English 202A Autumn 2025 Class: MWF 10:30 – 11:20, SAV 260.
Professor Burstein Jb2@uw.edu Office hours: Wednesday 8-10 am Padelford A502, or by appointment. See “Office Hours” section below.
202A is linked to mandatory discussion sections run by TAs Andrés Ayala-Patlán, Natalie Lu, and Molly Porter. Discussion section room locations and times vary; check your schedule.
English 202 is a large lecture course, with sessions conducted in-person, in real time. Lectures are not recorded (students with DRS exceptions are aware of their status as such). Exams are based on the information conveyed in lecture and discussion sections as well as assigned readings. The student is responsible for keeping up with classes and initiating contact with the professor and discussion section instructors as questions arise. If your employment schedule and / or travel plans conflict with lectures and discussion sections, you will need to find another course.
Required Texts
Hard Copy Only. Period.
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Michael Gillespie. Third Edition of the Norton Critical Editions. ISBN: 978-0-393-69687-5.
- Course reader, for sale at EZ Copy & Print, 4336 University Way NE. Scheduled to be ready 9 am on the first Friday. Contains all other course texts.
Schedule
WEEK 1 Starting
Wednesday 24 Sept Introduction. Go over syllabus. Receive handout for Friday’s lecture (also available on Canvas Files for printing).
Friday 26 September. Reading the text. Pound, “In a Station of the Metro” (2 versions).
Segment 1: Poetry
Week 2
Mon 29 Sept. Rhyme Scheme. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, “The Woodspurge,” Thomas Hardy, “The Darkling Thrush”
Wednesday 1 Oct : Lyric Voice: Dylan Thomas, “Twenty-Four Years,” Sylvia Plath, “Daddy”
Friday 3 Oct: Ekphrasis: W. H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts” Make sure to look at the Pieter Brueghel painting referred to in the poem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus#/media/File:Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Landscape_with_the_Fall_of_Icarus_-_Brussels,_Royal_Museums_of_Fine_Arts_of_Belgium_-_Google_Arts_&_Culture.jpg
WEEK 3 Forms
Monday 6 Oct: Molly Porter on the sonnet. Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Carrion Comfort,” “The Windhover”; and William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18."
Wednesday 8 Oct: The villanelle. Elizabeth Bishop, “One Art”; Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
Friday 10 Oct: The ballad. Dorothy Parker, “Ballade at Thirty-Five”
WEEK 4 Ars poetica
Monday 13 Oct: Heather McHugh, “What He Thought”; Archibald MacLeish, “Ars Poetica”
Wednesday 15 Oct: Marianne Moore, “Poetry” (2 versions: make sure to read one MM specifies she decided against, in her note)
Friday 17 Oct: Robert Hass, “Meditation at Lagunitas” and Pimone Triplett, “On Robert Hass’s ‘Meditation at Lagunitas’”
WEEK 5
Monday 20 Oct: Midterm. Held in class.
Wednesday 22 Oct: Discussion: Optional lecture attendance (take a breath): Q & A & C. No reading assigned for today’s lecture. Read for Friday, and read ahead and take notes on Wilde topics listed below, using page #’s, in order to complete the Wilde novel by next Friday.
Segment 2: Prose
Friday 24 Oct: The Short Story: Twist and Shout, or Two Ways to Read: Saki, “The Open Window”; Le Guin, “Those Who Walk Away From Omelas”
WEEK 6
Monday 27 Oct: Point of view: Ernest Hemingway, “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.”
Wednesday 29 Oct: Tone: Katherine Mansfield, “Bliss.”
Friday 31 Oct: Halloween! Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Norton, pp. 3-185). Here are some motifs and themes to read for: art vs. life; masks, mirrors and reflections; science; fashion (clothing, style); influence [as a problem, & as a concept]; and different art forms, esp. music and acting. Take notes as you read.
Contexts
WEEK 7: Monday 3 Nov: Dorian, plus Walter Pater, “Conclusion [to The Renaissance]” (Norton edition pp. 333-336).
Wednesday 5 Nov. The Aesthetic movement and Decadence: Huysmans, from Against the Grain (Norton edition, pp 311-18)
Friday 7 Nov: Sexuality: Wilde on Trial. Reviews and responses, Norton, pp. 353-73, 381-89.
