Assignments

English 4675 Contemporary American Literature, Spring 2021

TR 11:00-12:15 p.m., Online

Attendance Make Up

You are required to attend all classes on Zoom. However, you can make up one missed Zoom class per week by submitting a 100-200 word post to the GeorgiaVIEW discussion forum entitled Close Reading Papers, Response Papers, and Discussion Questions by the Sunday after you missed class. Posts made after Sunday will not be counted toward your weekly attendance record. If you attend all Zoom classes in the week, you do not need to post to the discussion board.

Small Group Activities

1. Reading a Book of Poetry

During our last class, we closely read a poem by Robert Lowell in order to understand some of the emerging cultural and aesthetic concerns of the postwar period. Today, we're going to shift gears to Gwendolyn Brooks's Annie Allen and focus on the character development and poetic structure of the overall collection while dipping into a few poems. Also, let's get to know each other a bit better by dividing into small groups in Zoom breakout rooms. Elect a secretary, who will report back your conversation to the class.

 

Here are the groups:

  1. Breakout Room 1: Notes from the Childhood and the Girlhood
  2. Breakout Room 2: The Anniad
  3. Breakout Room 3: The Womanhood
  4. Breakout Room 4: Choose your book section.

Here are the questions to discuss:

  1. Focusing on your group's assigned section, what is the overall narrative and poetic structure of the poetry collection?
  2. Focusing on your group's assigned section, how does the tone shift from section to section?
  3. What is the general theme of your assigned section? Select a poem that illustrates that theme.

2. Reading Pynchon

For our first day of discussion of Thomas Pynchon's V., let's start with the basics: characters, events, and reading experience. Izzy will help us with Chapter One, and we'll divide into groups for Chapters Two and Three.

 

Here are the questions:

  1. Who are the main characters of the chapter and section(s)?
  2. What is the main event, or what are the important things that happen in the chapter and section?
  3. Reflect on the experience of reading the novel.

Here are the groups:

  1. Chapter Two, Part I (39-47)
  2. Chapter Two, Part II (47-57)
  3. Chapter Three, Parts I-II (59-68)
  4. Chapter Three, Parts III-IV (68-86)
  5. Chapter Three, Parts VI-VIII (86-96)

 

Response

Written Component: GeorgiaVIEW Post

Undergraduate students sign up to write an informal response to a section of Thomas Pynchon's V. and post it to both GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Response and GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Discussions > Close Reading Papers, Response Papers, and Discussion Questions two days before we discuss the text in class.

 

The response should

Oral Component: Informal Presentation

You will also be responsible for a brief, informal presentation. The response presentation should summarize the section of V., share your impressions, and broach questions for class discussion.

Due Dates

  1. Your written assignment will be due in both GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Response and GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Discussions > Close Reading Papers, Response Papers, and Discussion Questions two days before we are scheduled to discuss the work. (Note: Summaries will be penalized one letter grade for each day, not class period, that they are turned in late. It is your responsibility to check the sign up schedule and complete the assignment on time.)
  2. Your brief, informal presentation will be due on the day we discuss the essay in class. This date is approximate for we will sometimes fall a day behind. (Note: Failing to present the article to the class without providing a valid absence excuse will result in a one letter grade penalty.)
  3. I will return your graded assignment to you in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Response approximately one week after we discuss the article in class. Due to GeorgiaVIEW limitations, I am unable to return graded assignments to you unless and until you submit them to the Assignment dropbox.
  4. For example, we are scheduled to discuss Chapter One of V. on Thursday, 3-18. Therefore, someone's written response will be due in GeorgiaVIEW by Tuesday, 3-16. In class on Thursday, 3-18, that student will informally present the main events and issues of the section. I will return the graded response to her the following week in GeorgiaVIEW > Course Work > Assignments > Response. Due to GeorgiaVIEW limitations, I cannot return your graded paper unless and until you upload it to the Dropbox. Here's how to calculate your course grade.

Sign Up

Written

Due Date

Oral Due Date

Section

Student

T, 3-16

R, 3-18

Chapter One

1 Izzy Willingham

Chapter Two

 

Chapter Three

 

S, 3-21

T, 3-23

Chapter Four

2 Rosalie Bodkin

Chapter Five

3 Joslyn Reyes

Chapter Six

4 Eva Sheehan

Chapter Seven

5 Julianna Rowan

T, 3-23

R, 3-25

Chapter Eight

6 Austin Cole

Chapter Nine

7 Kendall Proffitt

Chapter Ten

8 Emma Cargile

S, 3-28

T, 3-30

Chapter Eleven

9 Bella Angell

Chapter Twelve

10 Carlton Paulk

Chapter Thirteen

11 Ellen Yeudall

T, 3-30

R, 4-1

Chapter Fourteen

12 Christina Agramonte

13 Emilie Skaug

Chapter Fifteen

14 Grace Carlson

Chapter Sixteen

15 Jackson Counts

Epilogue

16 Jenna Lassetter

Close Reading Paper and Presentation

Undergraduate students sign up in pairs first to analyze a brief passage from a work of prose, a 1-2 page scene from a play, or a poem and then collaboratively write a formal 5-6 page paper and give formal 7-10 minute presentation. Your essay and presentation should 1) do a close reading of the passage and 2) interpret how the passage broaches the core conflict and overall theme of the larger literary work. Your single, collaboratively written essay should be driven by a thesis that argues the work's theme and logically organized by close reading of the text: unpack the tension and conflict, connotation and diction, idea and theme. Your well-organized presentation should clearly convey your ideas to the class, and each member should speak during the presentation.

Parameters

Sign Up

Due Date

Work

Students

R, 2-11

O'Hara

1

2

T, 2-23

Plath

3 Rosalie Bodkin

4 Ellen Yeudall

R, 2-25

Baldwin, 103-69

5 Jenna Lassetter

6 Kendall Proffitt

R, 3-4

Burroughs, 101-96

7 Joslyn Reyes

8 Izzy Willingham

T, 3-16

Salinger

9 Emma Cargile

10 Eva Sheehan

T, 4-6

Cheever or O'Connor

11 Bella Angell

12 Austin Cole

T, 4-13

Williams, Acts Two-Three

13 Grace Carlson

14 Jackson Counts

T, 4-20

Hansberry, Acts II-III

(students who complete this close reading may turn in their Comparison/Contrast or Research paper on T, 4-27)

15 Christina Agramonte

16 Emilie Skaug

T, 4-27

Albee

17 Carlton Paulk

18 Julianna Rowan

Comparison/Contrast Paper

While the close reading paper requires you to practice attentive analysis of a key passage and the research paper compels you to delve, rigorously, into a text or issue in postwar American literature, the comparison/contrast paper instructs you to analyze how one particular idea, issue, or characteristic functions both the same way and different ways in two works of postwar American literature we've studied so far. For example, you could compare and contrast the personal poetics of O'Hara and Plath, the Beat experiments of Burroughs and Ginsberg, or the idea of love in Baldwin and Creeley. Or you could create an interesting comparison of your own. Write a 6-8 page comparison/contrast paper on in class works only, but not ones written on in the close reading or research papers.

Parameters

Research Paper

The close reading paper asked you to closely read a work, and the comparison/contrast paper required you to make connections and distinctions among two texts. The research paper will afford you the time and space to perform a sustained and sourced discussion of a significant issue in a work of postwar American literature. Your thesis-driven paper should employ textual analysis and support its interpretation of the issue with scholarly criticism. Here is how to conduct literary research.

 

Write an 8-10 page research paper on either a work read in class (but not one written on in either the close reading paper or the comparison/contrast paper) or a work not studied in class by one of the authors studied in class. The essay must incorporate at least 1 scholarly article from the syllabus and at least 5 scholarly articles from outside the course.

Parameters

Final Exam

In the take home final exam, undergraduates will write two thesis-driven comparison/contrast essays of their choice from a selection of four to six questions derived from topics generated by the class on Tuesday, April 27.

