TEXTS: Please use New Folger Library paperback editions of the following: Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and The Tempest.  If you have other editions of the plays (or a Complete Works edition), please do not use in class.  NOTE: “Don’t leave home without it!”  It is very important that you bring your appropriate Folger text to class for each class meeting.  REMINDER: Don’t be cheap!  Buy your texts now!.  Remember that the Hornet Bookstore returns to publishers all texts still not published by early March.  RECOMMENDED OPTIONAL TEXTS: Shakespeare A to Z by Charles Boyce (Dell, 1990); Shakespeare: A Life in Drama by Stanley Wells (Norton, 1996).
JAN 27-M-Introductory lecture;            Hamlet’s transfor-                Shakespeare w/o fears            mation; resolution           29-W-Introductory lecture:   MAR  3-M-FIRST MID-TERM EXAM
         elements of comedy and       5-W-Measure for Measure:              tragedy                          action and setting; the
FEB  3—M-Twelfth Night: intro-            basic issue; situation
         duction to the play;             and character
         the basic problem           10-M-Measure for Measure:
     5-W-Twelfth Night: comic             moral atmosphere; “Be             subplot; duping of               absolute for death”;
         Malvolio                         Angelo and Isabella;
    10-M-Twelfth Night: motif        12-W-Measure for Measure:
         of time; theme of                disguise; motifs;
         betrayal; “a natural             revelation scene
         perspective”; resolution    17-M-Othello: action and          12-W-Hamlet: introduction to          conflict; setting;
         the play: Hamlet and             opening of the play
         his problems; the king      19-W-Othello: Iago and the
         and his court; struct-           nature of evil; Iago’s
         ural parallels                   strategy; turning point
    17-M-Hamlet: “the apostrophe     24-M-Othello: two views of
         to man”; disease imag-           Othello’s character;
         ery; middle soliloquies;         the handkerchief (“mag-
         Hamlet and Ophelia               ic in the web”)
    19-W-Hamlet: the play-within-    26-W-Othello: Desdemona; “It
         the-play; closet scene;          is the cause”; Othello
         turning point                    as “honorable murderer”
    24-M-Hamlet: fourth solilo-           Othello’s deception;
         quy; journey imagery;            “Soft you a while....”
         the plot against Hamlet     31-M-Cesar Chavez holiday
    26-W-Hamlet: graveyard scene APR  2-W-SECOND MID-TERM EXAM     APR  7-M-King Lear: the divisi- APR 30-W-Macbeth: “The mind’s
         of the kingdom; the             construction”; Lady Mac-
         love test;                      beth; first soliloquy
     9-W-King Lear: the double  MAY  5-M-Macbeth: “Dagger of the            plot; Edmund: “apos-            mind”; killing the king;
         trophe to nature”;              the banquet scene; the
APRIL 14-18: Spring Recess               apparitions; paper due
APR 21-M-King Lear: the two          7-W-Macbeth: Malcolm in
         kinds of nature; on the         England; the sleepwalk-
         heath; disillusionment          ing scene; countertheme
         and madness; Gloucester    12-M-The Tempest: introduct-            and Edgar                       to the play; symbolic
    23-W-King Lear: journey to           action; comic subplot;
         Dover; redemption and           Ariel and Caliban; Ferd-
         retribution                     inand and Miranda; value
    28-M-Macbeth: opening of the    14-W-The Tempest: colonialism
         play: “Fair is foul...”;        and “slave labor”; harv-
         on the battlefield              est masque; ill&reality

 
 FINAL EXAMINATION: Monday, May 19, 5:15-7:15 p.m.
 
GOALS OF THE COURSE: The goals of the course are as follows: to read, study, analyze, and discuss a representative selection of Shakespeare’s plays??the middle and later comedies, the middle and later tragedies, and the later romances??from roughly the last half of Shakespeare’s career as a playwright??concentrating primarily on critical analysis of the plays but with an introductory lecture on how to approach the study of Shakespeare, as well as follow-up lecture on comedy and tragedy.  The ultimate goal of the course is to enlarge and enhance the student’s understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare.  To help us reach this goal, we will engage in group activities, watch the performance of particular scenes acted by volunteers in the class; view film clips of film productions of the plays, and engage in class discussion.  Thus, another goal of the course is to involve students in our study of the plays.

