English 220:001—Survey of American Literature I (PDF Version)
MC 500, MWF 10–10:50 a.m.
Grant T. Smith, Ph.D.
Fall Semester, 2011
Office: MC 533
Phone: 796-3485
E-mail: gtsmith@viterbo.edu
Office hours: MF 2–3:00 p.m.; TTh 9–11:00 a.m. or by appointment
S Y L L A B U S
Text: Norton Anthology of American Literature, Seventh Edition, Volumes A and B
Resources:
Norton Anthology (a handbook with many valuable links)
Easy Writer, Third Edition by Andrea A. Lunsford
Click here for helpful English Department web sites
Course Description and Objectives:
This course is designed to introduce students to the major writers of the United States before 1820. We shall study the literature in a chronological/historical sequence. We shall connect the authors and their literature to the appropriate ethnic, literary, geographical, and political environments within which they wrote; and the ideologies or religious beliefs that influenced their readers.
Central to our study are the questions: What is American literature? What is “American” about the literature? What aesthetic criteria define American literature? Who establishes those criteria? In answering these questions we shall explore several themes:
- self-knowledge and self-deception,
- representation of gender, class, and race,
- religion as individual and social phenomena,
- sources and uses of power,
- attitudes toward technology and the natural world, and
- history and the individual’s relationship to it.
Format: Class sessions will consist of lectures, discussions, group activities, and individual presentations. I expect the students to read carefully the assigned texts and be able to discuss the relationship between each selection and the various themes listed above.
Policies:
- Click here for the university definitions of an excused and unexcused absence
- Click here for the university policy on sexual harassment
- Click here for the university policy on plagiarism
- If you are a person with a disability and require any auxiliary aids, services or other accommodations for this class, please see Jane Eddy in Murphy Center Learning Center 332 (796-3194) within ten days to discuss your accommodation needs. If there other accommodations that need to be made for you to succeed in the class, please indicate those needs to the instructor. Click here for a link to the Academic Resource Center.
- In the event of an infectious disease outbreak, university officials will monitor progress and work with local, state, and national authorities to determine the best course of action regarding institutional operations. Information related to any widespread infectious diseases outbreak will be available on Viterbo’s website and Viterbo Health Services website. In addition, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website has extensive information on health threats. If you have specific questions about your personal health, please contact your medical provider or Health Services.
Core Abilities:
Thinking—Students engage in the critical and creative thinking
Ethical Decision Making—Students respond to ethical issues
Communication—Students communicate effectively orally and in writing
Aesthetic Sensitivity—Students engage in artistic experiences and reflect critically upon them
Cultural Sensitivity—Students demonstrate a respect for the diversity of the human experience
Community Involvement—Students demonstrate responsible citizenship
English Department Student Learning Outcomes:
Read critically
Critically read and analyze a variety of texts.
Write effectively
Invent, draft, revise, and edit effectively for various audiences and purposes.
Research and document proficiently
Demonstrate proficiency in the use of bibliographic resources and other research tools to find, incorporate, and properly cite sources, according to MLA style.
Understand literary classifications
Demonstrate familiarity with classification of literature written in English, including:
- Historical development
- Genres
- Theories
Understand development of English
Demonstrate familiarity with the basic history of the development of the English language.
Transfer skills to work
Connect academic training to potential professional experience.
Links related to English Department Student Learning Outcomes:
- Thinking—The students will engage in critical thinking when they explicate or “close read” literary texts; when they identify formal elements such as point of view, literary language, symbolism, imagery; when they consider texts and authors in relation to historical, cultural, ideological, and theoretical contexts; when they compare what they are reading with what they have read previously; when they relate what they are reading to the wider world and to universal issues of human life. Click here for a Critical Thinking Web Page. Click here for a Logical Fallacies Web Page.
- Communication—The students will articulate in class and in assigned writing assignments their interpretations, insights, analyses, and evaluations of the assigned literature. Click here for the English Department’s Home Page on Writing a Critical Analysis of Literature. Click here for Viterbo University’s General Education Foundations page on Written Communication.
- Aesthetic—The students will articulate in class and in assigned writing assignments their understanding of the elements of a “masterpiece” of young adult literature. The students will evaluate the lasting quality of literature from the formal and contextual elements embedded in the literature.
- Ethics—The students will articulate in class and in assigned writing assignments their responses to the ethical questions and dilemmas posed in the assigned readings. Ethics is generally defined as the principles of conduct governing an individual or group; concerns for what is right or wrong, good or bad. The students will not plagiarize. Click here for the Viterbo University plagiarism statement. Click here for the English Department plagiarism statement. Click here for the Viterbo University Institute of Ethics in Leadership.
