ENG 221: Major American Authors

Spring 2002

General

All American Assignments Be Your Best Grades

Objectives P's and Q's Roster Schedule

Schedule

Jan. 9-25: Colonial Era

Jan. 28-March 1: Antebellum Era

March 11-22: Postbellum Era

March 25-May 1: Modern Era

Instructor

Professor Mark Canada

118 Dial Building
ETL Department
UNC-Pembroke
mark.canada@uncp.edu
(910) 521-6431
Office hours: MWF 9-10 a.m., TR 10:45-11:45

Updated April 5, 2002
© Mark Canada, 2002
mark.canada@uncp.edu

Introduction

Who doesn’t love literature? Not so fast, don’t answer right away. Have you ever read a story or a poem that wasn’t assigned? Do you go to the movies, watch television, listen to song lyrics? Do you enjoy meeting people and visiting places? Are you interested in your own thoughts and feelings? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” then you are a lover of literature. So am I. It’s nice to meet you.

In this course, we will build on that foundation of interest and knowledge as we explore the fascinating world of American literature. You will learn some of the technical terms for concepts you already know, along with a number of new terms and concepts, and we will explore some intriguing new stories, poems, and drama by some of America’s greatest thinkers. Most important, we will study the ways that literature can open our minds and elevate our souls. By semester’s end, you not only will have experienced some wonderful stories and thought some glorious new thoughts, but will have some new tools to help you understand and appreciate the stories, poems, movies, and songs you encounter in your world. You may even have a new list of books you wish to explore on your own.

Are you ready for our road trip through American literature?First, we need a map. This syllabus will do just fine. Please read it carefully. We don’t want to lose you somewhere in the colonial era, stranded among the Puritans. Second, as we arrive at each of our four destinations—the colonial era, the antebellum era, the postbellum era, and the modern era—you will want some extra assistance. Just click on the appropriate link in the box at the left, and you will find a unit plan—think of it as a visitor center for each location. Each plan will feature specific writing and reading assignments, exercises, discussion, and a list of relevant resources.

Objectives

Department Guidelines for 200-Level Literature Courses

Language Success in college and the world beyond requires more than basic literacy. We must know not only how to decipher language, but also how to analyze it for clues about purpose, audience, and agenda. To this end, we will seek to appreciate language at every level, from Emily Dickinson’s dashes to Benjamin Franklin’s rhetoric. In particular, we will examine the way form shapes meaning as we study allusion, connotation, figurative language, rhythm, and dozens of other formal features and apply our understanding of these concepts to interpret challenging literary works in a variety of genres. As we do, we will equip ourselves to interpret the complex, often veiled messages we encounter in law, business, and the media. We also will expand our cultural vocabularies as we encounter the names of notable authors, works, places, and events.  Furthermore, because of the allusive nature of all language, particularly literature, names constitute a crucial part of one's vocabulary. For this reason, we will seek to expand our cultural vocabularies by studying not only authors and works, but also historical figures, events, and places, thus enabling us to become more knowledgeable and active participants in our communities. Finally, while appreciating language and literature is a means to these valuable ends, it also is a worthwhile end in itself. Like its cousins music, painting, and sculpture, literature is an art, and much of its appeal lies in its impractical nature—its beauty, its humor, the way it makes us feel. By exploring some of the world's most beautiful pieces of literary art, we will elevate and enrich ourselves in ways impossible to quantify.  Ideas Edifying and elevating in its own right, language is also a means for expressing ideas, and one of our chief objectives in this course will be to explore those ideas. Thus, in addition to analyzing symbolism in Robert Frost’s poetry and imagery in Frederick Douglass’s nonfiction, we will confront the questions that these and other works ask about desire, freedom, and other provocative subjects.  Research Research empowers us, preparing us to make informed decisions and arguments in our professional, civic, and private lives.  For this reason, research skills are some of the most important skills you will develop in college. In this course, we will use key words and Boolean operators to locate information on computer databases, evaluate the credibility of this information, and incorporate it into our own writing through paraphrases, quotations, summaries. In particular, we will examine and use a number of useful literary resources. Communication Knowledge confined to a single person's brain has limited use. It is through sharing this knowledge that humans make progress in medicine, science and technology, politics, and every other human endeavor. Through various exercises and assignments, we will develop a number of important communication skills, including composition, revision, speech, and graphic design.

