English 2130 – American Literature

Dr. Alison Umminger

MTWThF:  10:10 – 12:15

Office Hours:  12:15 – 1:00 daily

Office – TLC 2241

 

Required texts and other readings/materials

            Ben Franklin, The Autobiography of Ben Franklin

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

Nathanael Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850)

            Herman Melville, “Bartleby” and “Benito Cereno”

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

            Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

            F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

            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 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 Claude McKay.  The course will conclude with the neo-slave narrative, Octavia Butler’s Kindred, as part of a larger discussion of postmodernism.  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 one essay, take two hourly exams, and complete a number of short responses.  Active reading and participation is expected.  I will also give you periodic reading quizzes

 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 each day are due ON THAT DAY, and I would like EACH CLASS MEMBER to write a thoughtful question which they will bring to class each morning.  These questions will help frame our discussion of the works.  I expect that as the session continues, they will become more detailed and refer back to other works, looking at the works collectively as well as individually.

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Grading

Daily Response Questions and participation:        200 points

First Hourly Exam:                                             200 points

Second Hourly Exam::                                       200 points

Essay:                                                              300 points

            (100 points for process, 200 points for final product)

In Class Writing & Quizzes:                                100 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 your first.  In other words, you have one “free” absence (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.

Schedule

(all readings are to be done for the day that they are assigned)

June 30^th  --  Introduction to the Course; poetry

July 3rd –  Read:  Section from Playing in the Dark and “Recitatif”

July 5th –  Autobiography of Ben Franklin (parts 1 and 2 only)

July 6^th  –  Frederick Douglass (In Gates)

July 7^th  – Harriett Jacobs (in Gates – I will give you selected pages)

                        (Books 1-16 and last 2 books)

July 10^th  – “Benito Cereno” (Melville)

July 11^th  –  “Self Reliance” (Emerson)

            FIRST ESSAY ASSIGNMENT HANDED OUT

July 12^th  – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (First half)

July 13^th – Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Second half)

                        (review for hourly exam)

July 14^th – FIRST HOURLY EXAM

                        The Scarlet Letter (intro, you don’t have to have it read)

July 17th – The Scarlet Letter

                        (have it read!)

July 18th –  The Harlem Renaissance – in class selections from Cane

                        FIRST DRAFT OF ESSAYS DUE

July 19th –  The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

                        PEER REVIEW OF ESSAYS

July 20th –  The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

July 21^st  –  Kindred (first half)

                        FINAL ESSAY DUE

July 24t^h –  Kindred (second half)

                        REVIEW FOR SECOND HOURLY

July 25^th – Second Hourly Exam/ Evaluations