Literature and the Search for Identity
Spring Semester
Dom Franco

Office: 3025 Cedar Hall
Email: dom@domfranco.com
Course Web site: http://www.domfranco.com/identity

Texts:
Achebe. Things Fall Apart.
Bronte. Wuthering Heights.
Camus. The Stranger.
Douglass. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
Hesse. Siddhartha.
Miller. Death of A Salesman.
Shakespeare. Hamlet.

Goals
* understand the concept of theme in literature and other humanities artifacts
* develop the ability to recognize and analyze theme in a variety of literary forms and historical/cultural contexts
* understand the ways in which the same theme can be treated in a variety of literary forms and historical/cultural contexts
* develop the ability to compare different treatments of the same theme in literary works
* develop the ability to identify both explicit and implicit themes in works of literature
* develop the ability to bring to bear the insights of other academic disciplines on the study of literary theme

Policies
Attendance--You are expected to be in class and participating. It will not be possible for you to do well on the exams and in the course unless you come to class, take notes, and review for the exams. In addition, there will be several exercises and unannounced quizzes that can only be turned in during specific class sessions.

Grading--Grades will be figured approximately as follows: 60% for the tests, 20% for quizzes and exercises, 10% for the research paper,5% for the oral report and  5% for the peer evaluations.

Final letter grades will be assigned as follows:

A 93%-100% C 73%-76%
A- 90%-92% C- 70%-72%
B+ 87%-89% D+ 67%-69%
B 83%-86% D 63%-66%
B- 80%-82% D- 60%-62%
C+ 77%-79% F 0%-59%
Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional presentation of others' ideas or words without crediting the source. Plagiarism will result in failure on that assignment and will be reported to the Dean of Student Affairs, who may take disciplinary action. Failure of a major assignment may result in a final grade of "F."  Kirkwood policy now states that students must be prepared to authenticate their work.

Office hours
I will give you my office hours in class. If you need to contact me, phone the main switchboard (398-5899)and ask to be connected to extension 5840. You can leave a voice-mail message if I am not there. My home phone is 351-8029 (Iowa City). My cell phone number is 621-6649.