P's and Q's

Supplies The Harper Single Volume American Literature Three IBM-formatted diskettes Roster Rachel Barr Michael Carver Stefanie Collins Carolyn Cummings Buddy Currie Dena Felty Cecelia Gonzales Jessica Hammonds Jeannie Hardin Ezra Locklear Jr. Holly McCall Shannon McLean Kandice Meyers Catherine Miller Melissa Nichols Andrea Patawaran Claire Secrist Erin Smith Natasha Tomlinson

In the early days of printing, typesetters had to be careful not to mix up the blocks they used to print letters, particularly the p's and q's.  We still say "Mind your p's and q's" when we want people to mind their manners.  Here are some college p's and q's that can help you succeed in this class and in others.  Preparation Before you can succeed, you need to prepare.  Indeed, preparation is the single most important key to success, not only in this class, but in college and in life.  You already have taken the first step by reading this syllabus.  Take a few minutes every few weeks to review this syllabus, which describes not only the assignments, but also my criteria for grading them.  An equally important form of preparation is reading the lesson plan that accompanies each unit.  Several days before coming to class each week, come here to the syllabus and click on the link to that week's unit.  Read the lesson plan carefully, preparing yourself to meet the objectives and to learn the terms described there.  Read any other assignments, as well, and take notes on everything.  Come to class ready to learn.  Finally, review the lesson plan at the end of the week to make sure you have met the objectives and learned the terms.  Participation Once you are prepared to learn, you also need to show up for class and to participate in class exercises and discussions.  Although I do not require attendance in this course, I urge you to attend class regularly and to participate actively in class activities.  Indeed, research shows that active participation dramatically increases the amount a person learns.  If you are shy, take some steps toward becoming more vocal.  During class, volunteer to report on group activities and try to make at least one comment or ask one question during class.  Physical Health Your mind is part of your body.  It should come as no surprise, then, that good physical health can improve your learning and your grades.  Studies have suggested that eating breakfast can improve test performance, that protein can boost alertness, and that exercise can help a person think effectively.  I suggest drinking 8-10 glasses of water each day, avoiding junk food and caffeine, exercising at least a half-hour each day, and maintaining a consistent schedule of seven to nine hours of sleep every night.  Politeness Your grades depend primarily on your performance.  Nevertheless, being polite is good practice for life after college and can help you establish a good rapport with your professors.  Show up for class and conferences on time and wait until class has ended before packing up your books.  Turn in assignments when they are due and avoid making excuses for absences or poor work.  Quality Nothing impresses a teacher or an employer more than work that shines not only in content, but in form.  Invest the time and energy into submitting assignments of which you can be proud. For starters, read each assignment carefully and try to provide exactly what the professor requests.  In addition to researching, writing, revising, and proofreading your work carefully, follow instructions on format, such as use of correct bibliographic citations.  Questions When you need information or help, ask. For example, if you have problems coming to class, keeping up with assignments, or using the computer, see me immediately.  The following statement comes from Disability Support Services: "Any student with a documented disability needing academic adjustments is requested to speak directly to Disability Support Services and the instructor, as early in the semester (preferably within the first class week) as possible.  All discussions will remain confidential."

Assignments

Presentations Feb. 15 Margaret Fuller (Dena Felty) Feb. 20 Emily Dickinson (Erin Smith) Feb. 22 Paul Laurence Dunbar (Catherine Miller) John Greenleaf Whittier (Michael Carver) March 1 Harriet Jacobs (Carolyn Cummings) March 15 Mary Chesnut (Rachel Barr) March 22 Thomas Bangs Thorpe (Holly McCall) April 3 Marianne Moore (Andrea Patawaran) April 12 Allen Tate (Shannon McLean) April 26 Allen Ginsberg (Claire Secrist)

