Dr. Alex E. Blazer	Course Site	Syllabus
Selected Reading	Study Questions	Discussion Board Repsonse
Exam Review	Research Paper	Final Exam

Assignments

American Literary Consciousness

English 312-01: American Literature II

Fall 2004, MWF 12:00-12:50PM, Life Sciences 101

Selected Reading

The Norton Anthology offers over 150 pages of writing by Whitman and over 40 pages by Dickinson. I encourage you to read all of these poems, but we'll only have time to examine a limited number of them in class. Please be prepared to discuss the following texts.

Walt Whitman

Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855)

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking"

"Song of Myself" (1881) [note: not the 1855 version]

Emily Dickinson

67 [Success is counted sweetest]

185 ["Faith" is a fine invention]

258 [There's a certain Slant of light]

280 [I felt a Funeral, in my Brain]

324 [Some keep the Sabbath going to Church—]

341 [After great pain, a formal feeling comes—]

448 [This was a Poet—It is that]

465 [I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—]

536 [The Heart asks Pleasure—first—]

547 [I've seen a Dying Eye]

712 [Because I could not stop for Death—]

1126 [Shall I take thee, the Poet said]

Study Questions

It's easy to get behind in a fast-moving survey course. In order to actively keep up with the reading and prepare for class discussion, I suggest the following strategy:

Read the author biographies in the Norton anthology, for they often frame the themes of the selected texts.
Peruse anthology's companion website, The Norton Anthology of American Literature.
Take notes while you're reading, either in the margins or in a notebook (highlighting doesn't count).
Record at least three significant or favorite passages for each work.
Read your peers' discussion board responses on Blackboard.
Answer the study questions, which will typically be available the Friday before the work will be discussed. I suggest writing a short, informal response and citing key passages in the text that support your response.

Actively keeping up with the reading in this manner will serve you well on the exams and the final paper.

