American Literature and Composition 2

American Literature and Composition

Spring Semester, 2015 – 2016 Tentative Schedule for Course

CLASS WEEK	LITERATURE “*Themes”*	COMPOSITION *Literary Movements*
Weeks 1-2: January 6-15, 2016	Twain’s “Gilded Age”, James’ Pragmatism, Carnegie’s philanthropy; Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God	Realism American Philosophy Folklore and Anthropology
Week 3: January 19-22	“Civil Rights” – James’ Daisy Miller, Chopin’s “The Storm”, Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s	Feminist literary theory Seneca Falls Declaration 1848 Grammar Pre-test
Week 4: January 25-29	“Civil War” – Alcott’s Little Women, Brooks’ March, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and John Brown	Civil Rights Cases, 1883 Letters in realistic fiction; Folk Songs Second Paired Novel Assignment
Weeks 5-6: February 1-12	“Lost Generation” – Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner; Williams and cummings	Modernism American literary style: note-taking, journalism, stream-of-consciousness; imagist poetry
Weeks 7-10: February 16 – March 11	“Depression and Dustbowl” – Agee and Evans; Egan’s The Worst Hard Time; Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath	Depression era movies: Grapes of Wrath, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane; Staged Adaptations Grammar Post-test
Week 11: March 14-18	“Nature Writing” – Silko; National Parks	Romanticism Natural description and author’s voice; Romantic landscapes
Week 12: March 21-25	Sonntag’s On Photography Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek	Denver photography project Empirical writing; Honors Assignment on Tortilla Curtain
Weeks 13-14: April 4-15	“American Renaissance” – Whitman’s Leaves of Grass and “Lilacs”; Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Dickinson	Koyaanisqatsias model of pastoral and industrial conflicts Burn’s Brooklyn Bridge Transcendentalist Art Project
Week 15 April 18-22	“The Frontier” – “Frontier Thesis”;Cather’s O Pioneers! and Proulx’s Accordion Crimes;Chief Joseph	Regionalism Postmodernism Postmodern surface reality
Weeks 16-17: April 25-May 6	“Chaos Theory” – Genre-splitting in If on a winter’s night a traveler, Rant, House of Leaves Stories by Moore, Garcia Marquez, Gordimer, Kincaid	New storytelling techniques Literary movement novel groups Second Paired Novel Assignment Due
Weeks 18-19: May 9-20	“Memoirs” – Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son; Didion’s White Album; Rodriquez’s Hunger of Memory	Compare and Contrast memoirists Digital Storytelling – Individual Memoirs Group presentations
Weeks 20-21: May 23 – June 2	Review of “Themes,” Theories, and Movements	District Finals Class Final

The scope and sequence of some of the included topics may be expanded, reduced or shifted to accommodate class needs.American Literature and Composition 2

March 6, 2016

Spring Semester Honors Assignment

T.C. Boyle chose a quote from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath as an epigraph in his novel Tortilla Curtain: “They ain’t human. A human being wouldn’t live like they do. A human being couldn’t stand it to be so dirty and miserable.” Of course, it’s the refugees from Oklahoma who merit this comment. Boyle seems to suggest that it could just as well be applied to the Mexican immigrants whom he depicts in his novel. He says, “I chose the epigraph from him because I wanted to see how the ethos of the 1930s, and the traditional liberal ethos of providing for everybody, is applied to today.”

Other comparisons can be made. Tortilla Curtain alternates between the white American Mossbachers’ and the Mexican migrant Rincóns’ points of view, which contrasts their cultural and financial differences. This also adds balance to a story where some critics have suggested that Boyle is too harsh in his portrayal of the Mossbachers, and that he ignores the community that many Mexican immigrants find in the United States – Candido and America are isolated from any social networks. In The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck alternates between lyrical, panoramic chapters focusing on the land, the monstrous system of agribusiness, the changing dynamic of families forced on the road; and the intimate narrative of the Joad family, one fictional example of a family migrating to California. This style of alternating chapters and stories serve different purposes. Steinbeck opts for the context of the epic; Boyle shifts to the contrast of cultures.

How does each method serve to depict the humanity of the people involved? Do these portraits of residents and migrants sufficiently relate the complexity of their characters? How does the technique of alternating chapters affect the characterization?

