Course Syllabus

Reading Schedule

Course Wk. 1-2: Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness
Course Wk. 3-4: Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
Course Wk. 5-6: Ian McEwan, Atonement
Course Wk. 7-8: Douglas Coupland, jPod
Course Wk. 9-10: Alan Moore, Watchmen
Course Wk. 11-12: Class Project & Review.

Assignments

Schedule of Assignment Due Dates
(Assignments coded by colour. See separate assignment sections for details.)

October 20th, Mid-Term Essay Draft, due in lecture.
November 3rd, Mid-Term Essay Draft, returned graded in lecture.
November 10th, Proposal Outline for Class Project, due in lecture.
November 24th: Mid-Term Essay Revision, due in lecture.
December 1st, Class Project, due complete online by start of lecture.
December 12th, Final Essay due in Dept. Mailbox by three o'clock pm.

Mid-Term Essay
A one-thousand word take-home essay draft.

Mid-Term Essay
A substantial revision of the mid-term essay. The revision will be guided by the Instructor's comments on the draft version, and by explicit reference to a writing style guide or handbook, available from the Instructor's Office, or the W.A.C. Bennett Library.

Final Essay
Twenty-five hundred word essay on an open topic proving command of course material and lecture information, engaging and any three of the primary course texts.

Class Project
Our final course novel is Douglas Coupland's jPod. In Coupland has achieved a revolutionary melding of Gutenberg and post-Gutenberg textual forms, as we shall see detailed in lecture. For this project, the class is going to research, write, format and post a comprehensive and authoritative Wikipedia entry for the book, under the main entry for the author.

A portion of class time will be dedicated each week to the project: both for the proposal and for the actual work. How the proposal is conceived, organised, sub-divided, researched and executed will be the responsibility of the class; albeit under the expert, benevolent and elevated guidance of the Course Instructor.


Late Assignments.
There is a five percent per day late penalty for all assignments. An assignment is late if it is not handed in in class on the due date.

Documentation for a bereavement exemption requires a published notification and verifiable proof of relation. To document a claim for medical exemption, provide a formal letter on a Physician's or Surgeon's letterhead in which he or she declares his or her medical judgement that illness or injury prevented work on the assignment. The letter must cover the entire period over which the assignment was scheduled, and may be verified by telephone.


Class Absences.
10% of the course grade is for "productive participation." Productive participation assumes full attendance and punctuality.

Additional incentive to attendance is added in the form of a bonus: for full attendance beginning course week 4 the grade on the Final Essay will be bumped up to the next highest grade on the university scale.

Do not e-mail the Course Instructor to explain or announce absences. The attendance requirement may be waived only in cases of documented bereavement or illness and incapacity.
Documentation for a bereavement exemption for attendance requires a published notification and verifiable proof of relation. To document a claim for medical exemption, provide a formal letter on a Physician's or Surgeon's letterhead in which he or she declares his or her medical judgement that illness or injury prevented attendance. The letter must cover the entire period over which the assignment was scheduled, and may be verified by telephone.

Instructor Contact:
Office: AQ 6094, 778-782-5820, e-mail address is ogden@sfu.ca. Casual, drop-in chat: look for me at Renaissance Coffee at the AQ Concourse (3rd floor) Level, North-East corner, Monday to Thursday, two thirty to three o'clock. Regular Office Hours on Monday two-thirty to four-thirty, Wednesday ten o'clock to noon, and Friday nine thirty to eleven o'clock. Also, on Tuesday & Thursday I am available from ten-thirty to three o'clock by appointment.