Emanations: Third Eye on the reading list at Kent State University

As I reported last April, Professor Donald "Mack" Hassler of Kent State University used the International Authors anthology of fiction, poetry and essays, Emanations: Second Sight in his Honors Colloquium.  This year, Mack is using the latest volume of the anthology, Emanations: Third Eye.  I am looking forward to visiting with the class later this month to discuss the project.  Here is the syllabus for the course:

Honors Colloquium                                                                    Spring 2014

Hassler

Office: 205D SFH;

Hours: By appointment or Tuesday/ Thursday right after class

Books:

Grossman, ed.  Sense of Wonder, Wildside Press (same huge collection used last term).

Carter Kaplan, ed.  Emanations: Third Eye, International Authors, 2013.

Readings We Will Undertake:

      We will continue the study of “genre” and, in particular, read and discuss several pieces in the latter half of Grossman.  I anticipate roughly six weeks on this section that will help us to get to know one another again.

      T.S. Eliot has the notion that “April is the cruelest month.”  But we will begin well ahead of April in early March with a consideration of the Kaplan anthology and  the variety of writing possibilities, some of them creative writing.   On this continual issue of writing for people to read, I assigned some of my own poems to a class years ago; and at the end of that term found inscribed on the wall of the Men’s Room in Satterfield Hall the following couplet that I swear I did not write myself:  “I’d rather fight a dirty razzler/ Than read a poem by Donald Hassler.”

Individual Papers and Journal Writing

Everything you will write for this second half of Colloquium, like everything you wrote last term, makes use of first-person point of view, or your own voice.   Most of the writing assignments will be short essays where you will want to show off your mastery of sentence writing, transition, tone, as well as consistent and meaningful ideas.  Further and in order to keep writing at least something each week, you should keep a journal with an entry each week on the reading and the discussion in class.  These weekly entries may be kept electronically in something such as “my documents,” or you can get a little blank book and keep your entries in your handwriting there.  When I assign polished writings for you to submit, the prompts will refer to your journal work.   At the end of the term, I will collect the journals in paper form (you will have to print out your journal if you are keeping it electronically); and the journals will figure in your final grade.

Administrative and Assessment Details:

The four key points in this section of the syllabus are identical to the same points on the syllabus for Fall.   (I will see anyone new this term receives a copy of the Fall syllabus.)