This paper should be two type written pages, double-spaced, one-inch margins, 12-point font. Include many quotes and specific paraphrases from the two books to support your thesis on how the choice to alternate chapters in each book influenced the characterization. It is due April 16, 2016. Turn in a hard copy in class.

American Literature and Composition 2

February 6, 2016

Digital Storytelling Assignment

Diaries, journals, notebooks, blogs — for what purposes do people write these?

These are the personal pieces in which people order their thoughts, their reflections, their questions, the chaos of their confusion.

A public confession of this order becomes a memoir. If it covers many memories or events in a person’s life, it becomes memoirs. If it focuses exclusively on a person’s life rather than the events of that societal period, it becomes an autobiography.

When do you go public with your private life? At one time, memoirs were criticized for their sensationalism, their lack of literary value. But during the 20^th century, nonfiction writers began to employ literary techniques in their pieces; nonfiction began to feature characterization, setting, and plot in the service of rhetoric. Memoirs followed suit by delineating the events of a person’s life by adding narrative structure. Now memoirs and autobiographies make up the most popular portion of publishing.

What will you write about?

How will you write it?

Who will read it?

Why?

Choose a character, an event or adventure, or a place in your life that means something to you, something worth telling. Write this memoir in the form of a script, a piece intended to be read aloud. The length of this depends on your pacing — reading it should take 3-5 minutes. In most cases, one or two pages should be sufficient. Ultimately, the length will depend on the photos and sounds that will accompany the piece.

For the script, choose a specific anecdote from your life or interest. Pattern it after the memoirs that the class read last semester. After getting feedback on the script, you may move on to create a digital story, using computer programs to add photos and music to an overdub of your memoir. This script is required, and is due February 14.

Continue on to the next page for …

Questions to guide your brainstorming about what to write about

(adapted from the Center for Digital Storytelling Cookbook)

The Story About Someone Important

Character Stories: How we love, are inspired by, want to recognize, and find meaning in our relationships are all aspects of our lives that are important to us.

Memorial Stories: Honoring and remembering people who have passed is an essential part of the grieving process.

What is or had been your relationship to this person?
How would you describe this person (physical appearance, character, and so forth)?
Is there an event that best captures his or her character?
What about the person do or did you most enjoy?
What about the person drives you crazy?
What lesson did the person give you that you feel is most important?
If you had something to say to the person but she or he never had a chance to hear you say it, what would it be?

The Story About an Event in My Life

Adventure Stories: One of the reasons we travel is to break away from the normalcy of our lives, to create new vivid memories.

Accomplishment Stories: Achieving a goal easily fits into the desire/struggle/realization structure of a classic story.

What was the event or adventure (time, place, incident, or series of incidents)?
With whom did you experience this event?
Was there a defining moment in the event?
How did you feel during this event (fear, exhilaration, joy)?
What did the event teach you?
How did this event change your life?

The Story About a Place in My Life

You may have a story about your current home, a town, a park, a mountain or forest you love, a restaurant, store, or gathering place.

How would you describe the place?
With whom did you share this place?
What general experiences do you relate to this place?
Was there a defining experience at the place?
What lessons about yourself do you draw from your relationship to this place?American Literature and Composition 2

January 20, 2016

The Grapes of Wrath Assignments

John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is a book that captures the hope and spirit of America during one of its most difficult times. It was published in 1939, many years into the Great Depression and Dustbowl that turned America upside down. In Europe, Hitler invaded Poland as war became a reality. In America, President Roosevelt tried to turn the economy around by instituting work programs to provide jobs to the unemployed. People were on the move across the country in search of work. John Steinbeck chronicled one aspect of this migration by focusing on tenant farmers from Oklahoma who sought salvation in California. The Joad family became synonymous with families displaced by the droughts that produced the Dustbowl on the midwestern plains. Nature and bankers uprooted families and blew them out west, in search of stability and prosperity.

During the next few weeks, students will read selections from The Grapes of Wrath in class. All Honors students will be expected to read the entire book on their own. All students will be writing a dramatic monologue based on one of the characters in the novel, after working with other students in groups to imagine topics for these speeches. Honors students will also write an expository paper on The Grapes of Wrath.