Over the course of the semester, you will complete several assignments designed to help you expand your understanding of language and ideas while also sharpening your research and communication skills. At the same time, you will have the opportunity to contribute to All American, my online encyclopedia of American literature, history, and culture. You will assemble most of your assignments in a portfolio, which you will submit to me before midterm and again at the end of the semester. You will have the option of creating a printed portfolio or an online portfolio. It is my hope that you will consider using this portfolio to demonstrate your abilities to prospective employers, accrediting agencies, graduate schools, and indeed anyone interested in your competence in the field of American literature.  Here are the specific details for each assignment: Introduction This item will be the first that I and other readers see when we examine your portfolio. It should include your name, your e-mail or postal address, a table of contents for your portfolio, and a 500-word essay linking the material in this course to your education, your career, family, or some other aspect of your life. Your essay, for example, might explain how the material in this course fits in major, how what you learned about human behavior from studying some of the literature will help you on the job, or how you plan to use your research and communication skills in graduate school. Finally, this introduction may include other materials, such as photographs or samples of your own poetry or fiction.  Essays Each lesson in this course will include several essay assignments under the heading “Think Again.” You must choose one essay from each lesson and respond to it in a clear, thorough, detailed, and insightful 500-word essay. Include each essay in your portfolio. Author Project Choose an author from the list at the left and write an encyclopedia entry that introduces this author to a general audience. Your entry should include the following components in the order below: · an introduction summarizing the author’s literary contribution (50-100 words); · a brief biographical sketch highlighting major events and features of the author’s life, especially those that helped shape his or her work (300-500 words); · a thorough overview that not only summarizes the author’s major works, but also characterizes his or her style and major thematic concerns (1,000 words); · a list of works cited featuring MLA citations for least three primary sources written by the author and three secondary sources written by credible authorities; · a list of the author’s major works; · a list of the author’s close family members, such as parents, spouse, and offspring; · a list of cities where the author lived; · a list of occupations held by the author; · a chronology of the author’s life; · an annotated bibliography that briefly summarizes at least two useful resources where readers can find more information about the author (50-100 words per resource); · a section identifying the date of publication and genre of a work we are reading for this course, along with five study questions designed to provoke interpretation of this work. To see an excellent model of this project, see the page on H.P. Lovecraft. Presentation On the day we are scheduled to discuss your author, you will be responsible for presenting a 20-minute lesson on the author and the work assigned for that day. You may use a writing exercise, group activities, visual aids, lecture, or any other appropriate approach to help us understand the author and the work. Interviews Twice during the semester—once before midterm and once at the end of the semester—I will interview you about the material we have covered thus far in the semester. You will have 20 minutes to answer questions about authors, works, characters, terms, literary movements, and other material. You should be prepared to speak concisely and articulately about any concept covered in your portfolio, your classmates' online portfolios, the text book, my unit plans, or our class discussions.

Grades

A (90-100 percent) A student who earns an A has excelled in both skills and knowledge.  In content, clarity, readability, and format, the student's work fully or almost fully meets my criteria.  In short, the student has mastered the material and is likely to succeed in future challenges. B (80-89 percent) A student who earns a B has demonstrated many of the same qualities shown by the student who earns an A, but is deficient a few minor areas.  The student has generally mastered the material and is likely to succeed in future challenges. C (70-79 percent) A student who earns a C has demonstrated some of the same qualities shown by the student who earns an A or a B.  Although the work is adequate, it suffers from several minor deficiencies.  Nevertheless, the work suggests that the student is competent and is ready to take on future challenges, though he or she may need to shore up some of these deficiencies to succeed. D (60-69 percent) A student who earns a D is deficient in at least one major area or many minor areas, but has demonstrated adequate knowledge and skills to merit a passing grade.  The student who earns a D probably will struggle when confronting future challenges. F (below 60 percent) A student will earn an F for one of the following reasons: The student's work contains a glaring example of plagiarism. The student's work does not meet the requirements of the assignment, such as number of sources or deadline. The student's work contains glaring deficiencies, indicating that the student is unprepared to meet future challenges.

I will evaluate your work twice: once before midterm and once at the end of the course.  Each time, I will write you a detailed evaluation and assign you a letter grade based on the quality of your work.  Your final grade in the course, however, will depend only on your final portfolio and final interview.  Thus, even if you earn a D on the midterm evaluation, you may revise your portfolio, use what you have learned to improve on future work, and earn a better grade--perhaps even an A--in the course.  The purpose of this system is to give you an opportunity to continue learning and improving over the duration of the course.  Each time I evaluate your work, I will use the criteria below.  Content The portfolio must contain all the assignments described on this syllabus.  Each individual project in the portfolio should thoroughly and insightfully address its subject with accurate, credible, timely, and relevant information.  Oral remarks made during the presentation and interviews, furthermore, should be accurate.  Argumentative essays should state clear, substantive, contestable, and precise claims early and support these claims with appropriate evidence.  Clarity Each written project in the portfolio, as well as oral remarks made during the presentation and interviews, should present information in a clear, logical fashion. In general, each paragraph in the written projects generally should begin with a precise topic sentence, followed by clear, well-organized sentences that support the topic sentence. Transitional words and phrases should effectively guide the audience through the information.  Style All work should engage the audience with lively, concise writing or oral presentation and should generally lack lapses in tone, register, punctuation, mechanics, spelling, word choice, and grammar.  Each project should effectively incorporate source material with proper use of attribution, paraphrases, and quotations.  Longer projects should begin with engaging introductions and include satisfying conclusions.  Both written and oral projects should be functional and attractive, conforming to all appropriate professional standards.  In particular, all parenthetical citations and lists of works cited in the written projects should conform to MLA style.  Integrity Each project must be your own work.  That is, except for properly cited quotations, every sentence and phrase must be in your own words.  All interpretations, except for those properly cited, also must be your own.  If you turn in someone else's work, use a source's exact words without placing these words in quotation marks, or use an interpretation you found in a source without giving credit to the source, you are guilty of plagiarism and may fail this course.  You must be prepared to prove that you have done all your own work by showing me your sources and discussing the details of your project with me in conference.

