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PRAIRIE STATE COLLEGE
ENGLISH 212, AMERICANLITERATURE II, SECTION 1
1865 TO THE PRESENT
FALL 2009
COURSE SYLLABUS

Instructor: John H. Flannigan, Professor of English
Office: Room 2231
Telephone: 708.709.3609
E-mail: jflannigan@prairiestate.edu
Course Info: www.jflannigan.prairiestate.edu
Office Hours: Mon: 1:45-2:30; Tues.: 9:00-11:00; 2:00-3:00; 1:45-2:30; Wed.: 1:45-2:30;
and by appointment

REQUIRED TEXTS

Lauter, Paul, gen. ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 5th ed. Vol. C. Late Nineteenth Century:
1865-1910; Vol. D. Modern Period: 1910-1945; Vol. E. Contemporary Period: 1945 to the Present. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

NOTE: Volumes C, D, and E are sold as a single shrink-wrapped package in the College Bookstore.

A standard “desk” dictionary (i.e., a hardcover dictionary), e.g., Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, American Heritage, Random House Dictionary, etc

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Students of English 212 will read the works of a wide variety of American authors writing in the period 1865 to the present. Selections are chosen to emphasize important issues in American history and culture: the political and social turmoil associated with the Reconstruction era, the rise of the American city, the role of the immigrant, the struggles for racial and gender equality, and America’s coming of age as a world power. Students will learn to read literature with a critical eye as well as an open mind and to write about it with conviction and authority.

READING AND WRITING REQUIREMENTS

Students will read, on average, approximately sixty pages each week in the Lauter text. Students will write four essays (three pages, typewritten, double-spaced), on topics provided by the instructor. There will be frequent in-class writings (mostly ungraded), three quizzes, and a take-home final examination.

COURSE INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET

Students with Internet access can check for reading and writing assignments by accessing my faculty web page at www.jflannigan.prairiestate.edu. Click on the link to English 212.

LATE OR MISSED ASSIGNMENTS

Assignments are due on indicated dates. Essays will be penalized one-half letter grade per each class meeting of tardiness. If you encounter a problem that will cause you to miss a deadline, you must contact the instructor no later than the due date for the assignment, i.e., not the next day, the next week, or the next month. Generally, brief in-class writings and homework assignments, if missed, cannot be made up.

MISSED QUIZZES

All quizzes have been scheduled in advance. Students must notify the instructor in advance if they are unable to be in class for a quiz. Arrangements can then be made for the student to take the quiz in the Student Success Center (SSC), which is located in Room 2643 (phone: 709-3663). If you do not notify the instructor that you are unable to be in class for a quiz and you do not arrange to take the quiz in the SSC, you cannot make up that quiz.

GRADING POLICY AND CRITERIA

Essays will be graded according to the following criteria: (1) freedom from serious writing problems, such as spelling errors, mistakes in usage, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and comma splices; (2) clarity of ideas; (3) relevance to the readings and assignment, and (4) organization. I will assign the following letter grades for your graded assignments:

“A”: when you have demonstrated outstanding mastery of course material.
“B”: when you have demonstrated above average mastery of course material.
“C”: when you have demonstrated average mastery of course material.
“D”: when you have demonstrated minimal mastery of course material.
“F”: when you have demonstrated poor mastery of course material, failed to attend regularly, to communicate
with your professor, and/or to attempt to do the reading.

The following distribution will be used to ascertain a student’s final grade:

Four three-page essays @ 10%=40%
Three quizzes @ 5%=15%
In-class writing assignments, homework=30%
Participation 15%.

E-MAIL

Students are encouraged to contact the instructor by e-mail. Please identify clearly such e-mail by typing in the “subject” area of your message “PSC English question” so that your mail does not get lost in the sea of spam. WordPerfect and MS Word are preferred program choices for documents you wish to send electronically. (N.B.: Documents created in Microsoft Works are not compatible with the PSC e-mail system and cannot be opened. Make sure you are not using Microsoft Works when drafting assignments for e-mailing. Instead, if you are using a Microsoft product and not WordPerfect, use Microsoft Office and then click on Microsoft Word.)

PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism—the uncredited use of another’s words or ideas—is no better than theft. Plagiarism may result in your failing the course, and it also may result in your suspension or dismissal from the College. Do not jeopardize your future academic career by using plagiarized material.

RULES, ETIQUETTE, AND SUGGESTIONS FOR SUCCESS

Regular attendance and good manners are expected of all students. Every class meeting is designed to aid students in understanding course material and preparing for assignments. Both lectures and discussions are planned so as to make good use of students’ time and effort in attending. Therefore, please observe the following rules:

• Be punctual and dependable. If you habitually miss class or are late, you increase your chances for failing the course or for receiving a grade lower than your abilities indicate. If you experience unexpected conflicts, health problems, etc., do not wait to contact me. In some cases, work can be made up during your absence or on your return. In other cases it is better to withdraw from the course.

• Do not distract others by walking in and out of class or by leaving your cell phone on.

• Do not bring any food or beverages to class. (Bottled water and water bottles are permitted.)

• Occasional visitors to class are welcome, but their attendance is subject to the instructor’s approval. Visitors should be of a reasonable age and maturity and should not distract other students. Please let me know in advance if you wish to bring any visitor(s) to class.

If you are determined to do well, I suggest you follow this pattern:

• Read/think about the assigned material before the class discussion.

• While preparing for class, mark in your text (annotate) and/or take notes in a separate notebook about what you find important or difficult in assigned reading. This is the best way to ensure that you will be able to contribute to and benefit from class discussion.

• Ask questions in class! While this does require having done the reading first, it is the student who can identify and ask about what he/she did not understand who will get the most benefit from class discussion. Don’t worry too much about being “wrong.”

• Take notes in class. Taking notes keeps you alert and provides a record of important ideas.

• Re-read the assigned material to prepare for written work.

• Stay in touch with several classmates to find out about missed classes or lost assignments. Exchange phone numbers and e-mail addresses now.

SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS

Any student with a documented disability needing reasonable accommodations is requested to speak with me after class or during my office hours. You also need to register with the Disability Services Office (Room 1192). All discussions are confidential.

SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS: Assignments are due on the indicated dates. Page numbers refer to each text’s first page in the Heath Anthology of American Literature, Volumes C, D, and E.

Wk. 1 Tue., 8/25 Introduction to course

Thur., 8/27 Walt Whitman, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (handout).

Wk. 2 Tue., 9/1 William Dean Howells, “Editha” (269); Kate Chopin, “Desirée’s Baby” (359);

Thur., 9/3 Stephen Crane, “A Mystery of Heroism” (491); Ambrose Bierce, “Chickamauga” (455);

Wk. 3 Tue., 9/8 Henry James, begin Daisy Miller: A Study (281); Topics for First Essay Distributed;

Thur., 9/10 Henry James, finish Daisy Miller: A Study;

Wk. 4 Tue., 9/15 Quiz No. 1 (on James’ Daisy Miller); Jack London, “South of the Slot” (526);

Thur., 9/17 First Essay Due! Louisa May Alcott, “My Contraband” (652);

Wk. 5 Tue., 9/22 Sarah Orne Jewett, “A White Heron” (694);

Thur., 9/24 Paul Laurence Dunbar, “Mr. Cornelius Johnson, Office Seeker” (172); “When Malindy Sings” (183); “Sympathy” (185);

Wk. 6 Tue., 9/29 Finley Peter Dunne, “The Wanderers” (598); Joel Chandler Harris, “The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story” (108); “How Mr. Rabbit Was Too Sharp for Mr. Fox” (109); Topics for Second Essay Distributed;

Thur., 10/1 Begin Volume B; Booker T. Washington, Selections from Up from Slavery, “A Slave Among Slaves” (870) and “The Struggle for an Education” (875);

Wk. 7 Tue., 10/6 W. E. B. DuBois, Selections from The Souls of Black Folk, “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” (902) and “Of the Sorrow Songs” (911);

