ENG 385: Schedule of Readings and Assignments

IMPORTANT: This schedule is very subject to change, because as we proceed through term I will be adapting the online-only course structure I used in 2020/2021 for our hybrid delivery in 2023; I will also be re-recording and usually revising/restructuring all video lecture content as we go. DO NOT read or watch course materials more than one week ahead of when they are assigned; if you do so, you will likely wind up doing the wrong assignments. DO NOT download or copy this schedule into an offline document, because later items on the syllabus are especially subject to change, as late as one week in advance (though I will try to make changes much earlier).

FURTHER IMPORTANT ITEMS: 

• Be advised — there is an infamous section on the Week 7 Take-Home Test that will assess your overall grasp of the arguments of the secondary sources assigned below. Be sure to read assigned texts with enough attention for retention — and ask questions if you need clarification.

• Any readings outside of the Smith and Kim textbook/workbook that are not available online (check the journal World Englishes, to which U of T students have free access) will be uploaded in pdf to our Google Drive file, at least a week before they are due.

• Many of the readings include exercises: practice questions and blanks to fill in.  Completing these exercises is required as part of the reading assignment, but no one will check/mark that you’ve completed them— though we will often go over them in discussion/pre-recorded lecture.  I strongly recommend that you complete them wherever you can: they offer essential practice for the quiz, final take-home, and ongoing comprehension questions.

WEEK I

Mon May 8:              Present-Day Englishes (PDE) and Old Englishes (PDE) 

Before today’s meeting:

• Review the course syllabus and schedule.

Wed May 10:              Present-Day Englishes (PDE)

Before today’s meeting:

• Read Smith and Kim Ch. 4: “Introduction to Phonetics and the International Phonetic Alphabet”
  (and do the exercises included in that chapter).   

• From Workbook Chapter 4: 1-4 (Phonetics: Vowels); 1-5 (Reading Phonetics); 1-6 (Writing in Phonetics). Check your own answers at the back of the book; come to class with questions.

• Watch Video Lecture 2: Seargeant and Tagg Prep (don’t read the S&T article until after you watch the video!).

• Read Seargeant and Tagg, “English on the Internet and a ‘Post‐Varieties’ Approach to Language” (tough stuff – do your best and come to class with questions).

• Read the course page for the Case Study Presentation.

• Read the sample Case Study handout through if you haven’t already.

• Since we didn’t get to listen to all the Drake samples in class, please do take a look at the video clips we missed (though you can of course review what we already covered) at our page of Toronto Case Study samples, paying close attention to which range of timestamps I ask you to view.

  • If you haven’t already sent her this information (on paper or by email), please send an email to Morgan, your TA (me.moore@mail.utoronto.ca), from whatever email account you prefer we use to contact you – in that email, please tell us your last name (whatever last name the U of T has on record for you), your first name (whatever you prefer we call you, regardless of what the U of T has on record), and, if you wish to identify them, the pronouns we should use to refer to you.  After that, type in two or three varieties of English that you use regularly, and which are especially influential on you, preferably the ones that you are guessing that relatively few of your fellow students in English 385 will not share, but leaving out any that you’re not comfortable with another student studying and presenting on.

    
    

WEEK II

Mon May 15:            Present-Day Englishes (PDE) and Early Modern Englishes (EMnE) 

By the end of the day today, I will send out an email with important information. Make sure you receive it; check your spam settings if you don’t. If you do not receive it, contact me immediately at sergi.utoronto@gmail.com.    If you don’t have an interview subject/partner and presentation date already, make sure you have them by the end of today.

Before today’s meeting:

• From Workbook Chapter 4: do exercises 2-2 (Working with a Tap) and 2-3 (Transcribing Words with a Tap). Check your own answers at the back of the book; come to class with questions.

• Read Smith and Kim Ch. 6: “Four Important Terms and Concepts.”   

• Read Smith and Kim Ch. 10: “The Modern Period and Global Englishes.”

• Watch Video Lecture 3: AAE.