For Honors students, the reading schedule for The Grapes of Wrath is: chapters 1-14 by Monday, January 24; chapters 15-22 by 1/31; chapters 23-30 by February 7.

Dramatic Monologue

After reading the first third of the book, students will meet to discuss ideas for writing dramatic monologues based on one of the following characters, as assigned by the instructor: Ma, Tom Joad, Rosasharn, Jim Casy, Al, Connie, or Muley Graves. Together, students will brainstorm ideas about topics, images, and symbols for each character. This dramatic monologue should be written in verse, 30 lines in length close to iambic pentameter (10 syllables); focusing on the role that the character plays in the novel; revealing a deeper psychology inherent in the character; addressing a specific topic of concern to the character; including at least three objects or images associated with the character; using the diction of the character.

This monologue is due January 27.

Honors Assignment

In the Introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of The Grapes of Wrath, Robert Demott suggests that this novel can be analyzed from many perspectives. Steinbeck drew on “Dorothea Lange’s photographs of Dust Bowl Oklahoma and California migrant life” as well as the Greek epics to create an American epic; he employed a symphonic syncopated structure of “intimate narrative and panoramic editorial chapters” to create a living picture of the Great Depression; and he depicted nature ravaged “by poor land-use practices, rapacious acquisitiveness, and technological arrogance”. Focus on one of these topics as you discuss the conflicts illustrated in this novel that shows America at a crossroads – historically, socially, and physically:

Choose the migrant experience as American epic, with its conflicts between tenant farmers, bankers, government camps and agricultural cooperatives; or …

Choose the migrants’ experience of the mother road, Route 66, and how that altered family and community; or …

Choose the natural landscape as a place that identifies the farmer but drowns the migrant.

Select one of these topics, and write a paper that identifies the basic conflicts in the theme; delineate what American values pertain to the topic, and how these change in the course of the book; use the major characters’ evolving recognition of their plights to specifically address your theme.

You must include quotes and specific incidents from the three major sections of the novel – Oklahoma, Route 66, and California.
You must include one graphic piece of evidence that supports your theme – a photograph, song lyrics, chart, and so forth. This should be inserted into your typed paper at the appropriate spot, at the point where you refer to it.
You must include your own response to the selected theme.

This expository paper on The Grapes of Wrath should be three typed pages, double-spaced, one-inch margins, twelve-point font.

This Honors assignment is due Thursday, February 10.Essay

In the “Introduction” to the Penguin Classics edition of The Grapes of Wrath, Robert DeMott suggests that this novel can be analyzed from many perspectives. Steinbeck drew on “Dorothea Lange’s photographs of Dust Bowl Oklahoma and California migrant life” as well as the Greek epics to create an American epic; he employed a symphonic syncopated structure of “intimate narrative and panoramic editorial chapters” to create a living picture of the Great Depression; and he depicted nature ravaged “by poor land-use practices, rapacious acquisitiveness, and technological arrogance”. Focus on one of these topics as you discuss the conflicts illustrated in this novel that shows America at a crossroads – historically, socially, and physically:

Choose the migrant experience as American epic, with its conflicts between tenant farmers, bankers, government camps and agricultural cooperatives; or

Choose the migrants’ experience of the mother road, Route 66, and how that altered family and community; or

Choose the natural landscape as a place that identifies the farmer but drowns the migrant.

Select one of these topics, and write a paper that identifies the basic conflicts in the theme; delineate what American values pertain to the topic, and how these change in the course of the book; use the major characters’ evolving recognition of their plights to specifically address your theme. Contrast the experience of the road with the search for home, or “genus loci.”

American Literature and Composition 2

April 25, 2016

Hawthorne Assignment

Name ________________________________________

You have been reading the Transcendentalists, who can be labeled “positive Romantics”. Nathaniel Hawthorne — as well as Herman Melville and Edgar Allan Poe — favor the darker side of Romanticism, sometimes called Gothic writing. They tend to view Nature as fearful, and human nature as consisting of good and evil, sometimes in balance.