Thur., 10/8 Second Essay Due! Quiz No. 2 on (Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois); Edith Wharton, “Roman Fever” (1019); handout on Willa Cather, “A Wagner Matinée” distributed;

Wk. 8 Tue., 10/13 Willa Cather, “A Wagner Matinée” (1035);

Thur., 10/15 Robert Frost, “Design” (1069); “Directive” (1070);

Wk. 9 Tue., 10/20 Sherwood Anderson, “Death in the Woods” (1076); Topics for Third Essay Distributed;

Thur., 10/22 Edna St. Vincent Millay, “The Spring and the Fall” (1101); “Justice Denied in Massachusetts” (1106);

Wk. 10 Tue., 10/27 Eugene O’Neill, begin The Hairy Ape (1177);

Thur., 10/29 Third Essay Due! Eugene O’Neill, finish The Hairy Ape (1177);

Wk. 11 Tue., 11/3 Quiz No. 3 (on O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape); F. Scott Fitzgerald, “May Day” (1326);

Thur., 11/5 Katherine Anne Porter, “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” (1388);

Wk. 12 Tue., 11/10 William Faulkner, “A Courtship” (1438);

Thur., 11/12 Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants” (1422); Zora Neale Hurston, “Sweat” (1578); Topics for Fourth Essay Distributed;

Wk. 13 Tue., 11/17 Begin Volume E; Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Sundays of Satin-Legs Smith” (2143); “The Mother” (2147); “We Real Cool” (2148);

Thur., 11/19 Tim O’Brien, “In the Field” (2392); Bobbie Ann Mason, “Airwaves” (2713);

Wk. 14 Tue., 11/24 Fourth Essay Due! Toni Cade Bambara, “The Lesson” (2640); Hisaye Yamamoto, “Seventeen Syllables” (2164);

Thur., 11/26 THANKSGIVING DAY - NO CLASSES

Wk. 15 Tue., 12/1 A Review of American Poetry (readings to be announced);

Thur., 12/3 A Review of American Poetry (readings to be announced);

Wk. 16 Tue., 12/8 James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” (2194); Topics for Take-Home Final Examination Distributed;

Thur., 12/10 Raymond Carver, “A Small, Good Thing” (2586);

Finals Week
Thurs., 12/17 Take-Home Final Examinations Due, 2:00 P.M.

A GLOSSARY OF USEFUL TERMS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE

The following terms will be used often throughout the semester. Although there is disagreement about what they mean, they are nonetheless useful labels when testing ideas about why literature is written, read, and studied and how it affects readers. Be advised, however, that these labels are hardly discrete and often seem to apply equally well to literature growing out of different artistic creeds. Moreover, these schools of literature are not rigorously confined to specific historical periods; you are probably just as likely to find a contemporary novel or television/movie script written in a romantic style as you are to find one written from a post-modern stance. Furthermore, there are many authors of various periods who, for one or more reasons, cannot be fitted comfortably into any of the following categories or may occupy several of them simultaneously.

Romanticism An artistic theory that places primary importance on the artist or author’s experience or imagination of a situation or event. An author tries to create an intense mood or feeling comparable to the author’s or his/her characters’ own and to communicate that feeling to a reader. Romantic writers frequently seek to stir the emotions of readers instead of their intellectual powers and often idealize situations and characters. Sub-categories of romanticism are gothic fiction (e.g., vampire stories and horror fiction) and historical fiction that emphasizes nostalgia and love interests more than social conditions or cultural struggles. Major American examples: Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, Booth Tarkington. Major European examples: Sir Walter Scott, Mary Shelley, William Wordsworth, Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Realism The school of literature that, in reaction to the romantic school, officially avoids appeals to a reader’s emotions and instead treats hitherto neglected and sometimes even unpleasant subjects and characters. In their rejection of idealized situations and characters, realist writers often focus on everyday, unremarkable people and events and explore issues and behavior that are typical instead of earth-shattering. Ironically, however, some realist writers often treat such “new” subjects precisely in order to appeal to a reader’s emotions, a device usually associated with romanticism. Major American examples: Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry James, William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, James T. Farrell, John Steinbeck, John Cheever, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates; Major European examples: George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Bernard Shaw, V. S. Naipaul (England); Gustave Flaubert, Prosper Mérimée, Honoré de Balzac (France).

