Northern    Arizona University College of Arts & Letters Department: English ENG 243 American Literature from 1865 to Present

Units of Credit: 3
Course Pre-requisite(s), Co-requisite(s), Co-convened, and/or Cross-Listed Courses: ENG105 or HON 190 or English Placement Test Results (Accuplacer WR 8; PLACE 50+) or International Exchange Student Group
Mode of Instruction: Online
Meeting: Online BBLearn

Instructor: John Rothfork
Contact Information:

·       E-mail: john.rothfork@nau.edu
·       Office: Babbitt 324 (no physical office hours)
·       Ph: 928.523.0559 (office)

Course Description:

This is the second half of the American literature survey sequence that follows canon literature (in English) from our colonial beginning to today. There is a huge number of works we might chose from in this 150 year period.

The major concern in making choices is aesthetic. Literature is first & foremost an art. Canon literature is not defined like popular literature -- by the number of likes, reads, or sales. Canon literature is such because of scholarly analysis published in professional (peer-review) journals & because these works are taught in university courses like ours. Publishing a literary work is only half the story. The other half is developed by literary scholarship. This may sound stuffy. Some of criticism is stuffy or pedantic or ill-informed, just as some creative writing isn't very good. Obviously, you shouldn’t cite such material. The more we know about canon literature, the more we tend to enjoy it.

Canon literature illustrates historic & social values & views. This means that critical analysis is largely about what isn't explicitly presented in the literal level of the story. It is about implications & background.

Reading list

Course Structure:

Our text is the Norton Anthology of American Literature, 9th ed. Robert S. Levine, et. al. We will also use the publisher’s software for quizzes & to read through this text, especially for period or era explanations & author biographies. The course has 3 divisions:

• Graded, weekly discussion posts (150 points)

• 14 quizzes (140 points). Each can be taken multiple times. The system records your best score.

• 3 analytic essays (100 each; 300 total).

• Each paper must be a minimum of 1,200 words exclusive of a title page & “works cited” section.

• Each paper must offer citations from at least 2 relevant scholarly works. At least one reference must be literary criticism published in a literature journal (not an ESL or linguistics journal; this includes foreign journals from non-English speaking countries that may say they publish critical analysis, but in fact they are ESL journals). Do not cite essays from journals published in China, Turkey or other non-English speaking countries. These are not valid sources for literary analysis. Other citations may be from academic works that explain literary periods or other relevant contexts.

• I will offer critical analysis of nearly all the readings in BBLearn "lectures."

• I will also offer weekly "lectures" using "Collaborate" in BBLearn.
   

Course Expectations and Student Learning Outcomes:

Students in this course will:

• study literature while learning about practices of literary interpretation & analysis

• learn and develop skills in critical thinking, literary analysis, and rhetorical argumentation

• understand how genre conventions, literary views (such as Romanticism & Realism), cultural contexts, & audience expectations influence literature

•  examine how literary elements illustrate historic or period judgments on gender, race, class, sexuality, reality, & related concerns, such as Manifest Destiny, “the lost generation,” Freudian determinism, literary Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, & Postmodernism demonstrate competency in writing literary analysis that relies on citing relevant professional works from literary journals

NAU Department of English — Literature Learning Outcomes:

A graduating English major whose coursework includes a focus on literature will: o:p>

• examine texts from emergent and established literary traditions

• read texts attentively, both for accurate literal meaning as well as for define literary concepts, genres, and traditions and apply them to interpretations of texts contextualize interpretations of individual texts, using focused, relevant information about societies, cultures, histories, and traditions construct coherent arguments about and engage creatively with literary texts

• write with rhetorical art and proper mechanics

• evaluate secondary sources and use them responsibly in arguments

• use scholarly resources, print and electronic

• skillfully incorporate primary and secondary texts into critical writing that observes the specific conventions of academic writing about literature

• sstyle, form, and word choice
  

Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes: /span>

The course will be graded on a 590 point scale:

90-100%:          A       531 or more points

80-89%:            B       472—530

70-79%:            C       413—471

60-69%:            D      354—412

Below 60%:        F       3353 or fewer points

• Discussion posts: 150 points; 25%

• Quizzes: 140 points; 24%

• Analytic essays: 300 points; 51%

 
Policy on Late Work & Incompletes:

• Late work (including the 3 major papers) will be accepted with a 5% grade reduction for ever day late. Multiple late submissions are not accepted. This occurs when someone fails to turn in papers on time to then assume they can submit all the missing assignments just before the course ends.

• An incomplete grade may be given only when 60% or more of the course work has been done with a passing grade & you experience some unforeseen problem.

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