 

Although I encourage you to avoid writing about the same topic you wrote about in a previous assignments like the close reading, comparison/contrast, or research paper, you may write about the same topic but you must use different works of literature (if you fear you're recycling a topic from a previous assignment, just switch texts and you'll be fine). Do not use an author or literary work in more than one essay. Not all works are appropriate for all essays. Choose works which afford adequate material to address the question at hand. Have a controlling idea, an interpretation, a thesis that bridges the works. Organize essays by argument and analysis. Make connections and distinctions among the works; compare and contrast the works' key ideas. Support your points with textual evidence and quotations; avoid plot summary. You will be graded on your interpretive understanding of the literary works as well as your ability to compare and contrast meanings and issues.

 

Students

Papers and Authors

Christina Agramonte

Baldwin/Burroughs/Hansberry/Williams

Bella Angell

Baldwin/Ginsberg/O'Connor

Rosalie Bodkin

Cheever/Plath/Salinger

Emma Cargile

Ginsberg/O'Connor/O'Hara/Salinger

Grace Carlson

Baldwin/Ginsberg/O'Hara/Williams

Austin Cole

Baldwin/Creeley/Hansberry/O'Connor

Jackson Counts

Baldwin/Creeley/Williams

Jenna Lassetter

Baldwin/Ginsberg/Hansberry/O'Hara

Carlton Paulk

Albee/Baldwin/Hansberry/Williams

Kendall Proffitt

Baldwin/Burroughs/Ginsberg/Williams

Joslyn Reyes

Burroughs/O'Hara/Plath/Pynchon

Julianna Rowan

Albee/Baldwin/Burroughs/Williams

Eva Sheehan

O'Hara/Plath/Salinger

Emilie Skaug

Creeley/Hansberry/O'Hara

Izzy Willingham

Burroughs/Ginsberg/Hansberry/Plath

Ellen Yeudall

Ginsberg/O'Hara/Plath/Williams

Texts

Brooks, Annie Allen

Ginsberg, Reality Sandwiches

Baraka, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note

Creeley, For Love

O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

Plath, Ariel

Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

Burroughs, Naked Lunch

Salinger, "I'm Crazy," "A Slight Rebellion off Madison," "A Perfect Day for Bananafish"

Pynchon, V.

Cheever, "The Swimmer"

O'Connor, "Good Country People," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own"

Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

Albee, The American Dream

Baraka, Dutchman

Topics

Topics determined by the class on Tuesday, April 27 include:

  1. family and finances in postwar American culture
  2. suppression of self
  3. gender roles
  4. discrimination
  5. urbanization and suburbanization in the postwar period
  6. postwar American literature

Questions

Answer two of the following questions, created by the professor from the class's topics, using four different authors' works across the essays and not repeating authors or works previously written about in formal papers (close reading, comparison/contrast, research):

  1. Family Finances: Compare and contrast how economic and material concerns affect family relationships in two literary works.
  2. Literary (Con)Form(Ity): Compare and contrast how and why two literary works comment on postwar social conformity and suppression of self with their literary forms.
  3. Sexuality and Gender: Compare and contrast how postwar gender roles affect characters'/speakers' sexuality in two literary works. Select only one gender, masculine or feminine, for both works.
  4. Racial Discrimination: Compare and contrast how two literary works—one written by an African-American, the other by a white American—respond to racial discrimination and portray the struggle for racial progress in the postwar era.
  5. Urbanization and Suburbanization: Compare and contrast representations and attitudes toward cities and/or suburbs in two literary works, being sure to address how living location affects characters' desires and concerns.
  6. Postwar American Literature: How do you define postwar American literature? Select one characteristic or two interrelated traits that exemplify postwar American literature. Write a thesis-driven essay that compares and contrasts how those one or two attributes are developed through works of literature by four different authors. Your essay must cover three genres of literature (poetry, fiction, drama). Note: if you choose this topic, you will only write one essay, not two.

Parameters

 

© Alex E. Blazer 2025