Psychological Realism A sub-category of realism, psychological realism treats human behavior from the interior, attempting to communicate the usually unheard or inarticulate motivations for actions and to explore how people actually process the sensory data they encounter in their surrounding world. (So-called stream of consciousness writing—in which a character’s interior thoughts are communicated without close attention paid to grammar, syntax, or organization—is a more recent example of psychological realism.) Major American examples: Henry James, Edith Wharton, Katherine Anne Porter, Eugene O’Neill, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, James Agee. Major European examples: Joseph Conrad, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.

Regionalism Literature that uses dialect (e.g., geographical subcategories of a language), history, and ethnic, racial, and cultural differences to explore marginalized or vanishing worlds. The American South, New England, the Midwest, and the West—together with the various ethnic and racial groups that have populated these areas—have proved fruitful subjects for regionalist writers. Major examples: Zora Neale Hurston, Flannery O’Connor, George Washington Cable, Kate Chopin, Joel Chandler Harris, Eudora Welty (the South); Sarah Orne Jewett, Mary Wilkins Freeman, and Celia Thaxter (New England); Willa Cather, Mary Sandoz, and Hamlin Garland (the Midwest, and, in Sandoz’ case, Native Americans in regions beyond the Midwest), and Mark Twain (the West).

Local Color A sub-category of regionalism, local color treats the exotic and unusual in particular places, people, and situations by contrasting them, often humorously, with the larger, more cosmopolitan world. For example, a local color author might examine the experiences of a city dweller from the East who visits a western mining camp. Major examples: Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett (in some, though not all, of her New England fiction).

Naturalism Literature that explores the seamy side of life and portrays the futility and stupidity—often even the dark humor—in “serious” situations. The importance of “nature” in naturalism is more closely related to Nature’s law of the jungle than to a depiction of an idyllic, unspoiled world. In the literature of naturalism, human subjects, when imprisoned by poverty, depressing jobs, cramped living quarters, and an endless repetition of meaningless activities, often come to resemble animals. A reader of a naturalistic text sometimes has the feeling that the characters are like laboratory rats who are being “played with” by the author. Major American examples: Frank Norris, Upton Sinclair. Major European examples: George Gissing (England); Émile Zola and Guy de Maupassant (France).

Impressionism A corollary of impressionism in painting. An impressionistic author, instead of furnishing a finished, complete picture of a fictitious world that the reader’s imagination can simply absorb, makes characters—and often readers— assemble an impression of that world by using suggestive, incomplete details. Impressionistic writing relies heavily on the strengths and defects in a reader’s powers of visualization. (In this regard, it is closely related to psychological realism because it explores the actual process by which a human consciousness connects visual evidence to “reality.”) For example, the characters in Stephen Crane’s story “The Open Boat” are unable to identify the things they actually see (e.g., the horizon, the shore, a rescue crew). In Joseph Conrad’s short novel Heart of Darkness, the character Marlowe finds himself in the middle of an attack by indigenous Africans but is unaware of what is happening; he “sees” the flying arrows but is unable to connect them to what they really are. Major American example: Stephen Crane. Major European example: Joseph Conrad.

Modernism A twentieth-century development in the arts, including architecture and painting. Modernist writers saw themselves as participants in an international movement that responded to the growing standardization, repetitiveness, and hedonism of 20th century life by employing new voices and literary forms. It flourished most actively in the years following World War I (1914-1918) as a response to the demoralization triggered by the war’s staggering violence and economic and political upheavals. Modernists tended to look backward in time in order to reinterpret and reinvigorate authors, texts, and situations that had been lost in the historical shuffle and the rise of “cheap,” anti-intellectual ideologies. (The so-called “New Criticism” in American literature was an outgrowth of the Modernist movement.) In modernist texts, characters are often isolated or “cut off” from their personal histories and find themselves adrift in uncharted worlds and alien value systems. Major American examples: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, e.e.cummings, Willa Cather, John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, John Crowe Ransom, Gwendolyn Brooks. Major European examples: Virginia Woof, Katharine Mansfield, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence.

