Office: MC 536
Class: MWF 11 - 11:50, FC 204
Phone: 796-3485

E-mail: gtsmith@viterbo.edu

Course Text: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, fifth edition, volume 2

Course Description: English 221 will provide a chronological overview of American literature from the Civil War to the present. The content of the course will be presented through lecture, class discussion, film, group work, and individual projects.

Course Objectives: 

• Students will become familiar with major American writers from the Civil War to the present and connect those writers with a literary period, theme, ethnicity, gender, ideology, religion, class, and criticism.
• Students will continue to define American literature and its particular aesthetics, motifs, subjects, and characters.
• Students will write responses to assigned readings and class discussions that demonstrate mature reflective thinking and critical analysis.
• Most of all, students will enjoy reading American authors.

For an "A" grade the student must:

• Have three or fewer absences (Refer to Student Handbook for college policy on excused absences.)
• Read all of the assigned readings and participate in class discussions.
• Satisfactorily complete five three-page response papers to class discussions and/or readings.  These response papers may be e-mailed to the professor and two may also be e-mailed to two other members of the class.
• Write one-page responses to the two response papers from your classmates
• Review any of the literary criticisms on reserve in the library and write one three-to-five page response to the criticism.
• Read one additional novel by an author from the Civil War to the present. Write a two-to-three page response to the novel.
• Complete a superior term project and present his/her conclusions to the class (A one-page typed prospectus for the project must be approved by the instructor four weeks prior to final exam week)

• Have five or fewer absences (Refer to Student Handbook for college policy on excused absences.)
• Read all of the assigned readings and participate in class discussions
• Satisfactorily complete three three-page response papers to class discussions and/or readings.  Send one of the response papers to a classmate for review and criticism.
• Write a one-page response to one of the response papers from your classmates.
• Complete an excellent term project (A one-page typed prospectus for the project must be approved by the instructor four weeks prior to final exam week.)

• Have six or fewer absences (Refer to Student Handbook for college policy on excused absences.)
• Read all of the assigned readings and participate in class discussions
• Satisfactorily complete two three-page response papers to class discussions and/or readings
• Complete a satisfactory term project (A one-page typed prospectus for the project must be approved by the instructor four weeks prior to final exam week.)

• Have six or fewer absences (Refer to Student Handbook for college policy on excused absences.)
• Read all of the assigned readings and participate in class discussions
• Satisfactorily complete three three-page response papers to class discussions and/or readings

• http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/american.html
• http://www.accd.edu/sac/english/bailey/amerlit2.htm
• http://directorynetscape.com/Arts/Literature/world_Literature/American_Literature

Week One: January 17
Introduction: The Transformation of a Nation
Twain's Huck Finn -- What does this American classic mean to us today, the first week of the 21^st century?
Criticisms on reserve in the library: "Mr. Eliot, Mr. Trilling, and Huckleberry Finn" by Leo Marx; "Morality and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Julius Lester; and "Reading Gender in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Myra Jehlen. 

Week Two: January 24
Huck Finn
Click here for a list of appropriate works for high school students about slavery.
Click here for a web site from the National Endowment of the Humanities on Mark Twain

Week Three: January 31
Henry James's Daisy Miller
Criticism on reserve in the library: "Displays of the Female: Formula and Flirtation in Daisy Miller"
Response paper is due.
Click here for discussion questions on Daisy Miller.

Week Four: February 7
Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron"
Kate Chopin's "The Storm"

Week Five: February 14
Kate Chopin's The Awakening
Criticisms on reserve in the library: "Tradition and the Female Talent: The Awakening as a Solitary Book,"  "The Ending of the Novel" by George M. Spangler, and "Progression and Regression inEdna Pontellier" by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
Click here for a web site for Kate Chopin

Week Six: February 21
Charles W. Chesnutt's "The Wife of His Youth"  Click here for a web page on "The Wife of His Youth"
For an interesting essay on race, read "Is It in the Genes?" in Sports Illustrated, December 8, 1997, 87.23.
Hamlin Garland's "Under the Lion's Paw"
Mary Austin's "The Walking Woman"
Mary Wilkins Freeman's "The New England Nun" and "The Revolt of 'Mother'"
For a web site on Mary Wilkins Freeman click here
For a web site on "The Revolt of 'Mother'" click here
Response paper is due.

Week Seven: February 28
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper"
"Why I wrote The Yellow Wall-paper"
Criticism on reserve in the library: "Invalid Women" pp. 130-188
Click here for a web site for "The Yellow Wall-paper"

Week Eight: March 6 (Spring Break)

Week Nine: March 13
Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat"
Jack London's "To Build a Fire"
Richard Wright's "Almost a Man"
Compare "Almost a Man" with Faulkner's "Barn Burning" on page 1630
Click here for notes on Naturalism and a journal assignment for Crane and London

Week Ten: March 20
Read "American Literature between the Wars: 1914-1945" on pages 911-921.
Willa Cather's My Antonia (Click here for the Norton web site for My Antonia)
Response paper is due.
Click here for discussion questions for My Antonia

Week Eleven: March 27 (No class March 30)
Robert Frost (selected poems)
Click here to hear Frost and other American poets read their poetry
Click here to read three short criticisms of Frost's poetry

Week Twelve: April 3
Wallace Stevens (selected poems)
William Carlos Williams (selected poems)
Sherwood Anderson "Queer"
For a web site on Anderson click here

Week Thirteen: April 10
T.S. Eliot (selected poems)
Click here for a web site on "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Prospectus for final project is due.

Week Fourteen: April 17 - 19 (Friday Easter Break)
e.e. cummings (selected poems)
F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Babylon Revisited"
Response paper is due.

Week Fifteen: April 25 (Monday Easter Break)
William Faulkner's "Barn Burning"
Click here for a web site on William Faulkner
Ernest Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"
Richard Wright's The Man Who Was Almost a Man"
Response to novel is due.

Week Sixteen: May 1
Flannery O'Connor's "The Life You Save May Be Your Own"
Alice Walker's "Everyday Use"
Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy" (Click here for a web site on Sylvia Plath)
Response paper is due.

Week Seventeen: May 8 (Final Exams)
Arthur Miller's The Death of a Salesman
Criticism on reserve in the library: "Miller on Death of a Salesman" pp. 143-171.
Click here for discussion questions for The Death of a Salesman
For a good web site on The Death of a Salesman click here.
For a second web site on The Death of a Salesman, click here.
For a link to literary criticisms of The Death of a Salesman click here.
Response to literary criticism is due.
Final project is due.