English 2130H – American Literature – Honors

Dr. Alison Umminger

M/W:  TLC 2237, 12:20-1:40 p.m.

Office Hours:  TLC 2241  M/W – 1:45 – 3:15 or by appt.

e-mal:  aumminge@westga.edu

 

Required texts and other readings/materials

            Ben Franklin, The Autobiography of Ben Franklin (1791)

            Henry Louis Gates, Classic Slave Narratives (Douglass (1845) and Jacobs(1861))

Nathanael Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850)

            Herman Melville, “Benito Cereno” (1855)

            Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” and Other Essays (1841)

            Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

            F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

            Nella Larsen, Quicksand (1928)

            Jean Toomer, Cane (1923)

            Carson McCullers, The Member of the Wedding (1946)

            Octavia Butler, Kindred (1979)

            Other supplementary readings, to be handed out in class

Course description

This survey class on American literature centers upon the theme:  “The Search for Identity:  The American Experience in Black and White.”  The first week will read Toni Morrison’s short story “Recitatif,” and discuss cultural assumptions about race, gender, and identity.  We will then move back in time and work our way forward, starting our reading of longer texts with Ben Franklin and Frederick Douglass’s autobiographies, examining the tension between how an individual shapes his own identity, and how the larger culture determines how an individual’s identity will be shaped.  We will then move to look at The Scarlet Letter and Harriet Jacobs’ autobiography, complicating questions of race with the intersecting rubric of gender norms and their hold on women.  Rounding out our discussion of the nineteenth century will be a number of short readings, including sections of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass,” Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” Melville’s “Benito Cereno,” and the longer text of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.  Our discussion of twentieth century literature will begin with Jean Toomer’s Cane and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and will include a discussion of the two major literary movements of this time:  Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance.  We will also read poetry by Langston Hughes and T.S. Eliot, and the novella Quicksand by Nella Larsen.  Moving into mid-century, we will read Carson McCullers’s Member of the Wedding.  The course will conclude with the neo-slave narrative, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, as part of a larger discussion of postmodernism, and finally a few poems by Kevin Young, who carries on Langston Hughes’ tradition of blues poetry.  While race figures prominently in many of these readings, we will also be attentive to gender and sexuality, community and tradition as important factors in creating American identity and American literature.  You will be expected to write two longer essays, one at mid-term and one at semester’s end, complete a number of short responses, and give at least one presentation on the material covered.  Active reading and participation is expected.

 Course Goals

• Students will develop the ability to recognize and identify significant achievements in American literature.
• Students will understand the relevant social, historical, and aesthetic contexts of these literary works.
• Students will appreciate the implications of theoretical and critical approaches to such literature.
• Students will develop enhanced cultural awareness and analytical skills.
• Students will demonstrate their command of academic English and of the tenets of sound composition by means of thesis-driven analytical prose.

General topics and assignments appropriate to those topics

• All sections of 2130 will examine American literature through a framework of three basic themes: the representation of the American landscape and the natural world; the representation of the quest for individual identity as an American; and the representation of the individual’s interaction with the social context of his/her time and place.
• Students will leave their study of American literature with an initial working knowledge of the following movements as they manifest themselves in the literature: colonialism, Puritanism, republicanism, romanticism, realism, naturalism, regionalism, modernism, and postmodernism.
• Students will also leave their study of American literature with an understanding of the various genres important to the tradition and of why specific genres emerge as significant (and fade, if they do).

Assessment activities

Active participation is essential to your success in this class.  I would like for this class to be dynamic and interactive.  The readings for the week should be done by the first class of the week, and I would like EACH CLASS MEMBER to write a thoughtful question to the rest of the class, which will go out on an e-mail list to the rest of the class by MONDAY of that week at 5:00 p.m.; you may submit your question earlier, but not later.  These questions will help frame our discussion for the week.  I expect that as the semester continues, they will become more detailed and refer back to other works, looking at the works collectively as well as individually.

You will also have a mid-term, final exam, and two essays, one of 5-7 pages, and a final essay with a research component of 8-10 pages.  If I don’t feel that people are keeping up with the reading, I will give quizzes.

Grading

Weekly Response Questions and participation:  200 points

Mid-Term Exam:                                                150 points

Final Exam:                                                       150 points

Shorter Essay:                                                  200 points

Longer Essay:                                                   300 points  (1000 points total)

Attendance

Much as I loathe a strict attendance policy, know that your grade will drop by 20 points for each absence after the 3^rd.  In other words, you have 3 “free” absences (although you will need to have work completed for those days), and after that, each absence will lower your grade by 20 points off the final grade.  If you arrive in class more than fifteen minutes after the class has started, or leave early by more than fifteen minutes, you will also be counted absent.

E-mail

 All e-mail must be send from your westga account.  Any e-mail not sent from this account will be returned unread.  This is in accordance with university policy; also, all e-mail that I send to you will be send from my westga account.

Schedule

 (all readings are to be done for the day that they are assigned – When a work covers two days, please read the FIRST HALF for the first day, and the COMPLETE WORK by the second day)

August 14th --  Introduction to the Course

August 16th –  Read:  Section from Playing in the Dark and “Recitatif”

 August 21st–  Autobiography of Ben Franklin

August 23rd – Autobiography of Ben Franklin

August 28th –  Frederick Douglass (in Gates)

August 30th –  Frederick Douglass (in Gates)

September 4th – Harriett Jacobs (in Gates)

September 6th –  Harriett Jacobs (in Gates)

                                    (first Essay assigned)

September 11th – Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” “Experience”

September 13th – Melville, “Benito Cereno”

September 18th – FIRST DRAFT, ESSAY #1 (in-class peer review)

September 20th –  The Scarlet Letter

September 25th --- The Scarlet Letter

                        FINAL DRAFT, ESSAY #1 DUE

September 27th – TBA (Study for Midterm)

October 2nd –  Poetry, Walt Whitman “Song of Myself” (Handed out in class)

October 4th –  MID TERM

October 9th –  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

October 11th –  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

October 16th –  Cane

October 18th –  Cane

October 23rd –  The Great Gatsby

October 25th –  The Great Gatsby

October 30th – Quicksand

                        FINAL ESSAY ASSIGNMENT HANDED OUT

November 1st –  High Modernism/ Harlem Renaissance, selected poems

(Eliot/Hughes)

Discussion of Final Essays/ Brainstorming

November 6th – The Member of the Wedding

November 8th – The Member of the Wedding

                        (Annotated Sources and Abstract of Paper Due)

November 13th – Kindred

November 15th – Kindred

November 20th  --  DRAFT OF FINAL PAPERS -- WORKSHOP

November 22nd --  DRAFT OF FINAL PAPERS -- WORKSHOP

November 27th --  DRAFT OF FINAL PAPERS -- WORKSHOP

November 29th -- DRAFT OF FINAL PAPERS -- WORKSHOP

December 4th --  Second Hourly Exam

December 6th -- Final Papers Due/ Evaluations

FINAL EXAM: