Home > Departments > English > Brad Cook	Print View

English 11R    American Literature (…and you)

Instructor:                  Mr. Cook                                 email: brad.cook@spps.org

Fall 2008                                                                     Phone: 651-293-8940 ( ext.1940)

Introduction:

Literature, on its most basic level, is the purist reflection of the conscious dilemmas plaguing a society and the unconscious neurosis infesting it. By critically reading and analyzing literature from different lime periods of American history, - one can gain an eerie feel for the forces which shape our society today and tormented us in the past.  Unfortunately, we often times choose to ignore how long lasting various philosophic trends of yore affect us (two hundreds plus years is actually not that long in terms of historic proportions). Literature is far and away the best means to explore our shared past, present and future.

Objectives:

• The students will be able to ascertain and explore stylistic devices used by the author.
• The students will be able to understand the influence of the philosophy of the time period on American Literature.
• The students will be able to deconstruct and provide critical analysis upon the dominant themes within the text.
• The students will be able to appropriately and critically discuss the text within a classroom setting.
• The students will be able to write clear and concise academic essays dealing with the text in an in-depth manner.
• The students will he able to place literature texts within a larger body of both canonical and non-canonical works of American literature.

Course Expectations

• Respect EVERYONE, everything and all ideas at all times.
• Be ON TIME
• Complete and turn in ALL WORK ON TIME
• Participate in POSITIVE ways
• No headphones, cell phones other electronics or food allowed in class
• No Interruptions/Respect Others
• Do all work neatly and to the best of your ability or it will be returned to you to do over.
• You will bring your book, notebook, folder and pencil/pen to class every day

Late Work/Makeup Policy

1. If a student is absent with a valid excuse, they will have as many days to make up the assignment as they were absent, one week prior to the due date.
2. If you are not absent, late work is not accepted beyond 2 days after the due date.
• 1 day late = a 15% reduction in your grade
• 2days late = a 30% reduction in your grade
• 3days late = NO CREDIT

Materials Required (by the end of the first week)

·        Planner

·        Five Subject notebook  (just for this class) or composition notebook (may need two)

·        2 Pocket folder

·        Pencil

·        Blue or black ink pen

·        Red pen

·        Loose leaf paper

·        Handouts

Grading:

Notebooks:

Students will keep all of their more concrete, bookwork assignments, vocabulary words and dialectic response journals in a notebook that will he checked at the end of each unit and/or major work selection. Notebooks figure prominently in your grade.

Class Discussion:

A portion of your grade will he based on class participation. For every day you

contribute, points go into the grade book. If you do not contribute, you get no points.

Unfortunately, if you are absent, you will receive no points. Ain’t here--can’t discuss.

Oral Presentation: The students will be required to give a ten minute oral presentation of

literary analysis on a selected poet. See ‘papers’ below for more information.

Papers:

Paper 1

Letter of Recommendation: This will be used to assess the needs of my students with the foci being on stating the objective, use of three detailed examples to support their persuasive argument and a summary conclusion. Though this is an assessment, students will receive instruction on all elements and proper format.

Paper 2: 

Students will select a famous American Poet to research. They will report on the author’s biography, color mark and analyze two poems by the author, and give a 7-10 minute presentation on the author’s life and an analysis of one of the two poems selected. Students will present without a script, using note cards as prompts; and visual aides.

Paper 3:

This paper is a culmination of a yearlong project between the English and Social Studies Departments (Cook, Hayes and Zeitchick). Students will identify a need in the community, seek a solution, and volunteer 30 hours with an organization that works to solve this problem. Students will be given detailed outlines of the project with deadlines, guidelines and rubrics. Our Ultimate Goal is empower students to make a difference in their community, and reflect on their experiences.

Final Test: Students will be asked to place the authors we’ve studied into the philosophical and historical context, and detail the significance of each.

While these requirements seem like a tremendous amount of work, my main objective in this course is to have fun with the texts. In my humble opinion, literature is paradoxically the purest, yet most complex form of expression, and therefore deserves to be taken seriously academically, but also explored in the light-hearted manner indicative of the passion which brought all English teachers to literature in the first place. After all is said and done, it is this passion I hope my students will embrace. The selection of texts representing each period will vary from year to year at the discretion of the instructor. General unit descriptions follow below. Various texts the instructor will be selecting from are detailed in successive pages.