It can be difficult to interpret Hawthorne’s writing, since he sees man as being a complex being who desires to be logical but oftentimes turns emotional and obsessive. The Romantics use symbols to express layered meanings. This contributes to various interpretations of this literature.

Read “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Then write a few paragraphs describing the Romantic elements of the story. Follow this with your analysis of the story as an allegory. Finish with your interpretations of at least three symbols in the story. Remember that there is only one interpretation in an allegory; symbols can have various interpretations. Use this sheet for your notes or your writing….

“YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN” AS A ROMANTIC PIECE OF WRITING:

“YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN” AS AN ALLEGORY:

“YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN” WITH THREE SYMBOLS INTERPRETED:Memoirist Assignment

Using the approach that we have employed in class, write an essay in which you compare these three writers in terms of the arguments they are making; what their purposes are in writing these memoirs; who their audiences are; and who they are — their personas or voices in these chapters; and how the tone illustrates these differences.

Use specific details from these books by Richard Rodriquez, Joan Didion, and James Baldwin to prove your points. This essay should be structured to simplify the comparisons and contrasts — much of this material has been covered in class discussions.

To reiterate, compare the Arguments, Audiences, Purposes, and Personas of Richard Rodriquez in Hunger of Memory, the chapter on “The Achievement of Desire”; Joan Didion in the title essay from The White Album; and James Baldwin in the chapter “Notes of a Native Son.”

In a final paragraph, compare these as memoirs or autobiographies — how are they alike or different on that count? This should be about one typed page, double-spaced. It is due November 30.

Memoirist Essay

What do you consider each memoirist’s purpose? List three details from each author’s memoirs that illustrate their purpose in writing these books. So, explain each author’s purpose in a sentence or two, followed by specific details.

Then answer one of the following in a short essay:

Discuss several motifs or themes that run through Baldwin’s essay, “Notes of a Native Son.” Does he resolve any conflicts associated with these ideas?

How does Joan Didion establish a narrative thread that makes sense of her experiences in California in the 1960s and 1970s? Give details as to how she connects the random events she comes to expect during the timeframe of this essay.

What are the positive and negative aspects of being a “scholarship boy”? What are three negative aspects of the education system, according to Rodriquez? What are three positive things that education makes possible?

Comparing Modernist Writers

Compare and contrast the following three passages in terms of their themes, imagery, and style.

One excerpt is by Fitzgerald, one by Hemingway, one by Faulkner.

Write an essay that discusses the themes, significant imagery or symbolism, and the stylistic elements. Use the introduction to identify the authors of the passages. Make sure that you connect the author’s name to the number of the passage. Use the conclusion to summarize the major points of comparison.

Reading #1

And he would remember it: the five of them standing at the edge of the pit above the empty coffin, then with another limber flowing motion like his twin’s the second Gowrie came up out of the grave and stooped and with an air of rapt displeased even faintly outraged concern began to brush and thump the clay particles from the lower legs of his trousers, the first twin moving as the second stooped, going straight to him with a blind unhurried undeviable homing quality about him like the other of a piece of machinery, the other spindle say of a lathe, travelling on the same ineluctable shaft to its socket, and stooped too and began to brush and strike the dirt from the back of his brother’s trousers; and this time almost a spadeful of dirt slid down across the out-slanted lid and rattled down into the empty box, almost loud enough or with mass and weight enough to produce a small hollow echo.

‘Now he’s got two of them,’ his uncle said.

‘Yes,’ the sheriff said. ‘Where?’

‘Durn two of them,’ old Gowrie said. ‘Where’s my boy, Shurf?’

‘We’re going to find him now, Mr. Gowrie,’ the sheriff said. ‘And you were smart to bring them hounds. Put your pistol up and let your boys catch them dogs and hold them till we get straightened out here.’

‘Never you mind the pistol nor the dogs neither,’ old Gowrie said. ‘They’ll trail and they’ll ketch anything that ever run or walked either. But my boy and that Jake Montgomery – if it was Jake Montgomery whoever it was found laying in my son’s coffin – never walked away from here to leave no trail.’

The sheriff said, ‘Hush now, Mr. Gowrie.’ The old man glared back up at the sheriff. He was not trembling, not eager, baffled, amazed, not anything. Watching him he thought of one of the cold light-blue tear-shaped apparently heatless flames which balance themselves on even less than tiptoe over gasjets.