ASSIGNMENTS AND REQUIREMENTS:
1. Attend all classes.  Attendance is mandatory and more than three absences, whether excused or unexcused (with rare exceptions about which you should see me), will progressively lower your grade.  Arriving late or leaving early will??after three times??count as one absence.  If you do arrive late and were counted absent, be sure to come up after class and have this adjusted; otherwise, you will be counted as absent.
2. RECOMMENDATION: Save your cuts!  For those days when you (or, if you are a parent, your child) may be ill or when you need to take care of personal business.  Do not cut frivolously and  then have no cuts left when you get sick or when your ailing grandmother dies.  If you have used your three cuts, please don’t ask for an exception for Spring Break by telling me, because of discount airfares or inflexible flight schedules, that you have to miss class the days before and/or the days after Spring Break.  Save two of your cuts for those days!
3. Do not come to class unprepared!.  “Writing Responses” may (and usually will) be given each time we take up a new play.  You are expected to have read the play carefully and to be able to participate in class discussion.  If you have not read the play, you will fail the Writing Response, and you will have very little idea of what is being discussed in class.  IMPORTANT STIPULATION: Writing Responses cannot be made up (with rare exceptions about which you should see me), so please don’t ask me!   (Instead, you may do an extra-credit assignment to make up for the Writing Response that you missed.)
4. Extra credit: You may do extra-credit work.  Extra-credit usually takes the following forms: 1) you volunteer to be one of the performers in a scene that you and your classmates will  act out in front of the class; 2) you write a “response paper” (two to three pages, double-spaced, typewritten) to a scene or to an idea or motif in one of the plays on the syllabus; 3) you do a summary of a scholarly article in a journal or a chapter from a book-length study of the plays (three to five pages, double-spaced and type-written; 4) you do a typewritten report on a subject that you select with my approval.
5. C’est la vie.  We all live in a world of “contingency,” as the existentialists would say.  That is, life can be unpredictable and uncertain.  We are often subject to circumstances over which we have no control.  Thus, if you are ill and cannot attend class, please don’t think of it as an “excused” absence.  You are allowed three absences, whether excused or unexcused.  If you exceed this number because of illness, your absences will indeed affect your grade.  But “that’s life.”
6. Class protocol.  Pleased do not “borrow time” from this class to catch up on work in other classes or catch up with your correspondence.  Do not read other texts while sitting in class or work on workbooks or lecture notes from other courses.  Please do not read the Hornet or any other newspaper in class.  Please do not eat in class.  Beverages??coffee, tea, milk, soft drinks??are okay, but be sure to carry empty cans and cups out of class with you.  BE COURTEOUS: Please do not talk to classmates around you while I am lecturing or while there is class discussion; do not think that whispering to a classmate is okay because it is undetected; I do detect it, and it is distracting both to me and to other students.  For the same reason, do not “trade notes” back and forth (in lieu of whispering) with the person closest to you.  That might have been fun in high school, but it’s inappropriate in college.
7. Requirement.  Paper, due Monday, May 5.  You must write one paper, five to six pages in length, double-spaced and typewritten, with a cover page on which you put your name, the number and name of the course, my name, and the date in the lower right-hand corner.  Put the title of the paper in the center.  Repeat the title at the top of the first page, but not your name, and do not put your name on any of the subsequent pages.  Be sure to number your pages, beginning with the second page.  (Please do not put your paper in a plastic or other kind of folder; just use a paper clip or stapler.)  In writing your paper, you should concentrate on the same components that you emphasize on the two mid-terms and the final (see no. 6 below), that is, on character, setting, structure, symbol, and theme of a particular play or plays.   The difference is that your paper should provide an extensive, carefully written analysis which aims to prove or argue convincingly for a particular interpretation of the play or plays you are dealing with.  Unless instructed otherwise, you may select your own topic, but you must obtain my approval before commencing.  IMPORTANT STIPULATION: When writing your paper, do not use outside sources???notes from another class, books or articles you found in the library, or “study guides” such as Cliff’s Notes or Monarch Pamphlets.  Be careful to avoid even the appearance of plagiarism.  Do not write a paper that is merely a “scissors-and-paste” reproduction of a published article or chapter in a book.  Do not write a paper that is a re-hash of your lecture notes.  The paper should be largely your work and your writing.  (However, you can use your class notes as a point of departure for your paper, that is, class notes that might help you get started on your paper.)  For further information about the paper, be sure to follow carefully the handout entitled,  “Guidelines for Writing the Paper,” which I will distribute to you early in the semester.
8. Other requirements: Two in-class, mid-term exams and an in-class final exam.  Please use blue books and write in blue or black ink. Each mid-term will consist of two medium-length essay questions, one on each of the two plays that you will be responsible for on each of the two exams.  You will be asked to write on the thematic (i.e., pertaining to the theme) significance of a group of scenes or episodes, on important images and/or symbols in the play, on character conflict, on ironic situations, on structural parallels, or you may be asked to explain the significance of a particular passage in the play.  The final exam will be similar, except that you will be required to answer three questions, one each for each of the three plays you will be responsible for on that exam.  All the exams will include optional questions (i.e., you may be provided with three questions on a given play and asked to answer only one of them).  Each exam will cover only the plays discussed in class up to that time.  In other words, the first exam will be on the first two plays, the second exam will be on the next two plays, and the final exam will be on the last three plays.  Thus, the final exam will not be comprehensive.
9. “Competent prose” requirement: On the exams, you are expected to write competently and clearly; your essays should be reasonably well-organized with specific support for main points; your essays should also be relatively free of errors in usage and mechanics.  Contrary to what many people believe, what you say (content) is largely inseparable from how you say it (style).
10. Grades: your grade in the course will be based on the writing responses, the two mid-term exams, the final exam, and your paper, plus any “extra credit” work that you do.  (With certain exceptions, an “extra credit” assignment will count as the equivalent of one Writing Response.)  The composite grade from the Writing Responses will count as the equivalent to  one mid-term exam.  The final exam and the paper will each count one and a half times as much as one mid-term exam.  SAMPLE COMPUTATION: Student X makes the following grades during the semester:
  First mid-term exam:   C  = 2.0   2.0+2.0   =  4.0
  Second mid-term exam:  B- = 2.6   2.6+2.6   =  5.2
  Average of all
   Writing Responses and
           extra-credit work:    B = 3.0    3.0+3.0   =  6.0
          Paper                  B+= 3.4  3.4+3.4+3.4 = 10.2
  Final exam:            A = 4.0  4.0+4.0+4.0 = 12.0
                                         Total points = 37.4

