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RALPH BAUER office: 4107 SQH office phone: (301) 405 3794 home phone: (301) 270 0785 E-Mail: rb227@umail.umd.edu website: "http://www.mith2.umd.edu/summit/Ralph_Bauer/home.html" |
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RALPH BAUER office: 4107 SQH office phone: (301) 405 3794 home phone: (301) 270 0785 E-Mail: rb227@umail.umd.edu website: "http://www.mith2.umd.edu/summit/Ralph_Bauer/home.html" |
ENGLISH 431 (0101): AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1810-1865.
MWF 1-1:50 SQH 1119
Office Hours: M 2-5 and by appointment
1. DESCRIPTION:
Survey of a selection of nineteenth-century American literature through the Civil War. We will deal with conflicting ideas about American national identity, individualism, and political democracy; historical issues such as American imperialism, slavery, and the Civil War; literary movements such as Romanticism, sentimentalism, and Transcendentalism; and various literary genres such as the novel, autobiography, and poetry, and the essay. Writers include Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Dickinson, Douglass, Stowe, and Melville.
2. TEXTS AND EDITIONS: At order with Maryland Book Exchange and University Bookstore
ENG 431 Coursepack (at College Copy Center).
James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans. Penguin 0140390243
Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie. Penguin 0140436766
Edgar Allen Poe, Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Penguin 0140430970
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays and Poems. Library of America 1883011329
Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience. Penguin 0140390448
Margaret Fuller, Women in the Nineteenth Century. Dover 0486406628
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life. Penguin 014039012
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Oxford 0195066707
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. New American Library 0451523024
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. Houghton Mifflin 0395051533.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick. MacMillan 0023367202
3. SCHEDULE:
WEEK I
W 9/1
INTRODUCTION
F 9/3
Washington Irving, "Rip Van Winkle" (coursepack)
WEEK II
M 9/6
LABOR DAY (begin reading Cooper)
W 9/8
Irving, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (coursepack).
F 9/10
James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans
WEEK III
M 9/13
Cooper, cont.
W 9/15
Cooper, cont.
F 9/17
Cooper, cont.
WEEK IV
M 9/20
Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Hope Leslie
W 9/22
Cont.
F 9/24
Cont.
WEEK V
M 9/27
Edgar Allen Poe, Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym
DUE: PAPER # 1, PRELIMINARY DRAFT (3-5 PS)
W 9/29
Cont.
F 10/1
Poe, selected poetry (coursepack)
WEEK VI
M 10/4
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature.
DUE: PAPER # 1 (3-5 PS), FINAL DRAFT FRIDAY, 10/4, 5PM MY OFFICE
W 10/6
Emerson, selected essays.
F 10/8
Emerson, selected essays.
WEEK VII
M 10/11
Henry David Thoreau, Walden.
W 10/13
Thoreau, Walden, cont.
F 10/15
Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
WEEK VIII
M 10/18
Margaret Fuller, Women in the Nineteenth Century.
W 10/20
Cont.
F 10/22
Cont.
WEEK IX
M 10/25
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life.
W 10/27
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
F 10/29
Jacobs, cont.
WEEK X
M 11/1
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
DUE: PAPER # 2, PRELIMINARY DRAFT (3-5 PS)
W 11/3
Stowe, cont.
F 11/5
Stowe, cont.
WEEK XI
M 11/8
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
DUE: PAPER # 2 (3-5 PS), FINAL DRAFT FRIDAY, 11/8, 5PM MY OFFICE
W 11/10
Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, cont.
F 11/12
Hawthorne, selected stories. (coursepack)
WEEK XII
M 11/15
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
W 11/17
Cont.
F 11/19
Cont.
WEEK XIII
M 11/22
Melville, Moby Dick, cont.
W 11/24
Cont.
F 11/26
Thanksgiving
WEEK XIV
M 11/29
Walt Whitman, selected poetry (coursepack)
W 12/1
Cont.
