ENGLISH 2312, AMERICAN LITERATURE
I
Fall 2006,
10:00-10:50 MWF, Irby 201
Dr.
Mike Schaefer
Office phone: 450-5119
Office:
Irby 408
Home phone: 329-0538
e-mail:
schaefer@uca.edu
course
website: http://faculty.uca.edu/~schaefer
Office
Hours: 9:00-10:00, 11:00-12:00 MWF; 8:15-9:15, 11:00-12:00 TTh; and by
appointment
COURSE
FOCUS: Literature
provides "a clarification of life--not necessarily a great clarification,
such as sects and cults are founded on, but . . . a momentary stay against
confusion."—Robert Frost, “The Figure a Poem Makes”
"Literature,
whether handed down by word of mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on
reality . . . enabling us to encounter, in the safe, manageable dimensions of
make-believe the very same threats to integrity that may assail the psyche in
real life; and at the same time providing through the self-discovery which it
imparts a veritable weapon for coping with these threats whether they are found
within our problematic and incoherent selves or in the world around us."—Chinua
Achebe, “What Has Literature Got to Do with It?”
“It
is not the literal past that rules us, but images of the past.”—cultural
historian George Steiner, quoted in The Last Bolshevik
“That
which we remember is, more often than not, that which we would like to have
been; or that which we hope to be. Thus
our memory and our identity are ever at odds; our history ever a tall tale told
by inattentive idealists.”—Ralph Ellison, Shadow and Act.
“For
every attitude that is supposed to be distinctively American one can find an
opposite stance that is no less so . . ..There is no such thing as an
essentially American world view any more than there is an essentially American
landscape. Anyone who thinks
otherwise shows that they have not grasped the most important fact about
America, which is that it is unknowable.”—British historian John Gray,
writing in Granta magazine, 2002
“In
art as in science there is no delight without the detail, and it is on detail
that I have tried to fix the reader’s attention.
Let me repeat that unless these are thoroughly understood and remembered,
all ‘general ideas’ (so easily acquired, so profitably resold) must
necessarily remain but worn passports allowing their bearers shortcuts from one
area of ignorance to another.” —Vladimir Nabokov
TEXT:
The Norton Anthology of American Literature, sixth edition, volumes A
& B (boxed together as package 1)
READING
SCHEDULE:
Aug.
25:
Introduction to course
Weeks
1-2:
“Literature to 1700”; John Smith—all selections; William
Bradford—all selections
Weeks
3-4:
Iroquois Creation Story; Pima Stories of the Beginning of the World;
Native American Trickster Tales—Winnebago, Mourning Dove
Week
5:
Anne Bradstreet—“The Author to Her Book,” “Before the Birth of
One of Her Children,” “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” “A Letter to Her
Husband, Absent upon Public Employment,” “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild
Elizabeth Bradstreet,” “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet,”
“On My Dear Grandchild Simon Bradstreet,” “Here Follows Some Verses upon
the Burning of Our House”
Week
6:
Mary Rowlandson--A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs.
Mary Rowlandson
FIRST ESSAY DUE MONDAY, OCT. 2
Weeks
7-8:
“American Literature 1700-1820”; Jonathan Edwards—“Personal
Narrative”; Benjamin Franklin—The Autobiography
MIDTERM DUE MONDAY, OCT. 16
Week
9:
Phillis Wheatley—“On Being Brought from Africa to America,”
“Thoughts on the Works of Providence,” “To S. M., a Young African
Painter,” “To His Excellency General Washington”
Week
10:
Philip Freneau—“On the Emigration to America and Peopling the Western
Country,” “The Indian Burying Ground”; “American Literature
1820-1865”; James Fenimore Cooper—The Pioneers Chapter III. [The
Slaughter of the Pigeons]
Week
11:
Ralph Waldo Emerson—“The American Scholar”
Week
12:
Walt Whitman—“Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” “The
Wound-Dresser”
Weeks
13-14: Nathaniel
Hawthorne—“The May-Pole of Merry Mount,” “Young Goodman
Brown,” “My Kinsman, Major Molineux”
SECOND ESSAY DUE FRIDAY, DEC. 1
Week 15:
Herman Melville—“The Portent,” “The March into Virginia,” “A
Utilitarian View of the Monitor’s Fight,” “The House-Top”
ATTENDANCE:
Attendance--on time--is mandatory.
Four or more absences will lower your class participation grade, as will
recurrent late arrival. If you miss
six classes, you'll have one week after the last absence to see me with a
believable excuse and a promise to sin no more; if you don't make this deadline,
you'll be dropped from the course with a WF grade.
