Essay Examinations Students will write in-class essay examinations to allow them to express their learning and thoughts on literature read and the background given. A formal paper that requires the students to compare the ideas expressed in a work such as Franklin's Autobiography with one or more modern American works from a list provided by the instructor. To fully appreciate this literature, students also acquire a working knowledge of exploration and colonization in the 17th century, the early Puritan theocracy and the developments and changes in early seventeenth-century American culture that produced a different type of literature in the Early Republic. E. Assessment Measures Students' growth in knowledge of the material is measured by a number of assessment efforts, meant to balance the differences in individual students' learning paces and styles. Students complete informal writing exercises related directly to the readings and their cultural background or to the intersection of the readings' meaning with the students' lives and ideas.
Informal writing is assigned either in-class or as homework.
Exams are also meant as instruments of synthesis, as well as vehicles of expression, particularly of their twentieth- century opinions about early American literature and life. Some assessment also stems from class participation in discussion of pertinent issues arising from the reading.