F 12/3
Cont.
WEEK XV
M 12/6
Emily Dickinson, selected poetry (coursepack)
DUE: PAPER # 3, PRELIMINARY DRAFT (5-7 PS)
W 12/8
Cont.
F 12/10
Cont.
WEEK XVI
M 12/13
REVIEW
DUE: PAPER # 3 (5-7 PS), FINAL DRAFT FRIDAY, 12/17, 5PM MY OFFICE.
WEEK XVI
FINAL EXAM (date, time, place t.b.a.)
4. LOGISTICS
A. ASSIGNEMENTS
1. READING ASSIGNMENTS
are to be completed by the beginning of the class period assigned for discussion of a given text.
2. WRITTEN ASSIGNMENTS
a. e-mail discussion
Once a week, on a day specifically assigned to you, you will contribute to a discussion which you will be having with three or four other students in the class throughout the term. In your e-mail group conversation, you will discuss any observations you or your peers can make about the literature or any connections you may find between texts or between the primary and the secondary materials. In class, you will sometimes be asked to report on your group discussion. The purpose of this assignment is to allow you to build a community with your peers and to further collaborative learning.
b. papers
There will be THREE PAPERS in this class, two 3-5 pages and one 5-7 pages in length. Each paper will involve: (a) at least one informal PRELIMINARY DRAFT (typed) and (b) one FINAL DRAFT, which are expected to be up to professional standards (typed, double-spaced, referenced, edited, etc.). PRELIMINARY DRAFTS are not graded individually, but as a whole process at the end of the term (how much improvement you have made from one to the next draft). FINAL DRAFTS are graded as individual performances, independent of how much you have improved. You may revise one final paper for a better grade after talking to me first. The grade assigned to the revision will be averaged out with the original grade.
c. quizzes
These short quizzes (essay and/or multiple choice) will periodically be given at the beginning of class in order to review the out-of-class reading assignments.
d. final exam
On Final’s Day, a two-hour essay exam will be given. You will have a study sheet containing the exam questions one week before the exam. The exam will contain a selection from the questions included on your study sheet.
3. ORAL ASSIGNMENTS
a. student presentations
Every student will give one 10-15 minute presentations on a text of his or her choice on the day this text is scheduled for discussion. Presentations may provide historical/biographical background information and point out how this information is relevant to our reading of the text or identify one or two themes, raise questions/issues in the text and speculate on answers. Also, every presenter should bring in a hand-out, including important information and a number of questions for class discussion.
b. class participation
Every student will be expected to participate in class discussions.
B. CONFERENCES
Although you may be able to clear certain questions over e-mail, you are still strongly advised to see me frequently in order to talk about your work in general during office hours. If you cannot see me during my regularly scheduled office hours, arrange other times with me. During weeks when papers are due, you will be encouraged to sign up for extra conferences specifically intended to assist you in the writing process.
C. ATTENDANCE:
A substantive part of your learning experience in this class will depend on your participation in class discussion, as well as receiving and giving responses to the written work which students bring in. Therefore regular attendance is imperative and required. Attendance will be taken at every meeting. Tardiness disrupts the class and will not be looked upon kindly. Three tardies will therefore count as one absence. If you have more than three unexcused absences at the end of the semester, your final grade will be lowered by 0.1 points for every absence (after the third). Students who have more than a total of 8 unexcused absences will automatically fail this course. In order to be excused from an absence in case of a serious illness, you must produce a written explanation for your absence and proper and official documentation attesting to your illness. Obligations to teams, sororities or fraternities, clubs, jobs, other courses or appointments with professors/advisors will not be considered to be valid excuses.
D. GRADING:
1. Paper I..........10% 5. Presentations………15%
2. Paper II.........10% 6. Drafting/Revising....10%
3. Paper III........15% 7. Participation.......... 10%
4. Final Exam ...15% 8. E-mail Discussion...15%