And if you miss a seventh class following our conference about the six
absences, you'll likewise be dropped with a WF.
EXAMS:
Our midterm exam will cover the course material through October 13.
The final exam will have one section covering the course material from
October 16 to the end of the semester and then a second section taking in the
whole course, asking you to make connections between the various works and
periods we've studied. Both of
these exams will consist of essay questions and both will be take-home in
format. I'll discuss these exams
and their make-up in greater detail in class about a week before their dates.
PAPERS:
I'll hand out a detailed explanation of the out-of-class essay
assignments several weeks before each one is due.
I'll discuss specific grading criteria in class, but note from the outset
that although your essay's content is the most important factor in determining
your grade, how well you write (i.e., thesis, organization, style, coherence,
grammar, etc.) will affect this grade as well, since even the best ideas in the
world aren't really useful if you can't communicate them intelligibly to a
reader. You have the option to
rewrite one of these essays, with the revision grade averaged in with the
original to produce the final grade for that paper; you may turn in this rewrite
at any time through 5 pm Friday, Dec. 15. All
essays are due at the beginning of class on the date assigned.
I'll accept a paper late, but it will lose one letter grade for every
class meeting it's late. Note:
You must submit all required written work to receive a grade other than F for
the course. Please type your
essays, and use only a paper clip to fasten your pages, not staples or plastic
binders or any other form of attachment. Regarding
other matters of form, follow MLA (Modern Language Association) style, which can
be found in writing manuals such as the Holt Handbook, the Harbrace
Handbook, and the MLA Handbook. All of these are available in the University Center for
Communication Support and the library if you don't have a copy of one.
JOURNALS:
Each student must keep a journal of his or her thoughts on each of the assigned
readings, with one entry devoted to the reading before we discuss it in class. Ordinarily,
I’ll pose a question for you to respond to in each entry, with that response
consisting of at least three paragraphs, but beyond that requirement you're also
free to write as much more as you wish about whatever intrigues you, inspires
you, confuses you, or upsets you about the work in question, and about this
work's relationship to other works you've read and its relevance to human life
in general and your own life in particular.
There are two goals to this assignment, both of which you're probably
already aware of. First, the act of
writing stimulates thinking: even if at the outset you feel you have nothing at
all to say about a given work, you'll find that putting fingers to keyboard will
bring ideas forth; if you do have some ideas to start with you'll find that
writing them down will cause you to extend and refine them.
Second, as is obvious from what's just been said, these entries will
prove a rich source of class discussion and exam topics.
You'll
submit these journals by e-mail to the address listed for me at the top of the
syllabus. Each entry must reach me no later than 24 hours prior to the
first class meeting during which we'll discuss that work.
I won’t accept a journal entry after the due date, but you are allowed
to miss one journal with no penalty. I'll
grade you for each submission: if your entry shows an honest, thoughtful effort
to come to grips with the work, you'll get somewhere from 8 to 10; if it shows a
solid but not all that insightful effort, you'll get somewhere from 4 to 7; if
you don't do the entry, or if you blow it off with superficial comments, or if
you just crib ideas from critics and label them as your own, you'll get
somewhere from 0 to 3. This does
not mean that you're forbidden to read criticism to get your ideas going; you're
welcome to do so, and to address critics' ideas in your journal, as long as you
clearly identify which ideas are the critic's and which are your own in response
to what that critic has to say. At
the end of the semester, I’ll figure your final journal grade by taking the
ratio of the total points you’ve earned to the total points possible.
If we do twelve journals, for instance, then the total possible score
will be 120; if you earn 100, then your percentage is 84, which means a B for
your final journal grade. (My
grading scale is 91-100=A, 80-90=B, 70-79=C, 60-69=D, below 60=F.)
GRADES:
Your final grade will come from the following percentages:
Attendance/Participation:
20%
Journal:
20%
Midterm
Exam:
15%
Final
Exam:
15%
First
Essay:
15%
Second
Essay:
15%
ACADEMIC
HONESTY: Knowingly presenting
someone else’s work as your own, whether on an exam, journal, or any other
format, constitutes plagiarism. Plagiarism
carries serious penalties, from failure on a particular assignment to failure
for the course. If you ever have
any questions on this subject, please feel free to ask me about them, without
fear of embarrassment.
UNIVERSITY
POLICIES: If you have questions about the university’s academic policies,
guidelines regarding sexual harassment, or any other matters, please consult the
relevant sections of the UCA Student Handbook.
UCA adheres to the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
If you need an accommodation under this act due to a disability, contact
the UCA Office of Disability Services at 450-3135.