Walt Whitman
- According to the Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855), what is the role of the poet in American society? Do you think he achieves that function in "Song of Myself"?
Emily Dickinson
- Judging from her poetry, how do you think Dickinson lives her life? What is Dickinson's relationship with life? According to her mindset, how are life and death related? How does her world view contrast with Whitman's?
Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Day 1: Do a character sketch of Huck Finn. Who is he? What kind of person is he? What does he want out of life? Why does he do what he does? What does he fear?
- Day 2: Compare and contrast Huck's relationship with the Widow Douglas and with Miss Watson. Compare and contrast his relationship with Pap and with Jim. Does this have any relationship to the identities he assumes?
- Day 3: Compare and contrast Huck's shams with the Duke and Dolphin's and with Tom Sawyer's. What kind of morality does Huck have at the beginning of his story as compared to the end. What does the story suggest about the American brand of morality and civilization?
Henry James, "Daisy Miller: A Study"
- First, contrast James's narrator with Twain's. What kind of realism does James create as opposed to Twain? Second, characterize the Americans abroad, Daisy Miller and Frederick Wintermute. What particularly American issues of gender, class, and age does the story portray?
Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron"
- What makes this a regional story? What are the hierarchical polarities that Jewett sets up in Sylvia's character as well as between Sylvia and the ornithologist?
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wall-paper"
- Despite the story's fantastical flourishes, it remains an example of realism. Why? At first glance, this story seems to be very straightforward and didactic, like Jewett's. What is the moral? On the other hand, it is also ambiguous. In what ways is its lesson ambivalent?
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
- Day 1: Define Edna's awakening. What is she waking from and what is she awakening into? Define Edna's desire. How does it compare with Madame Ratignolle's or Mademoiselle Reisz's?
- Day 2: Why does Edna make the choice that she does? Compare her choice with Daisy Miller's, Sylvia's in "A White Heron," and the narrator's in "The Yellow Wall-paper." What does this say about the role of women at the turn of the century? about women's literary imagination?
Booker T. Washington, from Up from Slavery
- How does Washington characterize the feelings of (former) slaves toward whites? Why and how does Washington reconcile the races?
W. E. B. Du Bois, from The Souls of Black Folk
- What are Sorrow Songs? In what three ways does Du Bois think that Washington is wrong in his policies on race relations? If Washington's concern is educational/financial, what is Du Bois'?
Robert Frost
- Does nature make Frost happy? What does nature inspire Frost to think about?
Marianne Moore
- Describe Moore's view of the mind and reality in poems such as "Poetry" and "The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing."
- Describe Moore's view of how mortality and death affect consciousness and life in "A Grave," "What are Years?," "Bird-Witted," and "Nevertheless."
- Describe Moore's view of (the authors) of the war in "The Paper Nautilus" and "In Distrust of Merits."
Gertrude Stein
- Introduction, The Making of Americans: What is "loving repetition"? Why does Stein repeat herself so much?
- from Tender Buttons: How does Stein portray these "Objects" in her poetry? What, if anything, do we learn about these "Objects"?
Wallace Stevens
- What is the relationship between reality and the imagination? between nature and culture? between physics and metaphysics? How does poetry compose reality?
Claude McKay
- What are roots? In McKay's mind—in McKay's poetry—how does his heritage affect his current cultural situation and vice versa?
Langston Hughes
- What are the blues and why does Hughes have them? What is the relationship between the blues and democracy?
Eugene O'Neill, Long Day's Journey into Night
- Day 1: Sketch each of the characters. What are their core fears, desires, conflicts? How do each of them relate to the past?
- Day 2: Describe the Tyrone family unit. What unites and divides them? How might the breakdown of the family mirror the modernism breakdown we've been discussing?
William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
- Day 1: Why is this story told from so many points of view? What is the effect of telling the story from so many perspectives? How does this narrative fragmentation correspond with the family disfunction? What is the significance of the title?
- Day 2: Compare and contrast the Tyrones and the Bundrens, particularly in terms of the father and mother figures.
Robert Lowell
- How does Lowell's poetic style change from his early work to his later work? Describe what it looks/feels like at first in a poem like "The Quaker Graveyard at Nantucket" and later in "Memories of West Street and Lepke" and "Skunk Hour." How does he diverge from modernism?
Sylvia Plath
- Would you characterize Plath's poetry as confessional? What does she confess? Does she absolve herself, or asked another way, does she resolve anything?
Allen Ginsberg
- How does Ginsberg feel about American society in such poems as "Howl" and "A Supermarket in California"? How does he bridge a pre-modernist poet like Whitman with modernist poets like Frost and Stevens?
David Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross
- On the one hand, how does the play play into the culture of narcissism we've been discussing? On the other hand, in what ways does the play criticize the business and financial pressures that compel people to act so greedily?
Amiri Baraka, "Dutchman"
- What is Baraka saying about African-American male identity? What is he suggesting about race relations? How and why does the drama play on both African-American and white stereotypes?
Suzan-Lori Parks, The American Play
- Describe the play's characters. What is the significance of the Lesser Known having a calling for impersonating Greater Known men, but making a living at grave-digging? What might this suggest about our culture's desire for fame? What might this suggest about the postmodern self?
- What is the significance of the Great Hole of History, particularly when it is made into a theme park? What is the significance of the ritualized and repetitive killing of Lincoln in the first act? What might these things suggest about our contemporary culture's attitude toward history?
Toni Morrison, "Recitatif"
- What does the story suggest about race relations during childhood vs during adulthood? What does the story theorize about the nature of memory and, by extension, our postmodern identity?
Leslie Marmon Silko, "Lullaby"
- Describe what white culture does to Indian culture by looking at the specific instance of Ayah's family. Compare and contrast Silko's use of memory and identity in this story with Morrison's in "Recitatif."
Donald Barthleme, "The Balloon"
- What do balloons symbolically represent in general? What does it stand for in this story? How and why does the balloon resist media-tion (for instance, advertising) and interpretation (for instance, the people's discussion of it)? What does the narrator mean by "its randomness, of mislocation of the self" (2251). How might this balloon represent the postmodern subject?
Robert Coover, "The Babysitter"
- Delineate the story's multiple and opposing narratives. Why might the utilize these multiple perspectives? What does it suggest about the nature of reality and storytelling in postmodern culture?
Thomas Pynchon, "Entropy"
- What are entropy and equilibrium and how do they correspond to Meatball Mulligan's lease-breaking party and Callisto's dying bird? Why does Aubade break the window?
Richard Powers, Galatea 2.2
- What relationship does the novel set up between science and literature? Describe Powers' relationships with women—C., A., Diana, and Helen. What is the significance of the title?