Reading #2

It was a warm spring night and I sat at a table on the terrace of the Napolitain after Robert had gone, watching it get dark and the electric signs come on, and the red and green stop-and-go traffic-signal, and the crowd going by, and the horse-cabs clippety-clopping along at the edge of the solid taxi traffic, and the poules going by, singly and in pairs, looking for the evening meal. I watched a good-looking girl walk past the table and watched her go up the street and lost sight of her, and watched another, and then saw the first one coming back again. She went by once more and I caught her eye, and she came over and sat down at the table. The waiter came up.

“Well, what will you drink?” I asked.

“Pernod.”

“That’s not good for little girls.”

“Little girl yourself. Dites garcon, un pernod.”

“A pernod for me, too.”

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Going on a party?”

“Sure. Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. You never know in this town.”

“Don’t you like Paris?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you go somewhere else?”

“Isn’t anywhere else.”

“You’re happy, all right.”

“Happy, hell!”

Pernod is greenish imitation absinthe. When you add water it turns milky. It tastes like licorice and it has a good uplift, but it drops you just as far. We sat and drank it, and the girl looked sullen.

“Well,” I said, “are you going to buy me a dinner?”

She grinned and I saw why she made a point of not laughing. With her mouth closed she was a rather pretty girl. I paid for the saucers and we walked out to the street. I hailed a horse-cab and the driver pulled up at the curb. Settled back in the slow, smoothly rolling fiacre we moved up the Avenue de l’Opéra, passed the locked doors of the shops, their windows lighted, the Avenue broad and shiny and almost deserted. The cab passed the New York Herald bureau with the window full of clocks.

Reading #3

Naturally, Basil was unaware of this conversation when, one morning, a week later, the Dorseys’ chauffeur relieved them of their bags in the Grand Central station. There was a slate-pink light over the city and people in the streets carried with them little balloons of frosted breath. About them the buildings broke up through many planes toward heaven, at their base the wintry color of an old man’s smile, on through diagonals of diluted gold, edged with purple where the cornices floated past the stationary sky.

In a long, low, English town car — the first of the kind that Basil had ever seen — sat a girl of about his own age. As they came up she received her brother’s kiss perfunctorily, nodded stiffly to Basil and murmured, “how-d’y’-do” without smiling. She said nothing further but seemed absorbed in meditations of her own. At first, perhaps because of her extreme reserve, Basil received no especial impression of her, but before they reached the Dorseys’ house he began to realize that she was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen in his life.

It was a puzzling face. Her long eyelashes lay softly against her pale cheeks, almost touching them, as if to conceal the infinite boredom in her eyes, but when she smiled, her expression was illumined by a fiery and lovely friendliness, as if she were saying, “Go on; I’m listening. I’m fascinated. I’ve been waiting — oh, ages — for just this moment with you.” Then she remembered that she was shy or bored; the smile vanished, the gray eyes half closed again. Almost before it had begun, the moment was over, leaving a haunting and unsatisfied curiosity behind.

The Dorseys’ house was on Fifty-third Street. Basil was astonished first at the narrowness of its white stone front and then at the full use to which the space was put inside. The formal chambers ran the width of the house, artificial sunlight bloomed in the dining-room windows, a small elevator navigated the five stories in deferential silence. For Basil there was a new world in its compact luxury. It was thrilling and romantic that a foothold on this island was more precious than the whole rambling sweep of the James J. Hill house at home. In his excitement the feel of school dropped momentarily away from him. He was possessed by the same longing for a new experience, that his previous glimpses of New York had aroused. In the hard bright glitter of Fifth Avenue, in this lovely girl with no words to waste beyond a mechanical “How-d’y’-do,” in the perfectly organized house, he recognized nothing, and he knew that to recognize nothing in his surroundings was usually a guaranty of adventure.

American Literature and Composition 2

January 28, 2016

PAIRED NOVELS ASSIGNMENT 2

The Paired Novels assignments are intended to acquaint students with the styles and themes of specifics periods in American literary history. Students must now write a research paper on their second novel, and make a presentation to the class as part of a group who read novels listed in the same category.