  37.4 divided by 12 = 3.1 = B (grade in course)
  (But Student X would actually receive a B+ because of his/her dramatic improvement in the latter part of the course.)

 How to compute your grade based on the four point system:
 4.0=A; 3.6=A-; 3.5=A-/B+; 3.4=B+; 3.2=B+/B; 3.0=B; 2.8=B/B-;2.6=B-; 2.5=B-/C+; 2.4=C+; 2.2=C+/C; 2.0=C; 1.8=C/C-; 1.6=C-; 1.5=C-/D+; 1.4=D+; 1.2=D+/D; 1.0=D; .8=D/D-; .6=D-.

 Conversion table for numerical scores on Writing Responses:
 30 is a perfect score
  30 = A 26 = B+ 22 = C+ 18 = D+
  29 = A 25 = B 21 = C 17 = D
  28 = A 24 = B 20 = C 16 = D-
  27 = A- 23 = B- 19 = C- 15 = F

11. Value of class attendance, participation in class discussion: you cannot improve your grade by regular class attendance, but you can definitely hurt your grade if you miss more than three times.  Participation in class discussion and in group work is essential and can help your grade, especially if you are hovering between one of two grades, as for example, between a B and a B+.
12. REMINDER: Leave a self-addressed, stamped envelope inside your blue book when you turn in your final exam or else leave in my faculty mailbox (Calaveras 105) during finals week (deadline: Friday, May 23, by 4:00 p.m.), if you would like your final exam and course grade mailed to you.