Units

Unit One: “The Not-So-Quiet Invasion of a Land” or “Pilgrims Progress”

(The Birth of Enlightenment: 1630—1776)

The literature and philosophies of the Puritans: analyzing the effects of the Age of’

Enlightenment and the beginnings of Revolution.

Unit Two: “You Say You Want a Revolution?” or “So, Now What?”

(The Revolutionary and Constitutional Crisis Years 1776— 1840)

America faces a crisis of identity: Americans go out to find themselves: sort of.

Unit Three: “Original Tree Huggers” or “Put Down the Harpoon, Buddy” The American

Romantic Period. (1840-1 865). The movement back to religion in determining thoughts and practice. The establishment

of a unique American literary voice.

Unit Four: “The Un-Civil War” or “All that Glitters isn’t Gold”

(The Realist/Naturalist movement, (1865-1914)

America receives its first big wake-up call: Literature decides to tell it like it is: sort of.

Unit Five: “The Swinging 20’s and The Great Depression” or “All That Jazz”

(Period between the Wars, (1914—1945)

America gets self-indulgent, really broke and then has to pick itself up to fight a “just

War.”

Unit Six: “Yuppies and the Red Scare.” or “Something’s Happening Here. What it is

Ain’t Exactly Clear.” (Post—World War II literature, 1945-present)

America is proud of itself, then ashamed of itself, and well, then the seventies happened-I

don’t remember much after that.

The following selections are but a few samples from which I will be teaching. Obviously, there is a great deal more to choose from; and I reserve the right to substitute whichever texts I choose depending on availability, and how they might fit the scope of the course.

Unit One Texts:

The United States Constitution/Other persuasive historical texts

Anne Bradstreet

            To My Dear and Loving Husband

            Upon the Burning of our House, July 10^th, 1666

Edward Taylor

            from Preface to God’s Determination

            Huswifery

Jonathan Edwards

            from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Nathaniel Hawthorne

            The Minister’s Black Veil

            Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment

            The Scarlet Letter

Unit Two Texts:

Frederick Douglas

            Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas

            My bondage and My Freedom

Ambrose Bierce

            Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Stephen Crane

            Mystery of Heroism

            An Episode of War

Mark Twain

            The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Unit Three Texts:

Jack London

            A Piece of Steak

            To build a Fire

Bret Harte

            The Outcasts of Poker Flat

Kate Chopin

            The Awakening

            The Story of an Hour

Willa Cather

            My Antonia

            A Wagner Matinee

Walt Whitman

Emily Dickinson

Unit Four Texts:

Sherwood Anderson

            Sophistication

            The Egg

            Corn Planting

F. Scott Fitzgerald

            Winter Dreams

            The Great Gatsby

Ernest Hemingway

            Old Man at the Bridge

In Another Country

William Faulkner

            Barn Burning

John Steinbeck

Flight

            Of Mice and Men

            Grapes of Wrath

Poetry (over 100 American poets)

John Dos Passos

Archibald Macleish

T.S. Elliot

William Carlos Williams

H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

Ezra Pound

e.e. Cummings

Gertrude Stein

The Harlem Renaissance

Paul Laurence Dunbar

Countee Cullen

Claude McKay

Jean Toomer

Langston Hughes

Unit Five Texts:

Arthur Miller

            Death of A Salesmen

The Things They Carried

Tim O’Brien

Richard Wright

            from Black Boy

Maxine Hong Kinston

            The Girl Who Wouldn’t Talk, from The Woman Warrior

Alice Walker

            from In Search of Our Mother’s Garden

Sylvia Plath

James Baldwin

            Notes of a Native Son

            Autobiographical Notes

August Wilson

            Fences

Unit Six Texts:

Until They Bring the Streetcars Back

Stanley Gordon West

Catcher in the Rye

D. J. Salinger

A now, enlightened, examination of American literature.

“Have we learned anything in 400 years” or “Are we caught in a loop?”

(Preparation for the final essay and exam)

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Returning this syllabus with both signatures/dates/phone by the first Friday of the school year starts your student off with 25 Extra Credit Points. (They will need them).

Student Signature:_____________________   Parent Signature: _______________

Date:                                                                            Date:

Home & work Phone:_______________    ______________________

Email: ________________________