English 3601a: Chaucer (Fall 2013)
About this course
English 3601 introduces students to the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, the best known English poet of the high middle ages. This course is a companion to English 3401, Medieval Literature, and English 3450, Old English.
This section takes a constructionist and collaborative approach to student learning. Students will be expected to take responsibility for the direction of their learning under the mentorship of the instructor.
Contents
Times and location
- Time: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:05-4:20pm
- Location: W561.
Office and Office Hours
My office is room B810B. My telephone numbers, a map, and other contact information are available on my Contact page.
I am available on campus most days, but my day-to-day schedule varies greatly. Please email me to set up an appointment.
Detailed description
English 3601 introduces students to the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, the best known English poet of the high middle ages.
The Calendar describes the course in this way:
The writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, including selected minor works and major works such as The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde.
As this suggests, our main goal will be to become familiar with this canonical English poet. This will involve learning about his language and time and of course reading his works.
Reading Middle English requires some effort on the part of students, though our textbooks are well glossed. In addition, Chaucer’s period was quite different from our own in many ways. An important part of our work this semester, therefore, will involve probing our own understanding of this author and his work. What do we need to know in order to understand Chaucer?
Answering this will require us to engage in active reading. As the semester progresses, students will be expected to keep a weekly research journal in which they report on the questions they developed and what they did to go about answering them.
Learning goals
The principal goals of this course are to learn to read and respond to Chaucer in the original Middle English with confidence. By the end of the course, students will be expected to demonstrate:
- A fluency in reading Chaucer’s Middle English
- A detailed knowledge of Chaucer’s major works and selected minor works
- A familiarity with the history and culture of Chaucer’s society and a knowledge of the outlines of Chaucer’s career and importance to contemporary and subsequent literary history
- An ability to formulate and answer appropriate research questions in Chaucer studies.
Texts
Required
- Chaucer, Geoffrey, Canterbury Tales. Ed. Robert Boenig and Andrew Taylor. Peterborough: Broadview.
- —. Dream Visions and Other Poems. Ed. Kathryn L. Lynch. Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton, 2006.
- —. Troilus and Criseyde. Ed. Stephen A. Barney. Norton Critical Edition. New York: Norton, 2006.
Optional
- Kleinman, Scott. [ND]. Introduction to Middle English [Northridge, CA: Scott Kleinman]. // This is a useful summary of Middle English grammar and pronunciation, though it is focussed more on non-Chaucerian ME.
- Kline, Dan T. The Chaucer Pedagogy Page [Anchorage: D.T. Kline, 2006]. // A (somewhat dated) list of on-line resources for studying Chaucer, but still useful.
- Middle English Dictionary. This is the standard dictionary of the language.
- Oxford English Dictionary Online //The Oxford English Dictionary covers English back to 1200.
Assessment
There are two kinds of assessment in the class, Formative and Summative.
Formative Assessment is intended to assist students gauge how well they are learning the material of the course. This material is graded on a 100%/0% basis: if your work shows you have made a good faith effort to do the assignment, you will get 100%; if it doesn’t or you don’t hand it in, you will get 0%. For some formative assignments I will also assign a letter grade. This is intended to give you a more fine-grained sense of your performance but only your best two formative letter grades will count against your final grade.
Summative Assessment is intended to let others know how well you learned the material of the course (i.e. the people who to whom you give your transcripts). This material is graded on basis of a standard letter grade.
Formative assessment
| 1) Attendance | 10% |
| 2) Seminar Leadership | 20% + Letter Grade |
| 3) Notice of Intent | 5% |
| 4) Prospectus | 20% + Letter Grade |
| 5) Poster | 15% + Letter Grade |
| 6) Poster Presentation (“Slam”) | 5% |
| 7) What I did/did not know about Chaucer, his age, contemporaries, or culture | 15% + Letter Grade |
| 8) Language and comprehension | 10% + Letter Grade |
Summative Assessment
| Assignment | Value |
| A) Average of Formative Exercises | 20% |
| B) Average of Best Two Formative Letter Grades | 10% |
| C) Blogs | 20% |
| D) Research Project/Essay | 30% |
| E) Final Exam | 20% |
Grade scale
| Excellent | Good | Satisfactory | Poor | Minimal pass | Failing | |||||||
| Letter | A+ | A | A- | B+ | B | B- | C+ | C | C- | D+ | D | F |
| Percent range | 100-94 | 93-90 | 89-86 | 85-82 | 81-78 | 77-74 | 73-70 | 69-66 | 65-62 | 61-58 | 57-50 | 49-0 |
| Conventional value | 100 | 92 | 88 | 84 | 80 | 76 | 72 | 68 | 64 | 60 | 56 | 49-0 |
| Grade point | 4.0 | 3.7 | 3.3 | 3.0 | 2.7 | 2.3 | 2.0 | 1.7 | 1.3 | 1.0 | 0 | |
I use this table in different ways depending on the nature of the work.
