SUNY Fredonia
Division of Arts and Humanities
ENGL 206: Survey of American Literature
Fall 2002
Section 1: Thompson E-122, MWF 10-10:50
Section 2: Fenton 176, MWF 12-12:50
Office: Fenton 240; MTWF 1-3, and by appointment; 673-3859
E-mail: simon@fredonia.edu
Web Page: www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/
About the Course Web Site
This web site is designed to help you get as much out of this course as possible--you can use it to find out how you will be graded, what reading and writing assignments are due and when, what books are on reserve for your use in Reed Library, and how to use the world-wide web for research. Please take the time over the weekend after the first week of classes to read this page carefully and to familiarize yourself with the other pages for this course. Please get in the habit of checking back to this web site to keep track of changes to the tentative schedule listed in your syllabus and to find advice on papers, as well as to surf the ever-expanding list of links to interesting web pages related to the course. And please contact me anytime (see above for my coordinates) if you have ideas about how to improve these pages or the course as a whole. I hope you enjoy taking this course as much as I enjoy teaching it!
I. Course Description
The study of major texts from origins to the present in American literature. Will include divergent approaches to texts, the historical development of the literatures, and the relationships between literature and other disciplines. Both sections of ENGL 206 trace the development, historical context, and current relevance of American literature from the Civil War to the present. We'll examine such movements as realism, naturalism, modernism, and postmodernism, such topics as ethnicity, race, gender, class, migration, and region, and such contexts as reconstruction, the depression, the cold war, civil rights, and globalization.
ENGL 206 is an elective in English and American Studies. For all students who entered Fredonia in Fall 2001 or after, it satisfies Part V in the College Core Curriculum (CCC). Section 2 is part of "The American Experience," an experimental sequence of courses for first-year Liberal Arts majors, and should be taken alongside HIST 106 United States History II and POLI 120 American Politics.
II. Rationale
In ENGL 206, as in most courses offered by the English Department, students from a range of majors, minors, and concentrations interact, and the goals of the professional programs are integrated with specific course and CCC goals. Achieving these goals (described in Section IV below) will require us to foster academic skills and intellectual habits of reading closely and carefully, thinking critically and creatively, listening actively and attentively, speaking thoughtfully and concisely, and writing clearly and analytically‹skills and habits useful to everyone, but of particular importance to future teachers.
III. Textbooks. The textbooks adopted for this course are:
IV. Course Objectives and Outcomes
Courses in Part V of the CCC are designed to present general ideas and ethical principles basic to the humanities and to foster critical thinking and critical literacy. These sections of ENGL 206 set out to reach these goals by helping students (1) appreciate and understand various works, genres, and movements in post-Civil War American literature, (2) consider how literature responds to and helps shape Americans' sense of individual and national identity, and (3) hone their analytical, discussion, and writing skills. To achieve these goals, students will
V. Instructional Methods and Activities
The methods used in the classroom will include lecture, in-class writing, guided discovery, open discussion, cooperative group work, and other discussion-oriented activities.
VI. Evaluation and Grade Assignment
A. Methods
Attendance/Preparation/Participation (15%). Regular attendance and thoughtful participation are crucial to your enjoyment of and success in this course. If there is absolutely no way for you to avoid missing a class, you are expected to contact me ahead of time or soon after your absence, preferably by email (see section VIII for more on attendance policies in this course). Even more important than showing up on time, of course, is coming to class prepared and focused. I expect you to read what has been assigned for a given date at least once (and preferably more than that!) by the time we begin to discuss it in class. This is a discussion rather than a lecture course, after all; although I will provide some context and background for our reading, the bulk of class time will be spent in small- or large-group discussions and activities. Since it's difficult to make good contributions to discussions about a literary work if you haven't read it carefully or thought about it extensively, how well you budget your time outside of class will to a large degree determine how well you do in this class in general and how well you do on this portion of your course grade in particular.
Your grade for this segment of the course will be based on a combination of your attendance, the quality of your participation in class, and your preparation, effort, and improvement over the course of the semester. As there is no final exam in this course, think of my evaluation of your preparation/participation as a different but equally important method of assessing your overall performance in the course. Due to the importance of attendance and participation, more than two unexcused absences will hurt your preparation/participation grade and each non-emergency absence after the fourth will lower your final course grade by one-third of a grade (e.g., with five absences a B+ will become a B; with seven, it will become a C+).
