"I then began again to think about the bottom nature in people, I began to get enormously interested in hearing how everybody said the same thing over and over again with infinite variations but over and over again until finally if you listened with great intensity you could hear it rise and fall and tell all that there was inside them, not so much by the actual words that they said or the thoughts they had but the movement of their thoughts and words endlessly the same and endlessly different."

--From The Gradual Making of The Making of Americans, Gertrude Stein, 1935

Course Objectives:

This course will provide students with a sampling of American literature since 1900. The literature that we will study is by writers from diverse backgrounds so that we might get a sense of the diversity of experiences and events represented in American literature. By exploring American literature as it develops through the twentieth century, we will gain a historical sense of various literary movements. Some questions that we will ask include, "What does it mean to be ‘American’?"; "What is distinctly ‘American’ about the literature that we read?"; and "To what cultural changes do American writers speak?" The goal in this course is to introduce you to a great variety of literature as a means of exploring the culture from which it arose. Creating connections between ideas and understanding patterns in the development of American literature will be foremost in our priorities.

If you apply yourself to the reading and writing assignments, you can expect to sharpen your analytical skills, improve your writing, and increase your knowledge of American literature and the important events and issues that shaped it during the last 100 years.

Required Texts:

Lauter, Paul et al. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 2 vols. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co, 1998.
(We will use volume 2.)

Required Materials:

One 3.5" floppy computer disk

Xerox copies for reserve materials $10

Class Participation:

Since this class involves sharpening your reading and analytical skills, good discussions are imperative. Your participation grade (10%) will depend on your attendance, contribution to group work, and active interest in debates and discussion. Poor attendance will affect your class participation grade adversely. In this class, missing more than two classes will result in the loss of one letter grade. Missing more than five classes will result in the lowering of the overall grae by one letter for each day missed. Good attendance alone will not guarantee a superior participation grade.

Quizzes:

Expect that content quizzes will be given daily. Quizzes will be short (5 points), and students can drop their three lowest scores. Quizzes will account for 10% of your total grade. On some days, quizzes will be substituted for closed-book, in-class writing activities, worth five points.

Group Project:

• Groups will conduct discussions with Saginaw Valley’s BlackBoard server. Each group will be required to produce at least thirty pages of out-of-class discussion on BlackBoard, either by posting comments on bulletin boards or chatting in real time. Fifteen pages are due before midterm and the rest before finals. (Be sure to contribute piecemeal throughout the semester. To do all of the work the week before it is due reduces the quality of the discussions and adversely affects your grade.) Depending on your group’s needs, you can use either format or a combination of the two. In these discussions, you will carry on topics that originated in class or new ones that you would like to explore on your own. These discussions should remain focused on topics that we discuss in class and should work toward making connections between the literature that we read and the historical moments at which the literature is produced.

• These discussions will be printed and turned in for credit (10% in total). Each member of the group will keep a copy of the discussion for his or her portfolio. (You can use the laser printers in any of the computer labs on campus to print a discussion.) If any member of the group the group becomes "dead weight" and fails to interact in discussions in a productive manner, the other group members have the right to bonus points that I will allot as fits each special case.

Writing Assignments:

• One essay, worth 30% of your grade will illustrate your depth of understanding on a given topic, of which you will have several to choose at least two weeks before they are due. This paper ought to be about five pages in length and have a research component.
• Two short response papers (2-3 pp), the first is worth 10% of the total grade and the second 15% (25% combined), will demonstrate your engagement with the texts that we cover in the course.
  

Late Paper Policy:

No late papers will be submitted without a penalty. Your grade will drop one letter for each class day your paper is late, beginning with the first day it is due. Computer problems do not qualify as a legitimate excuse for a late paper.

Writing and Research Assistance:

The Writing Center is located in room 134 of Zahnow (249-1661). To e-mail the Writing Center, send your message to writing-center@svsu.edu. Consult my web page for other writing resources for students, including a link to the Zahnow Library page.

Final Exam:

The final will be cumulative and will be essay in format. Its primary objective will be to draw connections between major ideas in twentieth-century American Literature. It will constitute 15% of your grade.

Grade Breakdown