Discussion Board Response

Each student in the course will respond to one work of literature. Consequently, with fifty students in the course, the class should have two responses for most texts we read. These discussion board responses serve three goals:

to actively engage you in these texts,
to help your peers understand these texts even as they're reading them,
to broach issues for class discussion.

Spend approximately 1/3 of your response summarizing the text and 2/3 tentatively analyzing, interpreting, and determining the meaning of the text. If you've sign up for a poet, feel free to closely read just one poem or two. Conclude your response with one or two issues for class discussion. Your discussion board response, of 400-500 words will be due the Friday before we discuss a reading in class.

Sign up for one slot. Post your response, attached in Microsoft Word only, to Blackboard > Discussion Board by 12:00PM on the due date, usually the Friday before the work will be discussed in class. I'll return your graded response to you in Blackboard > View Grades > Discussion Board Response approximately one week after you post your response. Click the "0" link to open up your grade. Your graded paper is the attached file in section 3 Feedback to Student.

Note: It is your job to remember to post your response; so bookmark this web page. If you forget to post your response, you won't receive a second chance.

Week	Due	Reading	Student
Week 1	M, 8-30	Twain [note the special Monday due date]	Asa Glass
Week 1	M, 8-30	Twain [note the special Monday due date]	Amanda Stickler
Week 2	F, 9-3	James
Week 2	F, 9-3	Jewett
Week 3	F, 9-10	Gilman	Elizabeth Blandford
		Gilman	Ashley Merkle
		Chopin	Jessica Hickerson
Week 4	F, 9-17	Washington	Toya Ballenger
		Washington	Orion Bazzell
		Du Bois	Noah Glass
		Du Bois	Dalton Holt
		Frost	Alisa Atkinson
Week 5	F, 9-24	Moore	Ashley Revlett
		Stein	Derek Sharp
		Stein	Stephanie Simmons
		Stevens
Week 6	F, 10-1	McKay	Todd McGraw
		Hughes	Sandy Myjak
		Hughes	La'Trice Majors
Week 7
Week 8	F, 10-15	O'Neill	Robert Durall
		O'Neill	Daniel Hammond
		Faulkner	Charlie Mingus
Week 9	F, 10-22	Lowell	Julie Arneson
Week 9	F, 10-22	Lowell	John Wozencraft
Week 11	F, 10-29	Plath	Aletha Maupin
		Plath	Scott Shreffler
		Ginsberg	Joseph Hocog
			Mike Minton
			Elizabeth Saylor
		Ashbery	Sunnye Paris
Week 12	F, 11-5	Mamet	Clint Bray
		Mamet	Christy C. Roy
		Baraka	Leah Gallagher
		Baraka	Ha Phan
		Parks	Michael Gunsiorowski
Week 13	F, 11-12	Morrison	Cynthia Fields
			Terri Hull
			Paul Logsdon
			Sarah Weller
		Silko	Emily Clevinger
		Silko	Tracey Goosey
		Coover	Shelby Dogan
		Coover	Kathrine Graham
Week 14	F, 11-19	Pynchon	Michael Black
Week 15	F, 11-26	Powers	Jessica Burns
			Suzanne Moffitt
			Sunnye Paris
			T. Ryan Reynolds
Week 16
Finals

Review for In-Class Exam

The first exam will consist of 2-4 essays taken over the course of 2 days of 50 minute classes. Each of the essays will ask you to discuss a literary period or theme by using authors and texts from the course. THe goal of the exam is for you show your understanding of literary periods and the transition between periods by being able to make comparisons and contrasts among works of literature. Although you will not have to write about every author we have covered, you should be prepared to effectively discuss more than half of them:

Walt Whitman
Emily Dickinson
Mark Twain
Henry James
Sarah Orne Jewett
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Kate Chopin
Booker T. Washington
W. E. B. Du Bois
Robert Frost
Gertrude Stein
Marianne Moore
Wallace Stevens
Claude McKay
Langston Hughes

If I were preparing for this exam, I would create and review a separate page of notes for each period and movement consisting of the following:

lists the time period's major socio-cultural concerns
notes how the movement reacts to its time period in terms of its own literary issues
charts the paramount literary style as well as the intent or reasoning for that approach