Schedule

Colonial America	Antebellum America	Postbellum America	Modern America
Week 1: Contact Jan. 9 Read: Syllabus Jan. 11 Read: “The Literature of the New World”; “The Time When There Were No People on the Earth Plain”; John Smith”; Smith, excerpt from The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles Week 2: Puritan Literature Jan. 14 Meet: Main library Jan. 16 Read: “The Literature of Colonial America, 1620-1776”; Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity Jan. 18 Read: Bradstreet, “The Prologue,” “The Author to Her Book,” “Before the Birth of One of Her Children,” “To My Dear and Loving Husband”  Week 3: Enlightenment Jan. 21 Holiday: No class  Jan. 23 Read: Edwards, excerpt from Personal Narrative Jan. 25 Read: Franklin, excerpts from The Autobiography Submit: Essay 1	Week 4: Early Romanticism Jan. 28 Read: “Literature of the American Renaissance, 1836-1865”; Irving, “Rip Van Winkle” Jan. 30 Read: Poe, “Sonnet—To Science,” “To Helen,” “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” “The Philosophy of Composition” Feb. 1 Read: Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher” Week 5: Late Romanticism Feb. 4 Read: Hawthorne, “Rappacini’s Daughter” Feb. 6 Read: Melville, Billy Budd Feb. 8 Read: Melville, Billy Budd Week 6: Transcendentalism Feb. 11 Read: Emerson, “Self-Reliance” Submit: Draft of portfolio Feb. 13 Read: Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government” Feb. 15 Read: Fuller, “American Literature” Week 7: Poetry of Self Feb. 18 Read: Whitman, “I Sing the Body Electric,” “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “Passage to India,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking” Feb. 20 Read: Dickinson, “324,” “341,” “465,” “585” Feb. 22 Read: Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask”; Whittier, “Telling the Bees” Week 8: Civil War Discourse Feb. 25 Read: Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Feb. 27 Read: Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass March 1 Read: Jacobs, Chapter 10 of Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl Submit: Essay 2 Spring Break	Week 9: Regionalism March 11 Read: “The Literature of an Expanding Nation, 1865-1912”; Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn March 13 Read: Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn March 15 Read: Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Week 10: Regionalism March 18 Read: Chesnut, excerpt from A Diary from Dixie March 20 Read: Thorpe, “The Big Bear of Arkansas” March 22 Portfolio workshop Week 11: Realism and Naturalism March 25 Read: James, Daisy Miller March 27 Read: Crane, “The Open Boat” Submit: Essay 3 March 29 Holiday: No class	Week 12: Modernism and Harlem Renaissance April 1  Read: “The Literature of a New Century, 1912-1945”; Frost, “Mending Wall,” “The Road Not Taken,” “Birches,”“Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening” April 3 Read: Moore, “Poetry” April 5 Read: Hughes, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” “The Weary Blues,” “I, Too,” “Theme for English B” Week 13: Southern Renascence April 8 Read: Faulkner, “Barn Burning” April 10 Read: O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” April 12 Read: Tate, “Ode to the Confederate Dead” Week 14: Modern Drama April 15 Read: “The Literature Since Midcentury, 1945-Present” Watch: Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire Submit: Final portfolio (due at 8 a.m.) April 17 Watch: Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire April 19 Watch: Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire Week 15: Diverse Voices April 22 Read: Momaday, excerpt from “The Priest of the Sun” April 24 Read: Kingston, excerpt from The Woman Warrior April 26 Read: Ginsberg, “A Supermarket in California” Week 16: Presentations April 29 Presentations May 1 Presentations

The following statements come from UNCP Disability Support Services: 

· "Any student with a documented disability needing academic adjustments is requested to speak directly to Disability Support Services and the instructor, as early in the semester (preferably within the first week) as possible.  All discussion will remain confidential." 

· "This publication is available in alternative formats upon request.  Please contact Mary Helen Walker, Disability Support Services, Career Services Center, Room 210, 521-6270."