- Cultural Sensitivity—The students will read various texts by diverse authors. The students will articulate in class and in assigned writing assignments their understanding of life values represented in different texts in relation to their own. Individual projects are designed to give the students an opportunity to move outside of their own culture and to study and interact with a new culture. Click here for the university’s statement on sexual harassment.
Course Requirements and Grading Policy:
Writing Assignments
I have only four requirements of you this semester. If you do all of them, you will receive an A, if you don’t, then you will receive something less than an A. The first requirement is steady attendance. If you have three or fewer unexcused absences during the semester, then you will satisfy the “A” component for attendance. If you have four or five unexcused absences, then you will satisfy the “B” component and will not receive a grade higher than AB. If you have six or more unexcused absences, then you will satisfy the “D” component and you will not receive a grade higher than C. The second requirement is an electronic journal. Please submit three responses (three-to-five typed pages) to the literature we read. Send the entry as a MICROSOFT
WORD attachment to gtsmith@viterbo.edu The responses should reflect a thoughtful and analytic reading of one or more of the texts we have read. One response should be early in the semester. The second response should be at the mid-term, and the third essay should be near the conclusion of the semester. Please submit during the final exam week an extended essay (five-to-seven pages) that includes an explication of a common theme we have discussed this semester. You should include at least two works in the analysis. You may use research in this extended essay. If you don’t keep the journal entries current, thoughtful, and clear then you may have to be satisfied with something less than an A. If the entry isn’t acceptable, I will ask you specific questions and give you a deadline for the response; and, I will direct you to descriptions of good college writing. Click here for suggested journal topics. Click here for possible term project topics and grading criteria for the projects. The last requirement is to read the assigned texts. Of course you will have to read in order to write. Occasionally you will be asked to read material not on the course text list. This may seem like a lot of reading, but you are college students and you are expected to be well read! Also, you should leave Viterbo with a liberal arts education, and you can’t do that if you don’t read—a lot! And remember, you don’t have any exams or quizzes for this class!
To make this assignment experiment work, all of you will have to keep up with the syllabus because it may change from day to day. The syllabus is a narrative. I am talking to you through the syllabus, and so I want you to talk back to me and your peers.
Click here for a rubric for evaluating your participation in the class. You will complete this rubric during the final exam. I will use it to help determine your grade for the semester. I will also keep a record of your attendance and your journal entries. Please note that attendance, reading, and journaling are included in the self-evaluation.
Click here for a site on how to get an A on a formal essay. Look at this site often, especially when you are asked to write a formal essay for a journal assignment. We shall go over this rubric and others in class.
Helpful Web Sites
Click here for the On-Line Books Page
Click here for the table of contents for a research and reference guide to American literature
Schedule:
Week One: August 29
Defining American Literature; Defining an American; Are We Still Puritans? The Paradox of Being an American
*Read J. Hector St. John De Crevecoeur, 595-616; “Letter III” 596
Click here for a research and reference guide to De Crevecoeur
Click here for a research and reference guide to early American literature
Click here for a timeline of movements in American literature
Click here for discussion questions for “Literature to 1620.”
John Smith, 55-71
Click here for a John Smith web site with links to articles and images
Click here for a Pocahontas web site with links to articles and images
Click here for a 1616 letter from John Smith to Queen Anne
Click here to find out if Pocahontas saved Captain John Smith
Click here for the painting of the Baptism of Pocahontas
Are you an American? Take this quiz to find out.
What Is An American? PowerPoint
Do we still believe America is a City on the Hill? What does former President Bush say about America and religion?
Week Two: September 5 (Labor Day)
William Bradford, 104-137
John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity” 147; Compare Winthrop to Thomas Morton
Anne Bradstreet, 187-216
Click here for discussion questions on Bradstreet
Click here for a web site on Anne Bradstreet with good links to other sources
Click here for an index to Anne Bradstreet's poetry with links to Edward Taylor and Michael Wigglesworth
Click here for a close reading of several of Bradstreet's poems
Click here for a research and reference guide to Anne Bradstreet
Edward Taylor, 267–287
Week Three: September 12
*Cotton Mather, “Bonifacius“ Read Mather's “Parental Resolutions“ – How much have we changed as parents and children?
Click here for John Gast's painting American Progress
Click here for some modern examples of “typology.”
*Read Jonathon Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” 425 Click here for Edwards' Resolutions
Click here for the Jonathon Edwards web page
Week Four: September 19
*Read Benjamin Franklin, “The Way to Wealth” 451
Click here for a web site on “irony.” John Adams and Abigail Adams, 616-628
Thomas Paine, “Common Sense” 630 Click here for former President Bush's speech to West Point Graduates.