Research Paper

The first book of the pair, which students read Fall Semester, was usually written during the time period listed – Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, and Postmodernism. The second book, to be read over the next month, may have been written during the period listed; or may be a contemporary book reflecting the themes of the first book in the pair.

For the research and analysis of this second book, students should focus on the style and themes of the book, as representative of the period under which it is listed. They should also compare and contrast the second book with the first.

The American values presented in the two books may be the easiest starting point for a comparison paper. Discuss what is alike and what is different in terms of the values presented in each book. Refer to the other literary pieces that we read listed under the same period heading. Do your two books focus on some of the same ideas that we discussed in class? We will review the sequence of literary movements in American history to introduce those periods the class has yet to study.

In examining the themes of the books, you may start to notice structural similarities. How is the writing alike, or is it? Some of these paired novels are written at different times. Does the style enhance or substantiate the novel’s themes; does it reflect the time when the second book was written; does it detract from the book’s ideas? Consider point of view, sentence structure, format, the various elements of style. Write about those points that distinguish this work.

Use one scholarly article that focuses on the author or book, and use one that focuses on America society. Use these articles to support your interpretation of the book as representative of the values and style of writing associated with the period or movement listed.

So, to sum up the requirements for this research paper on your second novel:

Compare and contrast the values and themes in your two books
Discuss the style of the second book, relating it to the themes and period
Integrate quotes from two scholarly sources – one on the author or novel; one on the specific literary period or social era – tying these to the theme or style; these should be quoted or specifically paraphrased in your paper
Include at least five quotes from your novel.

The class will look at various online databases for scholarly research. This paper should be three typewritten pages, double-spaced 12-point font, one-inch margins, with one additional page listing Works Cited, using MLA documentation. Check a usage guide. Paper is due May 6, 2016.

Group Presentation

During the week of May 9, students who read novels listed in the same category will present to the class their findings of what constitutes thematic similarities and stylistic techniques in their books. A short synopsis of the book, and a note of the relationship between the paired books by each student would be appropriate. The group should then talk about the themes that they noticed in their books that illustrate something unique to the period. A discussion of the styles of the books would also be relevant at this point. Visual aids, such as a video illustrating the major themes of the era, or a powerpoint or poster that outlines the themes, could enhance the presentation. Students should discuss what kind of presentation best communicates the themes and styles of their books and the period. Students will only have one meeting the previous week to organize this presentation. Students should have written their paper and submitted it on time in order to prepare their presentation during the week of May 9.

Romanticism:

Moby Dick by Herman Melville;

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne;

Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper

Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

Realism:

Portrait of a Lady by Henry James;

The Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion

Oil by Upton Sinclair;

Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe

Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

My Antonia by Willa Cather;

Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane;

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Modernism:

Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin;

Home by Marilynne Robinson

Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway;

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett;

The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote;

Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi

them by Joyce Carol Oates;

Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien;

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Postmodernism:

The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

Krik? Krak? by Edwidge Danticat

On the Road by Jack Kerouac;

Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe

Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya;

House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday

Herzog by Saul Bellow;

White Noise by Don DeLillo

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston;

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros;

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

Generation X by Douglas Coupland;

Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer;

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

American Literature and Composition 2

April 14, 2016

DENVER PHOTOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENT

Overview

We started reading Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” in class. Students should have read all of this poem from the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass – there is a link to the Whitman archives posted on the class website; “Song of Myself” is the first poem that follows a long prose introduction by Whitman. Students also read “Chapter 6, The Present”, of Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. We are discussing the themes and techniques that each author uses in their works. As part of a unit devoted to nature writing, Whitman and Dillard describe their lives within the American tradition of Transcendentalist writing, often using religious ideas to make their points.

We also talked about photography in its depiction of character and place, and how it has changed the way we picture ourselves. To visually connect Whitman and the American psyche, we looked briefly at Ken Burn’s first film about the Brooklyn Bridge, after having read Whitman’s poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”.

