**American Literature**

**Instructors: Sharon M. Dansereau (lectures); Ymer Leksi (seminars)**

**Course Description:** In this course, we will explore important works
of American Literature, developing language skills as well as literary
and cultural knowledge. The course will be organized by genre rather
than chronology, moving from drama and short fiction in the first
semester to poetry and the novel in the second semester.

**Requirements:** Attendance, punctuality, and full participation are
required at lectures and seminars. Readings will be provided weekly at
lectures or, in some cases, available to students at the university
library. Due to the extensive length of some readings, effective time
management skills will be necessary for success. Students missing any
class meetings are responsible for all material missed. All work
submitted must be original; plagiarism will result in failure. Cell
phones must be turned off at all times.

**Evaluation**

Class participation 20%

Short assignments, quizzes 30%

Essays (3) 30%

Final exam 20%

**Course Outline** (subject to change)

Weeks 1-4 Drama Unit, including Susan Glaspell, *Trifles;* Arthur
Miller, *Death of a Salesman;* Tennessee Williams, *The Glass Menagerie*

Weeks 5-11: Short Fiction Unit, including works by Edgar Allen Poe,
Shirley Jackson, John Updike, Flannery O'Connor, Tillie Olsen, Ernest
Hemingway, Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, William Faulkner, Tim
O'Brien, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, Anne Elliott Dark, Sandra
Cisneros, Jamaica Kincaid, Mark Twain, Sherwood Anderson, and others

Weeks 12-18: Poetry Unit, including works by Robert Frost, Langston
Hughes, Li-Young Lee, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks,
Marge Piercy, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Galway Kinnell,
Adrienne Rich, Lucille Clifton, Yusef Komunyakaa, Sherman Alexie, T.S.
Eliot, and others

Week 19-21 Novel Unit: Herman Melville, *Moby Dick*

**Reading List for Fiction Unit.**

\* indicates inclusion in (green) *Literature: An Introduction* (X.J.
Kennedy, ed.) available from the university library. Others will be
available for copying.

Edgar Allen Poe, "The Tell-Tale Heart" \*

Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery" \*

Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Ernest Hemingway, "Cat in the Rain" and "Hills Like White Elephants"

John Updike, "A&P" \*

Nathanial Hawthorne, "Young Goodman Brown"

Eudora Welty, "A Worn Path" \*

Kate Chopin, "Desireé's Baby"

Toni Morrison, "Recitatif'

Alice Walker, "Everyday Use" \*

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"

William Faulkner, "A Rose for Emily" \*

Tim O'Brien, "The Things They Carried"

Leslie Marmon Silko, "The Man to Send Rain Clouds"

Anne Elliott Dark, "In the Gloaming"

Tillie Olsen, "I Stand Here Ironing" \*

Transition to Poetry:

Louise Erdrich, "Fleur"

Sandra Cisneros, selections from *The House on Mango Street*

Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl"

**Poetry List**:

Emily Dickinson: "These are the days when Birds come back" "There's a
certain Slant of light" "Papa above!" "Wild Nights---Wild Nights!" "I
got so I could hear his name---" "The Soul selects her own Society"
"This was a Poet---It is That" "I heard a Fly buzz---when I died" "This
World is not Conclusion" "I like to see it lap the Miles" "Because I
could not stop for Death" "A narrow Fellow in the Grass" "Further in
Summer than the Birds" "Tell all the Truth but tell it slant" "A Route
of Evanescence"

Edwin Arlington Robinson "Richard Cory"

James Weldon Johnson "To America"

William Carlos Williams "Spring and All"

Ezra Pound "The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter" "In a Station of the
Metro"

Marge Piercy: "Barbie Doll" "What's That Smell in the Kitchen?" "A Work
of Artifice"

Mitsuye Yamada: "To the Lady"

Gwendolyn Brooks "We Real Cool"

Walt Whitman, selection from "I Sing the Body Electric"

Langston Hughes: "Theme for English B" "Poet to Bigot"

Wallace Stevens "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"

Robert Pinsky "Samurai Song"

REFERENCES

Allen, Donald, ed. *The New American Poetry*, 1945-1960. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999. (in Vilma's office)

Barnet, Sylvan, Morton Berman, William Burto, and William E. Cain, eds.
*An Introduction to Literature*. 11^th^ ed. New York: Longman, 1997.

DiYanni, Robert, ed.*. Drama: An Introduction*. Boston: McGraw-Hill,
2000. (in Elbasan public library)

Holman, C. Hugh, and William Harmon. *A Handbook to Literature*. 5^th^
ed. New York: Mcmillan, 1986.

McConochie, Jean A. 20^th^ *Century American Short Stories*. Pacific
Grove: Heinle, 1995.

Melville, Herman. *Moby Dick.* Various editions, as available.

