Blues, Jazz, & Experimental Poetics
Assignments
Professor Dee Morris
Office: EPB 460
Office hours:
dee-morris@uiowa.edu
SEMESTER COURSE WORK:
Ensemble Productions: Posts: for each class, the syllabus will contain a statement of a theme for you to improvise on. After you have done the reading, carefully consider the question or text at hand then post a response on our ICON discussion page. The post should go up before dawn so that it will be available for our class preparations for discussion. Trios/Quartets: Once in the semester, each student will join a team of two or three others to prepare a brief response to a poem, essay, or book chapter pertinent to the reading during the week. Your job will be to prepare handouts, identify issues for discussion, and lead the class in its consideration of the materials.
Composition projects: Description: During most of the semester, you will working on one or another stage of two 5-7 page papers--the first on Ellison, Hughes, and/or Mullen and the second on bebop, the Beats, and/or Hughes's Montage of a Dream Deferred. Each paper will have three stages: a. prospectus:This is a one-page statement of your plans for the essay: what two or three or (at a stretch) four poems have you chosen to write on? What elements lead you to put these poems side by side? At a first glance, what does the juxtaposition suggest about these poems in particular, about blues and/or jazz in general, and/or about the relationship between poetry and music? I'll turn the prospectuses around via email so you can get to work on the next stage.
Paper 1
prospectus: February 12
draft: February 16
paper: March 2Paper 2
prospectus: April 9
draft: April 16
paper: April 30
Examinations: Description: Both the midterm and the final will have three parts:
1) brief definitions of terms, techniques, and issues drawn from the web-based information and class discussions
2) short identification passages
3) an essay on a poem or poems that will allow you to display your knowledge of the material under discussion
Dates: The midterm will occur on March 9th, the final on May 9th. Both will be preceded by review sessions.
Imitations: Description: These will be short poems in imitation of one of the blues or jazz poems we've read. Dates: These will be due February 7th, April 4th, and May 4th
Discussion and Participation: For each class, there will be 3 or 4 types of reading and listening: a) poems, b) selections from essays and/or novels, c) sounds, and d) supplementary materials from internet sources. Assignments will require at least three hours of preparation per class: it is crucial not just to read but to reread the poems and prose, to listen closely to the sound files, and to think through your postings. Always check the syllabus before doing an assignment. Don't fall behind.
Since the class meets three days a week, students are expected to attend and participate in all class sessions. Punctual, regular attendance is a requirement. More than four unexcused absences will reduce the grade for the course; more than seven absences will result in a failing grade.
Participation means being in class not just in body but in mind and focus. It means exchanging ideas in person, on the discussion board, and in presentation groups. It means being willing to be at a loss with a poem or novel as much as it means being willing to be found by them.
A NOTE ON GRADING:Grading is without a doubt everyone's least favorite activity in any course, but it's particularly problematic in a course that depends on risk, imagination, and play. In assessing your work in the course, I am more interested in energy than accuracy, since with dense, rhythmic, figurative sounds no one has all the answers and in most cases "wrong" answers go as far, and sometimes farther, than "right" ones.
On the other hand, because grades are important for a student's record I want to be clear about the process through which I determine them. My preference is to grade holistically--i.e., in terms of each person's whole immersion in the class and development throughout the semester--going with, rather than against, the grain of each individual's approach to learning. Each of the assignments, however, is important and will be read carefully.
Rough proportions:
Papers 1 & 2
30%
Participation, including postings and class discussion 20% Imitations
15%
Midterm
15%
Final
15%
Presentation
5%
A NOTE ON ETHICS:The model for this class is not agonistic but, like the materials we'll be studying, cooperative. Each student comes to the class with interests, skills, and commitments that offer particular access to the materials we will be reading. If the course is successful, it will be because we have together created an ensemble that is more than a sum of individual achievements. As a study group, the class will function as a gift economy: i.e., honor comes not through hoarding but through distributing knowledge.
All students are expected to complete the reading assignments, make frequent posts on the listserv, ask questions, share information, and build ideas with other members of the class. To accomplish this, it is important, in every sense, to be in class. More than 4 absences will significantly affect your grade for the semester; more than 7 absences will result in an F.