ENGL 2011 - American Literature to 1900

1. Pre-Colonial Period
   1. Close reading 
      1. Native American oral literature
      2. Accounts of exploration
      3. Early American poetry/captivity narratives by women (e.g., Bradstreet, Rowlandson)
   2. Historical and cultural analysis 
      1. Considering the definition of “American Literature”
      2. Accounts of early exploration: myth vs. truth
      3. Analyzing women’s identity in pre-colonial society
   3. Literary elements 
      1. What is literature?
      2. Elements of pre-colonial narrative
      3. Elements of pre-colonial poetry
2. Colonial Period
   1. Close reading 
      1. Readings about the creation of “America”
      2. Accounts from slaves (e.g., Wheatley, Equiano)
      3. Sentimental literature
   2. Historical and cultural analysis
      1. Questioning inclusion/exclusion in early America
      2. The value and/or authentication of slave accounts
      3. Analyzing sentimentality as an emerging style from women in late 18th-century America
   3. Literary elements
      1. Political documents
      2. Slave narratives
      3. Sentimental novels
3. American Romanticism
   1. Close reading
      1. Transcendentalism (e.g., Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller)
      2. Short stories (e.g., Hawthorne, Poe)
      3. Slave narrative (e.g., Douglass)
   2. Historical and cultural analysis
      1. Examining the place of Transcendentalism in Romanticism
      2. Analyzing characteristics of Romanticism
      3. Defining characteristics of the Slave narrative
   3. Literary elements
      1. Elements of Transcendentalist writings
      2. Short story elements
      3. Additional elements of the Slave narrative
4. American Realism 
   1. Close reading
      1. Poetry (e.g., Whitman, Dickinson)
      2. Naturalism
      3. Regionalism
      4. Literature of Immigration
      5. Women’s Literature
   2. Historical and cultural analysis
      1. How poetry was defined in this era
      2. Naturalism vs. Regionalism: Contrast and Comparison
      3. How immigrants and women became subject matter and/or authors in the late 19th-century literary marketplace. 
   3. Literary elements
      1. Elements of 19th-century American poetry
      2. Naturalism and Regionalism as sub-genres of Realism
      3. Short stories/essays/novels from immigrants and women.

1. demonstrate awareness of the scope and variety of works in American Literature from its origins to 1900.
2. analyze those works as expressions of individual and human values within an historical and social context.
3. respond critically to works in American Literature from its origins to 1900.
4. articulate an informed personal reaction to works in American Literature.
5. analyze basic literary elements in works studied.
6. analyze the development and changing meanings of group identities in U.S. history and culture.
7. analyze and articulate the similarities and differences between their attitudes, behaviors, concepts, and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry and those of the writers, characters, and situations encountered in American Literature.
8. articulate an informed reaction to the experiences and contributions of varied groups that shape American society and culture, in particular those groups that have suffered discrimination and exclusion.

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