Syllabus for English 262
Survey of American Literature -- II
Julie Barak, Spring 1998

It requires something more than personal experience to gain a philsophy or point of view
from any specific event. It is the quality of our response to the event and our capacity to 
enter into the lives of others that help us to make their lives and experiences
our own.

-- Emma Goldman

Forum and Class Lists 
Course Description
Pedagogical Methods
Course Requirements
Books and Other Expenses 
Schedule
Supplemental List
On-Line and Web Resources for Literary Research

 

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  Forum and Class Lists:

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Course Description:

I believe that the goal of all study, but particularly of literature, help us to understand and empathize with those with whom we live and work. I hope the texts I've chosen will have, at least, that effect on all of us. The literature of this period is so rich and so challenging, that the toughest part of my job has been selecting texts. A look through any recent anthology would overwhelm you with names, dates, and facts, not only about the authors of the period, but also about the historical, intellectual, and cultural forces and movements which have come and gone, or come and lingered, mutated and then re-appeared in enriched, though also, occasionally, in more virulent, forms. In order to limit my selection of texts, and to add coherence to our approach to the literature, all of the books we will be reading focus in one way or another on the issue of coming to recognize what it means to be male or female in American society. Most of these books complicate that recognition with the additional shock of realizing what it means to be a person of color in 20th century America. Through this approach, I hope to introduce to you, in some depth, to several authors and to some of the most important ideas of this century. I'm looking forward working with you and to learning from you as we read and respond to the texts together.

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Pedagogical Methods:

We will rely on three basic methods of learning in this course. First, I will provide you with basic background information on the authors and their times through lectures. Second, we will spend time discussing the texts in class. This is an important part of the methodology of the class for me because I believe that knowledge is created as we work together, pooling our responses and shaping new ones as we take in new information. I don't believe that students are vessels into which knowledge is poured; rather, I believe that meaning emerges as we think and talk together, creating a shared understanding of the texts. Third and finally, we will do a lot of writing. Toby Fulwiler, a composition theorist, claims that writing is "an important index to intellectual thought and development."  He believes that

The more people write, the better they learn; writing is the most powerful use of language for developing sustained critical thought; it helps people to visualize thought and therefore to modify, extend, develop, or criticize it. [And, he asserts that] the more that students write, the more active they become in creating their own education; writing frequently, for themselves as well as for their instructors, helps students discover, rehearse, express, extend, and develop their own ideas.

I agree with Fulwiler. In order to promote these learning goals, we'll write in response to the texts both in and out of class, both formally and informally.

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Course Requirements:

Attendance and Participation
Reading Quizzes 
Reading Journals 
      Journal Questions 
On-Line Discussion
Midterm and Final Exams 
Research Project

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Attendance and Participation

You've got to come to class to do well in the class. In order to share your responses and to help us construct a shared meaning of the texts we'll read, you have to be here to participate in the discussions. Not only do you have to show up; you also have to speak up. If I never hear your voice in the class discussions, you'll never get an "A" for the course, no matter how well you do in the other areas of the coursework. Everybody gets three free absences. After three, you lose a third of a letter grade for each absence. (That is, if you have a B for the class, but you've missed 5 classes, your final grade will be a C+.) You will also be penalized for coming into class late -- three "lates" equals one absence. Finally, turning work in on time is another part of your attendance and participation grade. Late work will not be accepted. Be sure you back up all the work you do on your computer, so that you have a copy on your hard drive and a copy on disk. I will not accept excuses of ANY sort - computer, printer, and disk problems included.

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Reading Quizzes

Quizzes over the reading will be given as I find it necessary. The main way I deem necessity in these cases is by the lack of participation. I figure that if you aren't talking, it's because you haven't read the material. I give quizzes only to promote steady reading of the course materials. If you read and show evidence of that reading through thoughtful and lively discussions, we can forego these quizzes.

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Reading Journals

Six 1-1/2 page, single-spaced, typed, journals, due approximately every other week. They will be graded on a pass/fail basis and they will serve as the foundation for our discussion of the texts for the week. I do not want you to use the journals to summarize the texts. If I read your journals and all I find is summary, that journal will receive a failing grade. I do want you to use the journals to develop thoughtful and critical approaches to the books. Some questions you might answer in your journals include, but are not limited to the following:

• How does what you've read connect with your own experience?
• How does what you've read remind you of what you learned in history or sociology or psychology or philosophy class?
• In what ways do you feel challenged by this author?
• What does this author teach you about people, about life in America during his or her time, about yourself, that you didn't know before?
• What do you think about the way the writer tells her or his story? What do you like or dislike about the way s/he writes?
• How is the style and/or content of this piece different from or similar to the style and content of other works you've read?
• Can you make connections between the intellectual, historical, and cultural events we discuss in class and the writer's style and ideas?
• Can you make connections between the author's life and times and her or his work?
• How does your own background, your race, gender, sexual preference, class, religious and educational upbringing affect how you make sense of these works?
• What comments about the book by your classmates were most intriguing to you? What response do you have to those comments?

The due dates for the journals will revolve. I'll publish a schedule as soon as we know who's staying and who's going. Each of the six journal entries is worth 5% of your grade.

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Participation in an on-line discussion of the texts

Every so often I'll post a question for discussion in the class forum and you'll be responsible for accessing our class web page and posting a response to that question. I'll bring these responses into the class to help instigate in-class discussions. I'll announce the dates the questions will be posted in class. I'll also be available at certain times in the computer lab in the library to help you get started with this project. Participation in this on-line discussion is worth 5% of your grade.