WEEK 8
Monday 10 Nov: Natalie Lu, on Dorian’s Textures and the Weight of British Colonialism
Wednesday 12 Nov: Fashion Studies (Going Wilde): Dresses and Dandies
Friday 14 Nov: Meaghan Wood (Career Center, University of Washington) presents and takes questions on “What To Do With An English Major”
Segment 3: Provocations: Experiments with Form
WEEK 9
Monday 17 Nov: Andrés Ayala-Patlán on “What Is an Author?”: Lorrie Moore, “How To Become a Writer,” Jorge Luis Borges, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” trans. Andrew Hurley
Wedn 19 Nov: The Essay: Joan Didion, “Goodbye to All That,” “On Keeping a Notebook”
Friday 21 Nov: The Essay and Adorno, via Professor Shields: David Shields, from Reality Hunger
WEEK 10
Monday 24 Nov: The prose poem; write a poem in class. (Plus a little poetry pre-review for the final.)
Wednesday 26 Nov: No class: travel day.
Friday 28 Nov: Native American Heritage Day: No class.
WEEK 11 Considerations: What do We Owe Literature?
Monday 1 Dec: Kristen Roupenian, “Cat Person”
Wednesday 3 Dec: Alex Nowicki, “‘Cat Person’ and Me.” Commonplace books due in class.
Friday 5 Dec: Conclusion. [Exam review held in discussion sections.]
Monday, Dec 8: Final Exam: 8:30-10:20 a.m. in the classroom.
Grade Rubric
Midterm: 25%
Final: 35%
Quiz section: 30%
Commonplace Book: 10%
Exams draw from lecture as well as your reading. Please note that powerpoints (when used) are supplements to lecture, and should not be regarded as an exclusive source for exam study. Both the midterm and final exam are a combination of the following:
(a) multiple choice and matching
(b) short answer (1 sentence/phrase)
(c) you need to be able to provide definitions for terms covered in lecture
(d) you need to be able to identify passages from our reading by the author’s last name and its title
(e) a “conceptual application” section will ask you to apply ideas presented in lecture to a text from the course, or possibly a new (very brief) text. This may come in question form; or in terms of marking up a literary work we provide, “What is the rhyme scheme of the poem below?” Actually, you can bet on that one.
The discussion sections will give a practice “proto-midterm” to acquaint you with the feel of all this.
Please bring a pen/pencil and a blue book to the midterm and final. If you miss an exam, you may be given an essay-based exam.
Discussion section activities and assignments vary depending on the instructor. You can expect discussion of lecture materials, in-class writing, and short writing assignments designed to activate and extend material covered in lecture. You will also take a practice proto-midterm (see above).
Commonplace Book: 9 handwritten pages from a small “blue-book”-sized (8.5 x 7”) notebook/blue book, written over the course of the course. Another term for this might be an episodically kept journal focused on the readings you’re doing and / or issues from lecture. Add to it over the course of the quarter at the rate of 1 blue book page per week. It’s not a personal journal or a diary; it’s in relation to the readings, somehow. You never even need to use first person.
Do 1 Blue-Book-sized page per week—as in the front of one page. You can use a notebook of your own if you wish. I’ll distribute blue books for those that want them in weeks 1 and 2.
Three rules: you’ve got to handwrite it (unless you are working with DRS in a related matter: come to office hours and we will figure it out), it’s got to be legible, and it has to be rated PG-13.
If you hand it in on time (to me, in class on the Wednesday of last week) and it’s complete you get a 4.0 for this assignment. If you hand it after class, or on Friday in class it’s a 2.0. If you don’t hand it in, it’s a 0 for the assignment. If you leave it in the hallway outside my office or on a bus stop bench, it’s also a 0. Simple.
The TA’s will check on it in Week 5; see your TA’s for details on that.
There are no templates for your commonplace books. It could consist entirely of quotations from the texts in this class. Or those could be accompanied by brief (or un-brief) explanations of what’s compelling about the quotes. It could consist of questions relevant to the readings and/or lectures. It could be a little bit of this and that. Maybe you read the Borges ahead of time and decided to re-write it for 5 weeks in a row. A commonplace book is not supposed to add up; the point is to accrue. You can date the entries or not.
And yes, I’m going to read it. Maybe with a pen in hand. (Write on the front if you want it to remain unsullied by my annotation. That’s fair.) They’ll be returned to you the first week of next term.
The learning objective for this is to bring you closer to the literature, and to get you to write creatively in response to the material. You may come across it in 5 years and wonder at how you got all that thinking done.