- For tests of specific skills or knowledge (such as identification questions in literature classes, or fact-oriented tests in grammar and language classes), I usually assign a numeric score, which is easily converted to a percentage.
- For essays, presentations, and other qualitatively evaluated work, I usually grade by letter. This is then converted to a percentage using the third row (“Conventional value”). Thus a letter grade of “A,” for example, will be converted to 92% for purposes of calculation. A letter grade of “D+” will be converted to 60%. A grade of “F” is assigned an arbitrary percentage based on my sense of your performance. Usually this is a common fraction (e.g. 40%, 33.4%, 25%, 10%).
In marking work I try to keep the University’s official description of these grades in mind (a description can be found in the University Calendar, Part IV.3.a). If you get an A it means that I think that your work is excellent; a B means that I think that your work is good; a C means that I think that it is satisfactory; a D that I think that it is barely acceptable (minimal pass); and an F that I think that it is failing to meet University-level standards.
Submitting Work
Tests, Exams, and Quizzes
Tests and Exams will be written in the University’s Testing Centre on Moodle. Quizzes may be presented in class on Moodle.
Essays and Reports
Essays and reports will normally be collected using Turnitin. Information on our account (URL, ID number, and Password) will be made available in our class space on Moodle: http://moodle.uleth.ca/
Class schedule
| Week | Date | Topic | Reading | Assignment |
| 1 | Tue. 3/9 | No class | ||
| Thur. 5/9 | Welcome | Syllabus, assessment, and language | Scott Kleinman, Introduction to Middle English. | |
| 2 | Tue. 10/9 | Introduction and Short Poems Close group reading |
|
Blog: All students (Due midnight before class) |
| Last day to add/drop | ||||
| Thur. 12/9 | Close group reading |
|
Blog: All students (Due midnight before class) | |
| 3 | Sun. 15/9 “What I didn’t know…” due Midnight on Turnitin. | |||
| Tue. 17/9 | Close group reading |
|
Blog: All students (Due midnight before class) | |
| Thur. 19/9 | Seminar 1 |
|
Blog: All students (Due midnight before class) | |
| 4 | Tue. 24/9 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) | |
| Thur. 26/9 | Introduction to the Canterbury Tales |
|
Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) | |
| 5 | Mon. 30/9-Sun. 6/10 | Language and comprehension review (testing centre) | ||
| Tue. 1/10 | Seminar 2 |
|
Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) | |
| Thur. 3/10 | Seminar 3 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) | |
| 6 | Thur. 8/10 | Seminar 4 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) |
| Thur. 10/10 | Seminar 5 |
|
Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) | |
| 7 | Tue. 15/10 |
|
Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) | |
| Thur. 17/10 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) | ||
| 8 | Tue. 22/10 | Seminar 6 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) |
| Thur. 24/10 |
|
Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) | ||
| 9 | Sun. 27/10 Letter of intent due (Turnitin) | |||
| Tue. 29/10 | Seminar 7 |
|
Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) | |
| Thur. 31/10 | Seminar 8 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) | |
| 10 | Tue. 5/11 | Seminar 9 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) |
| Thur. 7/11 |
|
Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) | ||
| 11 | Tue. 12/11 | Introduction to Troilus and Criseyde | Read the Introduction in Barney | Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) |
| Thur. 14/11 | Seminar 10 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) | |
| 12 | Sun. 17/11 Prospectus Due (Midnight on Turnitin) | |||
| Tue. 19/11 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) | ||
| Thur. 21/11 | Seminar 11 |
|
Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) | |
| 13 | Tue. 26/11 |
|
Blog: Last names M-Z (Due midnight before class) | |
| Thur. 28/11 | Seminar 12 |
|
Blog: Last names A-L (Due midnight before class) | |
| 14 | Tue. 3/12 |
|
Blog: All students (Due midnight before class) | |
| Thur. 5/12 | Poster Slam | |||
| 15 | Sun. 8/12 | Research Project Due on Turnitin | ||
| Exam Period | Final Exam 9/12-17/12 | |||
