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. 11th 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. 5th ed. New York:
Mcmillan, 1986.

McConochie, Jean A. 20th 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, 1st v. 3rd 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.