On Electronic Readers & Laptops
Please be advised that I do not permit the use of electronic screens during lecture. (DRS exceptions are noted individually.) I realize that some students prefer to take notes on laptops, but this convenience is counterbalanced by the fact that they distract others. They also tempt users to multi-task (further distracting others). Before class, then, please put away your laptop, phone, tablet, etc. Bring paper and something to write with to every class session. Bring the text under discussion as well.
“In lecture questions”: At times we pause during lecture for you to respond in writing, in real time, in actual handwriting on actual paper, to a question we pose related to the topic being discussed. Your reply will be collected by your discussion section instructors (so please know their names and which section you’re in: AA, AB, etc.) at the end of that day’s lecture, and these questions may be pursued in further detail during the discussion sections.
Missed “in lecture questions” cannot be made up for in retrospect (DRS exceptions will have been worked out), as they are a part of the lived experience of learning. These in-lecture questions are graded with either a complete or an incomplete, so don’t worry about spelling, artfulness, or that capturing that mythical creature known as What The Professor Is Looking For. Just concentrate and try to think, in words.
Office Hours (and Some If’s)
Listed at the top of the syllabus on the upper left-hand corner. You can make an appointment to hold a time slot, or swing by spontaneously. If it’s spontaneous, you may have to wait if someone is already there, so I encourage holding a time slot. But it’s up to you and spontaneity has its upsides.
If owing to work or classes, or if you are a caretaker, and are unable to meet during the designated office hours contact me and I will try to make an appointment at a mutually do-able time.
If you make an appointment—either in or outside of regular office hours-- and a scheduling conflict emerges, cancel as much in advance as possible; 24 hours is requested. If you no-show for an appointment, you have taken up time that others could have used. This is rude.
If you no-show during an appointment we’ve made outside of designated office hours, you forfeit being able to make future appointments outside of designated office hours.
Emergencies are exactly that: emergencies. The above does not apply. Prioritize health and welfare, and email me ASAP.
Missing Class
There’s no need to write me and explain an absence from lecture. Welcome to college. If you do miss a lecture, you are responsible for learning from your classmates what happened. This entails active participation with your peers. You are welcome to make an appointment with me as well as your TA to follow up on –which does not mean inform you of--topics. Neither I nor the TA’s are responsible for rehearsing lectures to compensate for student absences.
Here is the UW’s Covid Illness and Exposure Guidance. https://www.ehs.washington.edu/system/files/resources/COVID-19-public-health-flowchart.pdf
Various
The use of AI in your writing is forbidden in English 202 and its sections.
This class is not recorded. DRS exceptions are aware of their status as such.
When used (which is not in every session) Powerpoints will be posted following lectures on Canvas.
Email us from your UW account. I do not open emails sent from personal accounts. Contact IT (help@uw.edu) if you are confused about the mechanics of forwarding email to/from different accounts.
Please Note
The class may be reading literature containing explicit sexual language; explicit references to violence and suicide; the use of racially demeaning terms; and misogynist language. Alongside a commitment to anti-racist pedagogy, I adopt Dr. Koritha Mitchell’s pedagogical practice: “The N-word is not uttered in my classes, even if it appears in the reading. We simply say N or N’s when reading passages aloud.” http://www.korithamitchell.com/teaching-and-the-n-word/ (Links to an external site.) https://soundcloud.com/c19podcast/nword
If you require accommodation owing to a disability, contact the Disabilities Resources for Students Office (DRS) in Schmitz Hall 448 (206-548-8924; uwdss@u.washington.edu) or the Disabilities Services Office (DSO) at dso@u.washington.edu. It is your responsibility to follow all rules outlined by the If you require accommodation owing to a disability, contact the Disabilities Resources for Students Office (DRS) in Schmitz Hall 448 (206-548-8924; uwdss@u.washington.edu) or the Disabilities Services Office (DSO) at dso@u.washington.edu. It is your responsibility to follow all rules outlined by the DRS/DSO: Should forms be involved, you must ensure delivery to me with time enough to allow for us to arrive at a mutual understanding of the means by which those accommodations are best met.
“Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/) (Links to an external site.). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/) (Links to an external site.).”
The Department of English at the University of Washington acknowledges that our university is located on the shared lands and waters of the Coast Salish peoples. We aspire to be a place where human rights are respected and where any of us can seek support. This includes people of all ethnicities, faiths, gender identities, national and indigenous origins, political views, and citizenship status; nontheists; LGBQTIA+; those with disabilities; veterans; and anyone who has been targeted, abused, or disenfranchised.
This syllabus is subject to change.
Check your UW email at least once a day for updates from me and/or the TA’s.