Response Papers (20%). You must complete a minimum of two 2-to-4-page response papers. These essays are designed to be brief critical explorations of topics and questions that evolve out of class discussion. You may write on any work(s) we discuss in class and may approach your topic from any angle, so long as your essay has a coherent argument, meets length requirements, and uses MLA format for citations and bibliography. For further information and advice on these essays, go to http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/engl206f02/rp.htm.
Your response paper grade will be the average of all your short essay grades; therefore, you can potentially improve your grade in this area by writing additional essays.
Mid-term Examination/Final Examination (40%). The examinations (each worth 20% of your final grade) will ask you to draw upon class readings and discussions to analyze concepts and issues raised in the "Literature of Reconstruction" unit of the course. For further information and advice on the mid-term exam, go to http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/engl206f02/me.htm. Students will have a chance to take an identically-structured examination on the "Literature of Migration" unit if they wish to try to improve upon their mid-term exam grade. The final examination will be similarly structured and based on the "Literature of Resistance" unit; for further information on the final exam, go to http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/engl206f02/fe.htm.
Final Project (25%). You may choose from several options to complete your final project. Although the project itself is not due until December, you must turn in a learning contract in November. This assignment is intended to provide opportunities for a more in-depth engagement with class topics and issues, and it should reflect sustained critical thinking about your subject matter. Options include a medium-length critical essay, a creative writing project, an analytical web site, or an interdisciplinary research paper. For further information and advice on this project, go to http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/engl206f02/fp.htm.
B. Grading. All work during the semester will be graded on a letter basis (A=outstanding, B=good, C=average, D=bad, E=awful) and converted into a number for purposes of calculating final grades. I use the following conversion system (the number in parentheses is the "typical" or "normal" conversion, but any number in the range may be assigned to a given letter grade):
A+=97-100 (98); A=93-96.99 (95); A-=90-92.99 (91); B+=87-89.99 (88); B=83-86.99 (85); B-=80-82.99 (81); C+=77-79.99 (78); C=73-76.99 (75); C-=70-72.99 (71); D+=67-69.99 (68); D=63-66.99 (65); D-=60-62.99 (61); E=0-59.99 (55)
Your final grade is determined by converting the weighted numerical average of the above assignments into a letter grade, according to the above scale.
C. Portfolio. English and Secondary English Education majors should be aware of the English department's guidelines for ongoing portfolio submissions.
VII. Bibliography. Some of the following works may be found on reserve at the circulation desk in Reed Library (click here for the reserves list):
A. Contemporary References
B. Classic References
C. Key Journals
VIII. Course Schedule and Policies
A. Tentative Course Schedule. The following course schedule is subject to revision--please refer here regularly for updates to this schedule, notes on the texts, and suggestions for further reading. (Key: HAAL=The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 2 [4th ed.].)
Literature of Reconstruction: Region and Race, Dialect and Difference
W 8/28 Introductions
F 8/30 Remembering the Civil War. Elaine Hedges and Sandra Zagarell, "Nations, Regions, Borders" (HAAL 35-37); 1889: Ambrose Bierce, "Chickamauga" (HAAL 460-464); 1895: Stephen Crane, "A Mystery of Heroism" (HAAL 497-503)
M 9/2 Labor Day: No Class
W 9/4 The Racial Politics of Reconstruction. Elaine Hedges, "Critical Visions of Postbellum America" (HAAL 544-545); 1892: Anna Julia Cooper, from A Voice from the South (HAAL 591-606: "Our Raison D'etre" and "Woman Versus the Indian"); 1901: Booker T. Washington, from Up from Slavery (HAAL 918-942: Ch. I, III, VI, XIII, XIV)
F 9/6 1903: W.E.B. Du Bois, from The Souls of Black Folk (HAAL 945-965: Ch. I, III, XIV)