• Read Irvine, “Contrast and convergence in Standard Jamaican English”

• Read the Preface from Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language [Start at https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/pageview.php then use the drop down menus (or “Section >>” button) to find the Preface; use the “Page >” button to click forward through the pages of the Preface (10 pages).  From there, try looking up entries in the dictionary itself -- start with “etch” and “eternal” (use the left drop-down menu to flip to the E section, then the right drop-down menu to chose subsection “Estrapade - Ethereal”), then go explore!

Wed May 17:            Early Modern Englishes (EMnE) 

Before today’s meeting:

• Watch Video Lecture 4: Lexicon and Semantics

• Read Teltscher, “Hobson‐Jobson: The East India Company Lexicon”

• Read Millward and Hayes, “9.7 Indian Written English”

• In Workbook Chapter 4: try Exercise 2-4 (Working with Syllabic Consonants) but try transcribing the words both in the way Smith and Kim instruct and by using a schwa instead of a syllabic consonant; for Exercises 2-5 (Minimal Pairs), 3-1 (Fast vs. Slow Speech), and 3-2 (Assimilation), instead of writing out answers to their questions, simply try putting the IPA into standard written English and the written English into IPA. We’ll review the results in class.

• Study up on your IPA! Use Peter Isotalo’s Interactive IPA Chart to help you;

Immediately after today’s meeting, self-administer your take-home quiz:

You need three items to take your quiz:

1. The 18 questions you have to answer, each corresponding to a line of poetry: download the pdf by clicking here (link to be shared on 17 May).

2. The video in which I speak each line of poetry, and each question, aloud: watch the video by clicking here (link to be shared on 17 May). (Apologies: I can’t re-record this video, and this one was filmed during the height of pandemic restrictions, and it really, really shows. But it gets the job done.)

3. The answer sheet you must fill out and send in: download the pdf version here OR download the docx version here (link to be shared on 17 May).

   You can work on the quiz at any time between 2pm Wed 17 May and 11:59pm Thurs 18 May; by 11:59pm Thurs 18 May you must submit the completed answer sheet (only the answer sheet) to our TA, Morgan (me.moore@mail.utoronto.ca) as an email attachment.  If you are unable to fill out the doc or pdf, you can type your answers into a separate document and send that as an attachment. If it’s easier for you to print out the answer sheet and fill it out by hand, then take a clear photo or scan of the sheet and send that to Morgan. Do not put your answers directly in the body of the email.

   If, for any reason (no reason need be provided), you do not get your completed quiz to your TA by the deadline, if you contact me and your TA immediately we may be able to figure something out — but if we do not hear from you by Fri 19 May 2pm, we must mark your quiz as a permanent zero.

   
   

WEEK III

Mon May 22:             VICTORIA DAY (NO CLASS / NO OFFICE HOURS)

Wed May 24:             Early Modern Englishes (EMnE)

Before today’s meeting, Group A uploads their Case Studies to our Google Drive file.

Before today’s meeting:

• Watch David and Ben Crystal’s contribution to the Open University: “Shakespeare: Original Pronunciation”

• Read Smith and Kim Ch. 9: “Early Modern English.”  NOTE: Because Smith and Kim’s textbook is arranged in chronological order (as all HEL textbooks are, while our class goes in reverse chronological order) some parts of this reading assume you already know material we have not covered yet. That’s okay — take note of anything you don’t yet understand, for now, and we will return to it.

• Read Millward and Hayes,“7.26 An EMnE Commentator on the Language”

• Read Hickey, "Development and Diffusion of Irish English" —NOTE: The Hickey is a bit long, but you do not have to read sections 4.2.1, 4.2.2., 4.2.3, 4.2.4, 10.1, 10.1.1, 10.1.2, 10.2, and 10.3—consider those sections optional and skippable.

• Read Maley, “Spenser’s Irish English”

• Watch Video Lecture 5: Early Modern and Pre-Modern Phonology

WEEK IV 

Mon May 29:  Early Modern and Middle Englishes (EMnE/ME)

Before today’s meeting, Group B uploads their Case Studies to our Google Drive file..

