Westra (Grand Valley St U)

Texts

Required Text: The Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volume 2. Paul Lauter, et al., eds.

General Information

Background

Welcome to an American Literature course unlike any you've had before! This course will change your view of American literature and the people who have created it. You'll be confronting writers and works that have never before appeared in any standard "American lit" text--and yet you'll find that these outstanding men and women writers represent remarkable literary careers; courageously creative imaginations; exciting works of fiction, drama, and poetry; and the irrepressible and often startling urges to shape stories, events, and people out of the raw material of words.

Issues

As we read mainstream authors such as Twain, James, Hemingway, and Faulkner alongside a variety of women, minority, and ethnic authors whose works have previously been unavailable, we'll be facing lots of significant questions this semester: why do writers write? what makes writing good--or great? how does a nation's literature reflect or shape its history? is writing an art, a science, or a business? who decides whether or not a piece of literature is "great" or gets published? does literature really influence or change us, and if so, how?

Course Goals

1. To interact with writers who have reflected the deepest dreams and anxieties, hopes and fears of the developing American nation.

2. To grasp how particular American writers represented challenges to, participation in, or hostility toward "mainstream" Amerian progress.

3. To increase in sensitivity to metaphor, symbol, language, themes, structure, style, and world view of the wide range of writers that comprise our nation's literary heritage.

Readings & Pedagogy

WEEK 1

Jan. 14: Introduction to the textbook and each other Jan. 16: Julia A. J. Foote : "A Brand Plucked from the Fire" 35-40; Elizabeth Stuart Phelps : from The Story of Avis 94

WEEK 2

Jan. 21: Mary Wilkins Freeman : "Old Woman Magoun" 159 Jan. 23: Mark Twain : "A True Story" 227; "The War Prayer 429; Paul L. Dunbar: "We Wear the Mask" 489; "Sympathy" 488

WEEK 3

Jan. 28: Mark Twain : Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 243-295 Jan. 30: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 296-346

WEEK 4

Feb. 4: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 347-384 Feb. 6: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn 384-426

WEEK 5

Feb. 11: Charles Waddell Chestnutt : "The Passing of Grandison" 462; John Milton Oskison : "The Problem of Old Harjo" 497-504 Feb. 13: William Dean Howells : "Editha" 533; Ambrose Bierce: "Chickamauga" 654

WEEK 6

Feb. 18: Kate Chopin : "Desire's Baby" 628; "The Story of an Hour: 635; "Lilacs" 67 Feb. 20: Marietta Holley : from Samantha Among the Brethren 756

WEEK 7

Feb. 25: Charlotte Perkins Gilman : from Herland 774; Ellen Glasgow: "The Professional Instinct" 972 Feb. 27: Jack London : "To Build a Fire" 727; Upton Sinclair : from The Jungle 813-828

PAPER #1

Note: This paper is a person-to-person interview with one of the authors students have been reading. Through the interview format students are expected to explore issues, characters, setting, and so forth.

WEEK 8

Mar. 17: Poetry: Robinson Jeffers : "The Excesses of God" 1096; "Carmel Point: 1098, "Vulture" 1098; Edna St. Vincent Millay : "On Thought in Harness" 1160; Ezra Pound: "Salutation the Second" 1167; Mar. 19: Ernest Hemingway : "Hills Like White Elephants" 1390

WEEK 9

Mar. 24: William Faulkner : "Barn Burning" 1406 Mar. 26: Grace Paley : "The Loudest Voice" 1883

WEEK 10

Mar. 31: Poetry: Langston Hughes 1488-1492; Claude McKay 1558-1561; Gwendolyn Bennett : "Heritage" 1516; Arna Bontemps : "A Black Man Talks of Reaping" 1518-19 Apr. 2: Zora Neale Hurston : "Sweat" 1537

PAPER #2

Note: This paper has student's creating their own short story in order to examine the readings in the course.

WEEK 11

Apr. 7: Albert Maltz "The Happiest Man on Earth" 1616 Apr. 9: Meridel LeSueur: "Annunciation" 1655; Edith Maude Eaton (Sui Sin Far): 895 "In the Land of the Free"

WEEK 12

Apr. 14: Ralph Ellison : from Invisible Man, chap. 1 "Battle Royal" 1845; Apr. 16: James Baldwin : "Sonny's Blues" 1913

WEEK 13

Apr. 21: Edward Albee : Zoo Story 2264