M 9/9 1891: William Dean Howells, "Criticism and Fiction" (HAAL 254-257); 1896: Paul Laurence Dunbar, "We Wear the Mask" (HAAL 174); 1899: Charles Chesnutt, "Po' Sandy" (HAAL 136-142); 1931: Zora Neale Hurston, "Two Tales from Eatonville, Florida" (HAAL 49-51)
W 9/11 1885: Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Notice-Ch. 7 (1-48)
F 9/13 1885: Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ch. 8-18 (49-134)
M 9/16 Yom Kippur: No Class
W 9/18 1885: Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ch. 19-30 (135-218)
F 9/20 1885: Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Ch. 31-Chapter the Last (219-296)
M 9/23 Creole New Orleans. 1874: George Washington Cable, "'Tite Poulette" (HAAL 178-193); 1892: Kate Chopin, "Désirée's Baby" (HAAL 364-368)
W 9/25 The New West. 1904: Alexander Lawrence Posey, "Fus Fixico's Letter Number 44" (HAAL 213-214); 1907: John Milton Oskison, "The Problem of Old Harjo" (HAAL 216-221)
F 9/27 STUDY SESSION: Mid-term Examination
M 9/30 New England Personae. 1890: Marietta Holley, from Samantha Among the Brethren (HAAL 575-578); 1891: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, "The Revolt of 'Mother'" (HAAL 757-767); 1900: Sarah Orne Jewett, "The Foreigner" (HAAL 730-746); 1914: Robert Frost, "Mending Wall" (HAAL 1129-1130); RESPONSE ESSAY #1 due in class
W 10/2 Midwestern Trifles. 1917: Susan Glaspell, Trifles (HAAL 1110-1119); 1919: Sherwood Anderson, "Hands" (HAAL 1142-1145)
F 10/4 MID-TERM EXAMINATION
Literature of Migration: Emigres and Exiles, Fugitives and Immigrants
M 10/7 Manifest Destinies? Elaine Hedges, James Kyung-Jin Lee, Richard Yarborough, and Sandra Zagarell, "Late Nineteenth Century: 1865-1910" (HAAL 1-34); 1881: Standing Bear, "What I Am Going to Tell You Here Will Take Me Until Dark" (HAAL 545-548); 1893: Ghost Dance Songs (HAAL 206-209); 1916: Charles Alexander Eastman, from From the Deep Woods to Civilization (HAAL 554-561); 1900: Gertrude Bonnin (Zitkala-Sa), from The School Days of an Indian Girl (HAAL 859-867)
W 10/9 1885: María Amparo Ruiz de Burton, from The Squatter and the Don (HAAL 241-248); 1898: Stephen Crane, "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" (HAAL 520-527); Raymund Paredes, "Corridos" (HAAL 221-222); 1976: "Gregorio Cortez" and "Jacinto Treviño" (HAAL 225-232)
F 10/11 Fall Break: No Class
M 10/14 The Great Migration. 1895: Frances E.W. Harper, "The Martyr of Alabama" (HAAL 582-584); 1912: James Weldon Johnson, from Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (HAAL 971-986); 1919-1920: Claude McKay, "If We Must Die" and "The Lynching" (HAAL 1674-1675); 1923: Jean Toomer, "Blood-Burning Moon" (HAAL 1583-1588); 1934: Richard Wright, "Between the World and Me" (HAAL 1915-1916)
W 10/16 Immigrant America. Elaine Hedges and Sandra Zagarell, "The Making of 'Americans'" (HAAL 823-824); 1883: Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" (HAAL 27); 1894: Thomas Bailey Aldrich, "Unguarded Gates" (HAAL 28); 1895: Finley Peter Dunne, "The Wanderers" (HAAL 628-629); 1898: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, "Goddess of Liberty, Answer" (HAAL 808-809); 1909: Edith Maud Eaton (Sui Sin Far), "In the Land of the Free" (HAAL 842-848); 1910-1940: "Carved on the Walls: Poetry by Early Chinese Immigrants" (HAAL 1955-1963)
F 10/18 Charles Molesworth, "Issues and Visions in Modern America" (HAAL 1713-1714); 1891: José Martí, "Our America" (HAAL 879-886); 1912: Mary Antin, from The Promised Land (HAAL 871-877); 1916: Randolph Bourne, "Trans-National America" (HAAL 1716-1727); 1923: Anzia Yezierska, "America and I" (HAAL 1729-1735); 1925: Gertrude Stein, from The Making of Americans (HAAL 1228-1230)
M 10/21 The International Story. 1879: Henry James, Daisy Miller (HAAL 280-319)
W 10/23 1880: Constance Fenimore Woolson, "Miss Grief" (HAAL 706-721); 1899: Edith Wharton, "Souls Belated" (HAAL 1013-1031)
F 10/25 1921: Marianne Moore, "England" (HAAL 1476-1477); 1927: Ernest Hemingway, "Hills Like White Elephants" (HAAL 1494-1497); 1932: John Dos Passos, "The Body of an American" (HAAL 1755-1759); 1948: Edwin Rolfe, "Elegia" (HAAL 1340-1343)
M 10/28 The Great Depression and After. 1930: William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying 1-93
W 10/30 1930: William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying 94-179