I would also create and review a page of notes for each author consisting of the following:

for stories, chart the main characters' core conflicts and actions; for poems, note the core conflicts
note the key conflicts and themes
determine how the author/text complements and transgresses the period or movement
select signicant passages that represent the core conflicts and theme (if you cannot memorize them, being able to paraphrase will be of invaluable help on the exam)

Although you could simply review your original class notes, I advise composing these set of notes for doing so attunes your thinking and writing process to the cause of the exam in a much more active way than using old notes. Constructing notes is prewriting for the essay exam.

Research Paper

You've explored authors and their works in study questions and class discussion. You've come to general conclusions about the nature of the period in the midterm exam; and you will do so again in the final exam. Now, you can devote an entire paper to one author, to one work. Select a work of literature (or two or three closely related essays, poems, or short stories) that we've read in class. See me if you want to pursue a text not covered. In a focused, thesis-driven paper, rigorously interpret and analyze that piece using specific textual evidence, i.e., quotes, and 3-4 scholarly journal articles, books, or book chapters to support your interpretation (Click here to learn how to conduct literary research at UofL). Although this is a research paper, the emphasis should be on your ideas, your way of reading the text; the research is necesary but of secondary importance: do not let it overwhelm your voice. I'll be glad to discuss paper topics with you at any time.

Length: 6-8 pages, 1500-2000 words
Style: Conform your paper to MLA style.

Here are MLA styled templates for Microsoft Word and Corel WordPerfect.

Due: Monday, November 22 at 12:00PM.
- Due to the holiday, there will be no extensions; turn in your paper on time or suffer late penalties, which is one letter grade per day, not class period.
Format: I'll accept papers in hard copy or electronic format.

Paper

Turn in to me in class.
Note: I will not accept late hard copies of papers. If you turn in your paper late, you must do so via Blackboard and you will receive a one-letter per day late penalty. Thus, if I receive it between 11:59PM on Monday, November 22 and 11:59PM on Tuesday, November 23, your paper will be penalized one letter grade, if on November 24, then two letter grades, and so forth.

Electronic

Use Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect format for Windows only. I will not read papers submitted in Notepad, Writepad, Works, Publisher, html, or other formats; consequently, your paper will be considered late until you turn it in in the appropriate format.
Turn in via Blackboard > Assignments > Final Paper View/Complete. Browse to where your file is located on your local disk, and then upload your file to Blackboard. (Note: If you have problems with Blackboard, you can also email your paper to me, as an attachment in the appropriate format, at alex.blazer@louisville.edu.)

Grades: Your graded paper will be returned to you approximately one week after you turn it in.

If you turned it in on paper, it will be returned to you in class on paper.
If you turned it in electronically, you can retrieve it at Blackboard > Tools > View Grades > Final Paper. Click the "0" link to open up your grade. Your graded paper is the attached file in section 3 Feedback to Student.

Take-Home Final Exam

While the first exam required you to examine eight authors across two literary movements in a timed, closed book setting, the final exam allows you two weeks to formulate your comparative discussion of six authors. Answer either two essay questions from Group A or just one essay question from Group B. Use an individual author only once in the exam. Organize essays by argument and analysis. Have a controlling idea, an interpretation, a thesis that bridges the three or six authors. Support your points with textual evidence (explanation, paraphrase, and/or quotes) but avoid plot summary. Make connections and distinctions between the texts; in other words, compare and contrast the authors and their world views.