NOTES:\
This is a 22-week course that begins in Oct, has a break in Dec, and a
long break (Feb/March) then continues until mid-May---Ymer and I began
in week 2 (another professor was scheduled to teach it but did not show
up). Most of the readings are available in either the green XJ Kennedy
anthology or the red Norton Anthology of Am Lit in the university
library (both have many copies -- enough for some students to check out,
others to use on reserve); I also left copies at the photocopy place for
students in case they wanted to make a copy of their own or share with
friends, etc. There are about 40 paperback copies of Moby Dick in the
library (and very few of any other Am. novel, which is why I chose it.).

Drama Unit:

We started with the one-act Trifles, covering basic vocabulary like:
stage directions, scene, act, plot, climax, theme, etc. Sifting through
the meanings of the "trifles," details of the evidence in the play was a
good way to get into literary analysis, arguing from subtle clues,
language, etc.

Death of a Salesman---they loved this one, for some reason---I think
because there are a lot of themes that resonated with them. Discussion
of realism v. expressionism, tragic hero, American dream, dialogue,
unusual stage directions, etc. I gave them Miller's argument that Willy
can be a tragic hero... they debated in seminar.

Glass Menagerie---setting, symbols, narrator, production notes
(lighting, screen, etc.) Many of them were extremely saddened by Laura's
plight...

For the drama paper assignment, they had a choice of 3:

1\. Which of the 3 plays gives the most hopeful view of society? Present
evidence and explain what you mean by hopeful.

2\. An unseen, yet central, character appears in each play. How does the
playwright create a presence for this character? Choose 1 or 2 to
discuss.

3\. Compare and contrast Amanda, Linda, and Mrs. Hale in terms of their
relationships with men.

They also had the option to choose an original topic, but they had to
check with me (only one took this choice). This was definitely helpful
for them---most said they had never written about literature before, so
they were terrified, and having a simple question to focus on helped
(and for me, it was insurance they couldn't plagiarize, at least not
wholesale). We spent a lot of time in lecture going over ways of
approaching these questions (especially the first one, lots of options).
We also did a peer critique workshop in lecture (see attached form that
doubles as my evaluation sheet). I always gave comments about their
feedback of others too to encourage constructive, thoughtful comments
rather than just praise (with 70 students, I needed their help as peer
editors!)

Fiction Unit:

I chose too many stories (I wanted them to find at least something they
liked) and made a big packet they could copy and take with them to the
practicum to read. I tried to group 2-3 for each week that had an
interesting connection that they had to guess... When we didn't have
time to cover a story in lecture, Ymer focused on it in seminar (this
worked really well as teamwork, I think). For the most part, I treated
lectures as discussion (using my questions or theirs as starting
blocks). They wanted to just take down my words and memorize, so I tried
my best to deflect and stir up their own ideas and arguments. We also
discussed this policy a lot (eg. why I thought it was better for them to
read and experience rather than just tell me the theme of the story
is... off the internet. We also read a Flannery O'Connor statement about
this).

Some literary terms we covered:

Foreshadowing, irony, surprise ending, suspense, "slice-of-life,"
understatement, point-of-view, 1^st^ v. 3^rd^ person narrators,
allegory, symbolism, setting.

I also gave mini-lectures on American history/culture---the
non-chronological order was confusing at times, so they needed
background. One of the most successful days was on Morrison's Recitatif,
when they had to defend their arguments for which of the two characters
they thought was the black one, which white. It is never stated in the
story, so different interpretations are possible, most boiling down to
stereotypes...but we listed their "evidence" and had a good discussion
on race.

Civics, cultural differences, personal experience were often came
up---they couldn't believe how out-of-touch one mother character was (in
"In the Gloaming" ) with her son's life, for example, compared to an
Albanian mother... with "The Lottery" we talked about social pressure,
forms of government...

Most of the students seemed passionate about one story or another, in
lecture and in seminars I observed, so I thought it was safe to give
them the choice of topic for the fiction paper, but many decided to just
plagiarize very clumsily and obviously. See assignment sheet and peer
critique questions (in same file as drama paper.) In this case, I read
rough drafts and made only brief comments; their peer was supposed to
write more detailed comments before the final was written.

Poetry Unit:

Poetry was crowded (as usual, I misunderstood the academic schedule!)
and we had to make it to Moby Dick for those who had diligently read it,
so I decided to focus on Emily Dickinson for 2-3 weeks in lecture and
then give them a choice of writing about a Dickinson poem or one out of
a short packet of poems from diverse styles, periods. They also had the
alternative of writing a lesson plan in which they would use one of the
poems in a creative, communicative 45-minute language lesson.

For Dickenson, we focused on close reading, looking at the
capitalization, punctuation, themes, onomatopoeia, etc.

Moby Dick:

Rushed, but enjoyable discussions with the students venting about
length, all the strange digressions and definitions, etc. We speculated
about reasons for the digressions and strange text effects, the possible
symbolism, why people call it the great American novel---(basically the
questions I used on the final exam). Some of those who read it really
enjoyed the bizarre characters and adventure plot...others hated it,
most didn't bother (as with even the shortest poems). I would choose a
shorter, more modern novel if I did it again.