F 11/1 1930: William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying 180-261
M 11/4 Cary Nelson, "A Sheaf of Political Poetry in the Modern Period" (HAAL 1316-1320); 1932: Meridel LeSueur, "Women on the Breadlines" (HAAL 1807-1811); 1934: Kenneth Fearing, "1933" (HAAL 1320-1322); 1934: Tillie Lerner Olsen, "I Want You Women up North to Know" (HAAL 1324-1327); 1936: Genevieve Taggard, "Up State‹Depression Summer" (HAAL 1344-1346); 1939: John Steinbeck, from The Grapes of Wrath (HAAL 1882-1889); 1946: Carlos Bulosan, from America Is in the Heart (HAAL 2089-2095)
W 11/6 1938: Thomas Whitecloud, "Blue Winds Dancing" (HAAL 1831-1836); 1968: James Alan McPherson, "A Solo Song: For Doc" (HAAL 2657-2673); 1988: Frank Chin, "Railroad Standard Time" (HAAL 2108-2112)
F 11/8 Legacies of Migrations. 1978: Janice Mirikitani, "Desert Flowers" (HAAL 2994-2996); 1981: Simon Ortiz, from From Sand Creek (HAAL 3162-3167); 1983: Joy Harjo, "New Orleans" (HAAL 3081-3082); 1986: Pat Mora, "Border Town: 1938" (HAAL 2798-2799); 1986: Aurora Levins Morales, "Child of the Americas" (HAAL 3146-3147); 1987: Gloria Anzaldúa, from Borderlands/La Frontera (HAAL 3016-3039); 1997: Karen Tei Yamashita, from Tropic of Orange (HAAL 2879-2881)
Literature of Resistance: Politics and Poetics, History and Aesthetics
M 11/11 Enter the Modernists. Charles Molesworth, "Modern Period: 1910-1945" and "Alienation and Literary Experimentation (HAAL 887-914, 1189-1190); 1918: Ezra Pound, "A Retrospect" (HAAL 1193-1194); 1919: T.S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (HAAL 1368-1374); 1925: Amy Lowell, "The Sisters" (HAAL 1222-1226); 1935: Gertrude Stein, from Composition as Explanation (HAAL 1233-1234); 1942: Wallace Stevens, "Of Modern Poetry" (HAAL 1514); RESPONSE ESSAY #2 due in class
W 11/13 1915: T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (HAAL 1363-1368); 1920: Ezra Pound, from Hugh Selwyn Mauberly (Life and Contacts) (HAAL 1195-1204); 1944: H.D., from Trilogy (HAAL 1311-1316)
F 11/15 1916: Robert Frost, "The Oven Bird" (HAAL 1131-1132); 1921: Marianne Moore, "Poetry" (HAAL 1475-1476); 1921: Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Spring" (HAAL 1181-1182); 1923: William Carlos Williams, "Spring and All," "To Elsie," and "The Flower" (HAAL 1242-1243, 1245-1247, 1249-1251); 1923: Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man," "Peter Quince at the Clavier," "Anecdote of the Jar," and "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman" (HAAL 1509-1513)
M 11/18 The Harlem Renaissance. Hortense Spillers, "The New Negro Renaissance" (HAAL 1566-1569); 1908: James Weldon Johnson, "O Black and Unknown Bards" (HAAL 969-970); 1921-1951: Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," "Negro," "I, Too," "Dream Variations," "Harlem," "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" (HAAL 1599-1600, 1603-1606, 1616-1619); 1923-1924: Gwendolyn Bennett, "Heritage" and "To Usward" (HAAL 1637-1639); 1924-1925: Countee Cullen, "Incident," "From the Dark Tower," "Pagan Prayer," "Heritage" (HAAL 1630-1631, 1632-1636); 1925: Alain Locke, "The New Negro" (HAAL 1571-1579); 1926: George Schuyler, "The Negro-Art Hokum" (HAAL 1703-1706)
W 11/20 The Beats and Other Cold War Rebels. Robert Martin, "Contemporary Period: 1945 to the Present" and "Orthodoxy and Resistance: Cold War Culture and Its Discontents" (HAAL 1965-1973); 1947: Robert Frost, "Directive" (HAAL 1139-1140); 1955-1956: Allen Ginsberg, "A Supermarket in California," "Howl," and "America" (HAAL 2295-2307); 1956: John Ashbery, "The Instruction Manual" (HAAL 2566-2568); 1958: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, "I Am Waiting" (HAAL 2316-2319); 1959: Gary Snyder, "Riprap" (HAAL 2349-2350); 1967: Robert Creeley, "Words" (HAAL 2328-2329)
F 11/22 The Civil Rights Movement. Robert Martin, "New Communities, New Identities, New Energies" (HAAL 2383-2389); 1957: John Okada, from No-No Boy (HAAL 2203-2213); 1960: Gwendolyn Brooks, "A Bronzeville Mother. . ." and "The Last Quatrain of the Ballad of Emmett Till" (HAAL 2288-2291); 1963: Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream" (HAAL 2456-2459); 1964: Malcolm X, "The Ballot or the Bullet" (HAAL 2468-2482); 1972: Michael Harper, "Song: I Want a Witness" (HAAL 2816); 1992: Lawson Fusao Inada, "Instructions to All Persons" (HAAL 2546-2548)
M 11/25 - F 11/29 Thanksgiving Break: No Classes.