Post-Modernism A response to and rejection of Modernism. Whereas the Modernists felt that “culture” was under assault by contemporary life, Post-Modernists tend to believe that “culture” itself is an ephemeral, illusory concept. Post-Modernists take as a given the fractured nature of life in the 20th century and are deeply suspicious of texts that speak of shared beliefs, shared traditions, or common dilemmas that predate contemporary life. To a post-modernist, the traditions and authoritative ideas associated with politics, culture, and religion are themselves the result of wishful thinking and are therefore unreliable and even illusory. Post-modernist fiction often uses points of view, dialogue, situations, etc., that explore—and expose—how deeply the reader is invested in things that the reader has never examined or studied with a critical, skeptical eye but has assumed to be “true,” “right,” “permanent,” etc. Critics of post-modernism indict the movement for its perceived disregard of “lasting” moral and ethical values while proponents answer with evidence of how such moral and ethical values are themselves unstable and susceptible to interpretation and rethinking. Major American examples: Kurt Vonnegut, Donald Barthelme.

FIRST ESSAY ASSIGNMENT - Due Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009

Choose one of the following topics and write a three-page (typewritten, double-spaced) essay in response.

1. In the selection from The Editor’s Study (pp. 258-59 in the Heath Anthology), William Dean Howells describes the problems faced by a writer who seeks to be a “realist”:

"The young writer who attempts to report the phrase and carriage of every-day life, who tries to tell just how he has heard men talk and seen them look, is made to feel guilty of something low and unworthy by the stupid people who would like to have him show how Shakespeare’s men talked and looked, or Scott’s or Thackeray’s, or Balzac’s, or Hawthorne’s, or Dickens’s; he is instructed to idealize his personages, that, is to take the life-likeness out of them and put the literary-likeness into them."

Choose one work from the following list: Howells’s “Editha,” Chopin’s “Desirée’s Baby,” Bierce’s “Chickamauga,” Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism,” or James’s Daisy Miller. In your essay, discuss how the author of that work either “attempt[s] to report the phrase and carriage of every-day life,” or “idealize[s] his [or her] personages” and “take[s] the life-likeness out of them.” You can use your own standards for what is “life-like” or “idealized” in writing your argument. Quote briefly from your chosen text to support your ideas.

2. Read the brief selection from The Autobiography of Mark Twain entitled “As Regards Patriotism” (pp. 103-104 in the Heath Anthology). Then choose one of the following texts: Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d (handout), Twain’s “The War Prayer” (pp. 104-106), Howells’ “Editha,” Bierce’s “Chickamauga,” or Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism.” What does your chosen text have to do with “patriotism” as it is discussed in Twain’s “As Regards Patriotism”? Does the text support or challenge Twain’s ideas? Quote briefly from your chosen text to support your ideas.

3. Re-read the “Glossary of Useful Terms in American Literature” distributed on the first day of class, and familiarize yourself with its terms. Choose one text from the following list: Twain’s “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog” (pp. 58-62), Howells’s “Editha,” Chopin’s “Desirée’s Baby,” Bierce’s “Chickamauga,” Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism,” or James’s Daisy Miller. In your essay, show how the text you have chosen actually fits the definitions of any two of the types of literature defined in the “Glossary” instead of only one. Quote briefly from your chosen text and the “Glossary” to support your ideas.

4. Read Stephen Crane’s story “The Open Boat” (pp. 497-513 in the Heath Anthology). According to the statements made by Howells in The Editor’s Study (see #1 above), how realistic would you say Crane’s story is? Quote briefly from Howells’s selection and from Crane’s story to support your ideas.

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