Assignment

Tell a story that celebrates Denver, imagining your self as the poet’s representative for all the residents of the metropolitan region. Write this in the free verse style of Whitman, or like the prose of Dillard. Use their specific themes and techniques to testify to the people, jobs, gardens, stadiums, parks, neighbors and neighborhoods, roads, bridges, cars, bikes, skating haunts, malls, carnicerias, coffeeshops, diners, museums, theatres, rivers and creeks, mountain tundra and hot pavements. Imagine a conversation with yourself that accelerates through the mix of sensual experiences that makes up your city vision, your current American dream.

Requirements

If you write in Whitman’s style, 30 to 50 lines of verse, with an average of 10 words per line, are required.
If you write prose ala Dillard, 300-500 words are required.
Include 5-10 photographs inserted into your paper, at the appropriate spots, to illustrate the Denver scenes you are describing.
- If you haven’t mastered this publishing technique, then include the photos at the end of the poem or essay; however, if you do this the photos must be captioned, describing their relevance to your story of Denver.
- If you don’t have a camera or phone that takes pictures that can be digitally downloaded, then go to the flickr website — https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=denver — and search for Denver images of places that you are familiar with. There are computers in the classroom for you to accomplish this if you don’t have access to a camera. Do not use every tourist bureau shot available on flickr — these tend to be too generic. Either shoot your own sites, or find specific and personal Denver views to use.

Assessment

You must include concrete language and physical imagery in your writing. Tie these words and pictures to transcendentalist and theological questions that Whitman and Dillard entertain. Your notes from our discussions will help in this. Both writers are known for their close observation of their physical surroundings, and their questions regarding the human condition. Your writing should narrate your positive vibrations about life in the Rocky Mountain West, and your relationship to the variety of people who populate the region.

Details

Whitman uses specific poetic techniques in his poetry. Your verse should reflect these techniques. Dillard tells her story in a series of exploratory vignettes focused on the Tinker Creek landscape that she inhabited, like Thoreau, for a few years. She sprinkles in philosophical musings akin to the Transcendentalists. Your writing should strive for a similar mix of environmental observation and metaphysics. Your notes from our class discussions will fuel your writing.

Due on April 26, 2016.American Literature and Composition 2

May 6, 2016

Turner and Cather Essay

Name ______________________________________

Apply the traits of the American character that Frederick Jackson Turner outlines in his first chapter of The Significance of the Frontier in American History to “The Wild Land”, Part 1 of Willa Cather’s O Pioneers! Discuss how Cather describes and illustrates specific traits of the American frontier character in her fiction.

You can use notes from your reading of Turner’s “Frontier Thesis” and Cather’s novel. (Five traits from Turner and five examples in Cather constitute the standard response.) Both the Turner thesis and Cather’s novel are on the class website.

American Literature and Composition 2

May 31, 2016

Spring Semester Review

Name ____________________________________

Use two examples from the accompanying list to explain each of the following movements, theories, or themes. You cannot use the same literary example more than once. Write a sentence discussing why the literary piece best illustrates the tenets of the movement, theory, or theme listed. (Write the name of the work — don’t simply list the number next to it.)

Realism
- 1.

Psychoanalytic theory
- 1.

Transcendentalism
- 1.

Postmodernism
- 1.

Frontier
- 1.

Modernism
- 1.

Individualism versus Conformity
- 1.

Puritanism
- 1.

Identity
- 1.

Romanticism
1.

Use two literary pieces from the following list for each of the movements, theories, and themes mentioned above. Do not use an example more than once for any of the categories. Explain each choice in a sentence.

Ellison’s Invisible Man
Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
Masters’ Spoon River Anthology
Kerouac’s On the Road
Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams
Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams”
Miller’s Death of a Salesman
Faulkner’s “Barn Burning”
Emerson’s “Nature”
Hemingway’s “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”
Didion’s “White Album”
Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath
Turner’s The Frontier in American History
Anderson’s “The Thinker”
Brooks’ March
Ginsberg’s “Howl”
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God
Whitman’s Leaves of Grass
Cather’s O Pioneers!
Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown”
Alcott’s Little Women
Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity”
Thoreau’s Walden
Egan’s The Worst Hard Time
Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler
de Crèvecœur’s Letters from an American Farmer
Steinbeck’s Cannery Row
Crane’s “When Man Falls, a Crowd Gathers”