M 12/2 1970: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye 1-80
W 12/4 1970: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye 81-163
F 12/6 1970: Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye 164-216
M 12/9 Vietnam: Writing and War. 1968: Norman Mailer, from The Armies of the Night (HAAL 2750-2760); 1977: Michael Herr, from Dispatches (HAAL 2732-2739); 1988: Yusef Komunyakaa, "Tu Do Street," "Prisoners," "Thanks" (HAAL 2769-2772); 1990: Tim O'Brien, "In the Field," (HAAL 2741-2748)
W 12/11 Enter the Postmodernists. Robert Martin, "Postmodernity and Difference: Promises and Threats" (HAAL 2821-2824); 1968: John Barth, "Lost in the Funhouse" (HAAL 2825-2840); 1976: Ishmael Reed, "Flight to Canada" (HAAL 2870-2872); 1977: Donald Barthelme, "At the End of the Mechanical Age" (HAAL 2842-2846)
F 12/13 Globalization and Feminism. 1973: Adrienne Rich, "Diving into the Wreck" (HAAL 2526-2528); 1975-1976: Maxine Hong Kingston, from The Woman Warrior (HAAL 2961-2980); 1983: Joy Harjo, "Anchorage" (HAAL 3084-3085); 1985: Wendy Rose, "Story Keeper" (HAAL 3121-3123); 1989: June Jordan, "Poem About My Rights" (HAAL 2633-2636); 1991: Lorna Dee Cervantes, "Bananas" (HAAL 3142-3145)
T 12/17 FINAL EXAM: SECTION 1 (1:30-3:30 PM)
W 12/18 FINAL EXAM: SECTION 2 (4-6 PM); FINAL PROJECT due no later than 4 pm
B. Class Policies
1. Attendance. As stated in Section VI above, barring emergencies each absence after the fourth will lower your final course grade by one-third of a grade (e.g., with five absences a B+ will become a B; with seven, it will become a C+). Be aware that absences due to emergencies are the only absences that will not be counted toward your total for the semester. Emergencies include but are not limited to death in the family, hospitalization or major illness, and natural disasters; scheduled and unavoidable school-sponsored events (games, meets, performances, etc.) are also counted as emergencies for the purpose of this attendance policy.
2. Late Assignments. Late final projects will not be accepted or graded. Other assignments will be accepted and graded but will lose one-third of a grade per day late (e.g., a response paper turned in two days past the due date that would have otherwise received an A- would be penalized two-thirds of a grade and thus receive a B). Only students who ask for an extension at least two days before the due date will be granted one; asking for an extension on the final project means that your final grade for the semester will be an incomplete (I), and that you must turn in your final project before the end of the following semester so that the I becomes a grade other than an E.
3. Plagiarism and Academic Honesty. To plagiarize is "to steal and pass off as one's own the ideas or words of another" (Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary). SUNY Fredonia strongly condemns plagiarism and takes severe action against those who plagiarize. Disciplinary action may extend to suspension from privileges or expulsion from college. See pages 216 and 226 of the College Catalog 2001-2003 for further information.
ENGL 206: Survey of American Literature, Fall 2002
Created: 8/28/02 5:50 pm
Last modified: 11/15/02 11:31 am