Click here for a web site that contains the full text of many of Paine's works
Does the American Dream still exist? Click here to check out Sanchez Trucking
Week Five: September 26
*Read Thomas Jefferson, ”Declaration of Independence” 651
Click here for a research and reference guide to Thomas Jefferson
Click here for the painting of Washington crossing the Delaware
*Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America” 752
Week Six: October 3
Click here for Thomas Cole's The Course of an Empire
Read “American Literature: 1820-1865” Volume B, 929-950
*Read Washington Irving, 9951; “Rip Van Winkle” 953
Click here for another link to Washington Irving
Click here for the Hudson River School of Painters
Read William Cullen Bryant, 1044; “To a Waterfowl” 1047
Week Seven: October 10
*Read Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1106; “Thoreau,” 1231; “The American Scholar, 1138; and “Self-Reliance” 1163.
Click here for discussion questions on “Emerson and the Self.”
Click here for an overview of American Transcendentalism
Click here for an essay on Emerson and Religion
Week Eight: October 17 (Mid-semester break, October 21)
*Read Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1272; “The Minister's Black Veil,” 1311; “The Birthmark” 1320; “Rappaccini's Daughter,” 1332.
Click here for a web site on Nathaniel Hawthorne
Is Intelligence Evil? Read “The Disparity Between Intellect and Character” by Robert Coles. Click here for an ethics web page that discusses the essay.
Click here for discussion questions on “The Birthmark.”
Click here for discussion questions on “Young Goodman Brown”
Click here for some good “on-line” questions on “The Birthmark” and “Young Goodman Brown.” Click here for a web site devoted to Hawthorne's view of evil and particularly, the “Unpardonable Sin.”
The Scarlet Letter, 1377
Click here for discussion questions on The Scarlet Letter
Click here for Classic Notes on The Scarlet Letter
Week Nine: October 24 (Prospectus for extended essay due)
Click here for a sample prospectus outline
Click here for a suggested outline for the oral presentation
Read Poe's “Sonnet--To Science” 1532; “The Fall of the House of Usher,” 1553
Read Lincoln's “Second Inaugural Address,” 1635
Read Margaret Fuller, 1637; “The Great Lawsuit” 1640 Click here for an outline on liberal feminism and cultural feminism.
Fanny Fern, 1792; “A Law More Nice than Just,” 1802
Click here for a web resource on Fanny Fern and here for notes on Fanny Fern
Week Ten: October 31
Read Rebecca Harding Davis, 2507; Life in the Iron Mills 2599
Frederick Douglass, 2060
Week Eleven: November 7
Read Henry David Thoreau, 1853; “Resistance to Civil Government” 1857
Click here for discussion questions on “Economy”
Click here for discussion questions on “Civil Disobedience.”
Click here for Reader Response Questions on “Civil Disobedience.”
Click here for a quiz on “Peacemakers.”
Click here for the full text of Martin Luther King's “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”
Click here for a PowerPoint on “Walden”
Click here for the full text of Crito
Click here for an interesting web site on Thoreau
Click here for an additional Thoreau web site
Week Twelve: November 14
*Read Walt Whitman, 2125 “Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me?”
Click here for the Walt Whitman home page
Click here for a poetry home page for Walt Whitman
Click here for easy access to Whitman's works in hypertext
Click here for John Townsend Trowbridge's essay on meeting Walt Whitman (printed in 1902)
Click here for a research and reference guide to Walt Whitman's life and works
Week Thirteen: November 21 (Thanksgiving break, November 23 – 25)
Read Herman Melville, 2304
*Read “Bartleby the Scrivener” 2363
Click here for a web site on “Bartleby” with good links
Click here for discussion questions on “Bartleby the Scrivener.”
*Read Billy Budd, Sailor, 2468
Click here for a useful web site on Billy Budd
See Dr. Lyon Evan's essay on Billy Budd on reserve in the library
Weeks Fourteen and Fifteen: November 28, December 5
Emily Dickinson, 2554
Click here for a home page on Emily Dickinson
Click here for a second web site on Dickinson and Whitman
Click here for a web site for Thomas Wentworth Higginson with good links to Dickinson. Click on Dollie for an intriguing poem by Dickinson
Click here for a web site of the Higginson correspondence with Dickinson
All journal entries must be submitted before December 5.
Week Sixteen: December 12
Final Exam: Thursday, December 15, 12:50–2:00 p.m.
The Final Extended Essay is due any time during Finals Week
Final Exam: Respond to one of the oral exam questions and bring it to class.
Click here for oral exam questions
Click here for final essay question