching your choice of a weekly television series, writing down your personal opinions (abusive or laudatory), and preparing for a dramatic presentation in seminar that acts your Group’s conclusion on TV’s relative worth. At that, we can say that we will have been properly introduced to Drama.


REQUIRED TEXTS:
Aristotle  The Poetics  Penguin
Æschylus  Prometheus Bound  Oxford
Johnson, Samuel  Preface to Shakespeare  On-Line
Shakespeare, William  Henry V  Oxford
Shaw, Bernard  Saint Joan  Penguin
Mishima, Yukio  Madame de Sade  Courseware
Christie, Agatha The Mousetrap 


COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
10%   Productive participation
20%   Mid-Term Essay
15%   Mid-Term Essay Revision
20%   Group Television Project
35%   Final Examination

To receive credit for this course, students must complete all requirements.

TUTORIALS WILL BE HELD THE FIRST WEEK OF CLASSES

Writing Criteria

The explicit writing criteria for the course are detailed in The Little, Brown Handbook, ranking Canada alongside England with its Oxford English Dictionary, Fowler's Modern English Usage, and Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases.

The Little, Brown Handbook is set on Course Reserve and is available at the SFU Bookstore, on the tradebooks floor. It is an indispensable work for anyone who will ever write non-fictionally.

Part I of the Handbook gives the specific criteria used in grading writing in 105W. They can be summarised under the following simple headings.

• Precise fidelity to the Rules of Grammar.
• Correct spelling.
• Use of Plain English.
• Opening paragraph is a statement of thesis.
• Subsequent paragraphs develop the thesis logically (ideally, by dialectic.)
• Concise paragraph structure, including:
• three to five sentences;
• one clearly-identifiable topic sentence;
• two or three sentences that develop the topic;
• one transitional sentence to conclude.

Note Taking for University

"Learn how to listen and you will prosper even from those who talk badly.” Plutarch (AD 46-120) Greek Biographer & Philosopher.

The Student Learning Commons at the W.A.C. Bennett Library has an exceptionally helpful on-line guide to effective note-taking at university lecture. (It is a trifle disconcerting reading for the Lecturers themselves, because it implies--indeed, all-but declares--that many of us are dull, confused, inarticulate, habituated and otherwise deficient in our craft.)

The guide is available online in .pdf format at this hotlink.

The Student Learning Commons additionally has an entire page of links to on-line resources to improve the student's "Listening & Note-Taking" at this hotlink.

Note-taking in lecture is one of the skills that one learns at university with broad applicability in life. Arguably, learning how to take written notes from oral delivery is one of the most practically valuable benefits of a university education.

These resources linked here are very valuable: especially as it is increasingly common for undergraduates to confuse note-taking with copying down PowerPoint slides. It is rule worth learning that PowerPoint is not the Lecture: lectures are what happen when you are distracted by copying down PowerPoint slides....

Last Class of the Term

On Thursday we have our guest speaker to talk on -- & demonstrate -- dramatic performance. The actress is Ms. Karen Budra, a lecturer at Langara College: she will provide specific understamding of the dialogue Shakespeare writes between women and men.
It is also the day for Course Evaluations, & a general word about the Final Exam. Remember that I will have extended Office Hours every day of the week before the Exam: check back here for specific dates & times.