Before today’s meeting: 

• Read Smith and Kim Ch. 2 “Grammar Fundamentals”

• In Workbook Chapter 2: do exercises 1-3 (Names of Verb Forms), 2-1 (Parts of Speech), 2-8 (Noun Functions), and 3-5 (Relative Pronoun Function). [If you find exercises 2-1, 2-8, or 3-5 very difficult, you may want to practice first on 1-1, 1-5, or 2-10). Check your own answers at the back of the book; come to class with questions (and complaints).

• Read Giancarlo, “The Rise and Fall of the Great Vowel Shift?”

• Try to read these samples from Caxton’s printing of Chaucer; after trying to read those samples for at least 25 minutes, you can use this helpful transcription to read the rest (line up the transcription with the original!)

• Watch Group A Case Study Videos (on Google Drive)

Wed May 31:              Middle Englishes (ME) 

NOTE: Today’s meeting is especially good in person — if you can make it in person on certain days, try to make this one of the days.

If you cannot attend in person, then before class, you must access this file (click here) and print out (yes, make physical printouts) of all four “compass points” files, as well as samples 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 18, and 22; have those printouts, and some tape (like Scotch tape), ready when we start class.

Before today’s meeting, Group C uploads their Case Studies to our Google Drive file.

Before today’s meeting: 

• To establish your baseline for “what Middle English really looks and sounds like,” please choose from one (and only one) of the following options (do not click on all four! choose one of the following four at random and ignore the other three!):

  • Start by going north (click here).

  • Or start by going east (click here).

  • Or start by going west (click here).

  • Or start by going south (click here).

• Read Smith and Kim Ch. 8: “Middle English” — and identify ways that their version of Middle English may reading may differ from what you took as your starting point.

• In Workbook Chapter 8: do exercises 1-4 (Languages in Contact — make sure you are using the OED properly!); 2-3 (Variety); 3-3 (Variety); 3-4 (Writing in the ME Period).

• Watch Group B Case Study Videos (on Google Drive)

WEEK V

Mon June 5:             Middle Englishes (ME) 

Before today’s meeting, Group D uploads their Case Studies to our Google Drive file.

Before today’s meeting: 

• Watch this ELALME Introductory Video and then mess around with ELALME for a few minutes (just to try it out!).

• Spend no more than 1 hour reading a Middle English poem online (it will likely not take that long, but after 1 hour elapses, stop where you are): “A Talk of Ten Wives on Their Husbands’ Ware” (https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/salisbury-trials-and-joys-talk-of-ten-wives-on-their-husbands-ware)

• Study this Common Words handout and commit as much of it to memory as possible.

• Read Dinshaw, “It Takes One to Know One,” noting especially endnotes 1 and 44.

• Watch Group C Case Study Videos (on Google Drive)

• Spend just a little while (no more than 10-15 minutes!) trying to make sense of this Middle English manuscript text, a song from one of my favourite plays (you can find it transcribed starting at line 335 here, and you can see a scan of the full manuscript that contains it here, and a live performance of it at timestamp 29:30 here, but that’s optional)—you probably won’t be able to figure it out, but it’s worth a shot:

 Wed June 7:             Middle and Old Englishes (ME/OE) 

Before today’s meeting, Group E uploads their Case Studies to our Google Drive file.

Before today’s meeting: 

• Spend a total of 30 minutes (no more, no less) trying to read through Ancrene Wisse, Part Three on your own; if you like, compare it to Dame Sirith, which is also in Early Middle English.

• Read through the Introduction to Ancrene Wisse — after the opening paragraph, read only the material under the following headings:

  • Ancrene Wisse's Place in Literary History

  • Why the Vernacular?

  • The Anchoritic Life

  • Authorship; Implications; Collaborative Authorship

  • Audience; Expanded Audience; Community, Mixed Audience

  • Date; Localization; Language

  • Spelling; Reduced Spellings; Noun Endings; The Definite Article; Personal Pronouns; Adjective Endings; Verbs; Principal Verb Endings

  • Manuscripts; The Evolution of the Text

• Watch this brief video on King John and the Magna Carta (from the British Library).