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Midterm and Final Exams

At midterm and at the end of the semester you'll read over your journals and the questions and answers on the on-line discussion site, you'll think about our in-class discussions and the lecture notes you've taken. Have you been thinking a lot about the different ways men and women authors portray characters in their texts? Have you been writing and thinking about how greed affects the American psyche? Have you been looking at race relationships in two or three of the texts? Have you been looking at dialect or language use in the texts? Have you noticed patterns of images in the texts? Have you been thinking about the structure of the poems or novels? Shape your thoughts from the journals into three questions. I will select two of those questions for you to answer on your exam. You will have one weekend to write the exam. We will share and discuss our answers with the class. Each exam is worth 15% of your final grade.

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A Research Project

You need to choose one author from the supplemental list, attached, and read at least 50 pages of primary text by that author - a novel, a collection of poems or short stories or essays. You will put together a report about the author that you chose that includes the following "pieces:" 1) a photograph or two; 2) a quote that you think illustrates the main thought of their work; 3) a brief biography (1 page); 4) a summary of the work you read, followed by a brief critical analysis of that work which includes references to outside sources (2 pages); 5) a brief bibliography of important works about the author; 6) a complete list of works by the author. My goal is to create a 262 website where these research projects will be posted and available for future students to access. This project must be submitted in two forms - one paper and the other disk. Use IBM compatible software, please. These projects will be due during the last week of class. You need to provide the entire class with a paper copy of your project for a class book. The research project is worth 30% of your final grade.

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Books And Other Expenses:

Crane, Stephen. Maggie: A Girl of the Streets.
Drieser, Theodore. Sister Carrie.
Hwang, David. M. Butterfly.
Larsen, Nella. Quicksand.
LeSeuer, Meridel. The Girl.
McClatchy, J. D. Ed. The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry.
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony.
Viramontes, Helena Maria. The Moth and Other Stories.

***Photo copies of your final projects for the class.
***Copies of poems from the net, if you want hard copies.

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Schedule

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Supplemental List

Albee, Edward
Anaya, Rudolpho
Anderson, Sherwood
Antin, Mary
Ashberry, John
Austin, Mary
Baldwin, James
Bambara, Toni Cade
Barnes, Djuna
Barth, John
Bartheleme, Donald
Bellow, Saul
Bennett, Gwendolyn, B.
Bierce, Ambrose
Bogan, Louise
Bonnin, Gertrude
Bontemps, Arna
Bourne, Randolph
Boyle, Kay
Brooks, Gwendolyn
Cable, George Washington
Cahan, Abraham
Carver, Raymond
Cather, Willa
Cervantes, Lorna Dee
Chesnutt, Charles Waddell
Chopin, Kate
Cisneros, Sandra
Clemens, Samuel Langhorne
Clifton, Lucille
Cofer, Judith Ortiz
Crane, Hart
Creeley, Robert
Cruz, Victor Hernandez
Cullen, Countee
Cummings, E. E.
Davis, Rebecca Harding
Doolittle, H. D.
Dorris, Michael
DosPassos, John
Du Bois, W. E. B.
Dunbar, Paul Laurence
Eaton, Edith Maud
Eliot, T. S.
Ellison, Ralph
Erdrich, Louise
Evans, Mari
Faulkner, William
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence
Fitzgerald, Scott
Foote, Julia A. J.
Forche, Carolyn
Freeman, Mary E Wilkins
Frost, Robert
Garland, Hamlin
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins
Glasgow, Ellen
Glaspell, Susan
Gold, Michael
Hansberry, Lorraine
Harris, Joel Chandler
Hellman, Lillian
Hemingway, Earnest
Herr, Michael
Hinojosa-Smith, Rolando
Holley, Marietta
Hopkins, Pauline
Howells, William Dean
Hurston, Zora Neale
James, Henry
Jen, Gish
Jewett, Sarah Orne
Johnson, James Weldon
Jones, LeRoy
Jordan, June
Kang, Younghill
Kingston, Maxine Hong
Knight, Etheridge
Laviera, Tato
Locke, Alain
London, Jack
Lozez, Willie
Lowell, Amy
Lowell, Robert
Mailer, Norman
Malamud, Bernard
Malcom X
Marshall, Paule
McCarthy, Mary
McKay, Claude
McNickle, D'Arcy
Millay, Edna St. Vincent
Mirikitani, Janice
Mohr, Nicholassa
Momaday, N. Scott
Moore, Marianne
Mora, Pat
Morales, Aurora Levins
Morrison, Toni
Mukherjee, Bharati
Norris, Frank
O'Connor Flannery
O'Neill, Eugene
Oates, Joyce Carol
Okada, John
Olsen, Tillie Lerner
Olson, Charles
Ortiz, Simon
Oskison, John Milton
Paley, Grace
Petry, Ann
Piercy, Marge
Pietri, Pedro
Porter, Katherine Anne
Pound, Ezra
Pynchon, Thomas
Ransom, John Crowe
Reed, Ishmael
Rivera, Tomas
Roethke, Theodore
Rose, Wendy
Sanchez, Sonia
Sexton, Anne
Sinclair, Upton
Song, Cathy
Soto, Gary
Standing Bear
Stein, Gertrude
Steinbeck, John
Sui Sin Far
Tan, Amy
Tate, Allen
Toomer, Jean
Updike, John
Walker, Alice
Walker, Margaret
Warren, Robert Penn
Washington, Booker T.
Welch, James
Welty, Eudora
Wharton, Edith
Wideman, John Edgar
Wilbur, Richard
Williams, Tennessee
Wright, Richard
Yamamoto, Hisaye
Yezierska, Anzia

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Class List -- Section 003 10:00-10:50

Class List -- Section 002 11:00-11:50