Group A: Two Essays Using Three Authors Each
- Modernist-Postmodernist Genre Study: Compare and contrast the worldviews and forms of one modernist and two postmodernists regarding one genre—fiction, poetry, or drama. For example, compare and contrast one modernist play (O'Neill's), in terms of theme and style, with two postmodernist plays (Mamet's, Baraka's, or Parks's). Or, you could do fiction (Faulkner vs Morrison, Silko, Coover, Pynchon, Powers). Or, you could do poetry (Frost, Stein, Stevens, Hughes, McKay vs Lowell, Plath, Ginsberg).
- Identity and Individuality: Compare and contrast how three authors we've read since the last exam view identity and individuality. You could, for instance, compare and contrast O'Neill’s view of traumatized and addicted identity realized with Mamet's narcissistic identity and Baraka’s use and abuse of stereotypical identity. Or, you could contrast Lowell and Plath’s confessional identity with Ginsberg’s. Or, you could make an interesting combination of your own.
- Sexual Dynamics: Compare and contrast the sexual dynamics or gender battles and identities in the works of three authors we've read since the last exam. You could, for instance, compare and contrast the fantastical yet embattled status of women in Coover, Plath, and Powers. Or, you could compare and contrast the idea of masculinity in O'Neill, Mamet, and Baraka. Or, you could implement an interesting comparison and contrast of your own.
- Family Dynamics : Examine the evolving family dynamic in the works of three authors we've read since the last exam. For example, O'Neill and Faulkner present the traditional nuclear family in dysfunction and decline while Morrison and Silko show small signs of suturing. How are we to read Coover's fantastical family? How does family function (or not function) in Powers? Create a combination of your own that investigates the family in literature.
- Reality: Compare and contrast how three modernist and postmodernist authors view and represent reality. You must use at least one modernist and one postmodernist, the third author may be either modernist or postmodernist. While the modernists see and represent fragmentation and the void, the postmodernists revel in the image and the imaginary. For instance, Baraka views reality as politicized in terms of race, class, and gender while Ginsberg sees the madness undergirding conformity. Powers and Morrison view the world as a story we tell ourselves while Lowell and Plath confess a world. Determine an interesting comparison and contrast of how modernists and postmodernists see and portray reality.
- A Theme of One's Own: Examine a theme that runs through three authors that we've read since the last exam. For example, you could examine the use and abuse of memory in O'Neill, Morrison, and Powers. Or you could analyze a theme of your choosing.
Group B: One Essay Using Six Authors
- American Literature II : Using six authors (two realists/regionalists, two modernists, and two postmodernists), discuss how American literature has changed thematically and formally since 1865 by tracing, i.e., comparing and contrasting, how a single topic is treated over the last 140 years. Possible topics include, but are not limited to, race, gender, reality, representation, identity. Possible questions include, but are not limited to: How do racial issues change from Du Bois’s time to Morrison’s? How do gender roles and/or sexual dynamics change from Chopin to Baraka? What transformations does the American family undergo from Twain to Coover? How does the nature of identity change from Whitman to Powers? How do the representation of reality and reality of representation evolve from realism, through modernism, and to postmodernism? You may also trace an interesting issue of your own choosing.

Length: 6-9 pages
- Write either 3-5 pages for both essays in Group A, or 6-9 pages for the only essay in Group B.
Style: Conform your paper to MLA style.

Here are MLA styled templates for Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect.

Due: Tuesday, December 14 by 5:00PM.

Although the Final Exam Schedule states that our exam time is Friday, December 10 from 11:30-2:00PM, I want you to have more time if you need or want it. Feel free to turn your exam in before Tuesday, December 14 but Tuesday is the absolute and final deadline.

Format: I'll accept exams in hard copy or electronic format.

Paper

Turn in to me in my office, HUM335A between 2:00 and 5:00PM, or my mailbox, HUM315, by 5:00PM, Tuesday, December 14. I'll also be in my office from 4:00-8:00PM on Monday, December 13.

Electronic

Use Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect format for Windows only. I will not read papers submitted in Notepad, Writepad, Works, Publisher, html, or other formats; consequently, your paper will be considered late until you turn it in in the appropriate format.
Turn in via Blackboard > Assignments > Final Paper View/Complete. Browse to where your file is located on your local disk, and then upload your file to Blackboard. (Note: If you have problems with Blackboard, you can also email your paper to me, as an attachment in the appropriate format, at alex.blazer@louisville.edu.)

Grades, Comments, and Paper Return:

You can access your final grade in the course via Ulink after Sunday, December 19.
If you want comments on your exam, please ask for them.
If you want your final exam returned to you, please ask for it.

If you want your hard copy exam returned to you, see me at the start of spring semester.
If you want your electronic materials returned to you, go to Blackboard > Tools > View Grades > Final Exam. Click the "0" link to open up your grade. Your graded paper is the attached file in section 3 Feedback to Student.