• Read, relying on the included translation (but trying to connect it to the early English where you can), these excerpts from Wulfstan’s Sermo Lupi ad Anglos and the Peterborough Chronicle

• Read Julian Talamantez Brolaski’s “pronoun circle-jerk and the dog charlie” (click here), read its author bio (click here), and listen to its interview with PoetryNow (click here)

• Explore this pronoun handout in as much depth as you wish

• Watch Group D Case Study Videos (on Google Drive)

  
  

WEEK VI

Mon June 12:                  Old Englishes (OE): 

Before today’s meeting, Group F uploads their Case Studies to our Google Drive file.

Before today’s meeting: 

• Read Smith and Kim Ch. 7: “Old English” 

• Watch Group E Case Study Videos (on Google Drive)

• From Workbook Chapter 8: 3-1 (Early ME); 1-1 (ME Orthography); 1-2 (ME Phonology); 2-1 (ME Phonology); 2-2 (From OE to ME)

• From Workbook Chapter 7: 1-1 (Orthography and Phonology: Single Words); 1-2 (Orthography and Phonology: Sentences); 1-3 (Thinking about Case); 1-4 (Case in Old English); 1-5 (The Verb); 2-1 (The Demonstrative Determiner)

 Wed June 14:            Old Englishes (OE) 

Before today’s meeting, Group G uploads their Case Studies to our Google Drive file.

Before today’s meeting: 

• Watch a short video about the Dictionary of Old English

• Take a brief look at King Alfred’s Preface to his translation of the Pastoral Care: first in translation and then, briefly, listen to the first few minutes of the same passage read in OE (no need to stay for the full nine minutes!). (This is only a brief little thing—just to expose you to what OE sounds like, read by one of its great modern teachers, Peter S. Baker! Shouldn’t take more than ten minutes total — if you like, you can let the OE audio play while you look at the PDE translation, too.)

• Review your OE parsing skills (the magic sheet and the Workbook exercises from last week) and your ME reading skills. The take-home test next week will ask you to make sense of a short OE sentence or two and to translate about 20 lines of very basic post-re-emergence Middle English—bring questions to class, based in the work we’ve done so far, that will help you do both.

• Read Kiernan, “Reading Caedmon’s Hymn with Someone Else’s Glosses”

• From Workbook Chapter 8: 1-5 and 2-4 (External Events of the ME Period)

• Watch Group F Case Study Videos (on Google Drive)

  
  

WEEK VII

Mon June 19:            Old Englishes (OE) and Present-Day Englishes (PDE)

Before today’s meeting: 

• Read Howe, “Anglo-Saxon England and the Postcolonial Void”

• Watch Group G Case Study Videos (on Google Drive)

At 3pm, after today’s meeting:

• Work on the take-home final test at any time between 3pm Mon 19 June and 11:59pm Thurs 22 June.  Completing the test should take about 2-4 hours total (please take breaks!), but you may take as long as you wish as long as you submit your answers by the deadline.  Follow the instructions on the question sheet, then put your answers into the answer sheet (available in pdf format or docx format).

• You can submit the answer sheet in numerous formats: fill out the doc or pdf version directly on your computer, then save and send to Morgan OR print it out and write in the blanks, then save and send to Morgan OR, if need be, type your answers into a separate document and send that to Morgan.  In any of these cases, you must send the answers as an email attachment (not through file-sharing, etc); do not put your answers directly in the body of the email.

• By 11:59pm Thurs 22 June you must submit the completed answer sheet (only the answer sheet) to Morgan – me.moore@mail.utoronto.ca – as an email attachment.

• If, for any reason (no reason need be provided), you do not get your completed quiz to your TA by the deadline, if you contact me and your TA immediately, and we may be able to grant you a last-minute extension for a couple of extra days.  However, if we do not hear from you by Friday 23 June by 3pm, we must mark your test as a permanent zero; there are no exceptions to that rule, regardless of the reason.

• And please please please don’t forget to fill out a TA Evaluation for Morgan with due praise (be sure to do that before the end of the week)!

By Thu June 22, 11:59pm:      Submit your Take-Home Week 7 Test as an email attachment to your TA 

By Wed June 28, 11:59pm:      Submit your Critiquing Authorities Essay as an email attachment to your TA