Journal Guidelines

Suffolk County Community College
Journal Guidelines
Dr. Laura Tanenbaum

A reading journal allows you to respond to the works we’ll read in a variety of ways. You might talk in detail about a single passage, discuss your personal response to the themes being considered, or describe the connections between the text and other pieces of writing from the class or from your outside reading.
Guidelines: Each entry should be at least one page, typed and double spaced. You should collect the entries in a notebook or binder that allows you to turn them in individually. Hold on to all your journal entries throughout the semester. They will serve as the basis for further writing assignments and will help you review your progress in the class, as well as to study for the midterm and final exam.
Content: On most occasions when a journal entry is due, I will hand out a brief prompt designed to stimulate your thinking. In responding to the prompt, you have a range of options: you might discuss your initial reaction to the text, including things you found confusing or disturbing. Or you might discuss its relation to your own experience of personal beliefs. When needed, you should refer to specific moments in the text to illustrate your ideas. The journal entries need not have any formal structure or one overarching argument. However, you should read over your work to make sure it will make sense to your reader and do your best to make your writing grammatically correct.
Evaluation: I will respond to your individual journal entries with comments and questions designed to stimulate further thinking. Each journal entry is marked with a check, check-plus, or check-minus. Check with me if you receive a check-minus and are uncertain as to why. A letter grade will be given to the collection of entries you turn in at the end of the term. If you do the reading, put thought into your responses, and complete journal entries on time, the journal grade should help your course grade.

Syllabus

Suffolk County Community College
Grant Campus
EG 71: American Literature I
Fall 2006
Dr. Laura Tanenbaum
Email: tanenbl@sunysuffolk.edu
T/Th 12:30-1:45
F-117
Office Hours
T 2-3:30
Th 11-12:30; 2-3:30
F 11-12:30
Sagtikos 212
Office Phone: 851-6425

“What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us?”
Walt Whitman, "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"
We study history to understand how people lived other places and times. Reading literature - from autobiographies and travel narratives to poetry and short stories – gives us something a little different: a view of how people viewed themselves: how individuals made meaning out of their lives, how they saw their place in the larger world, and how they understood and argued about important issues of the day. In this course we will read a variety of texts - both fiction and non-fiction - that offer a window to the evolution of American culture and society from the Colonial period through the Civil War. We will explore the different forms of literary expression that flourished during the period. In addition, we will consider the perspectives these texts give on a range of still relevant concerns such as the relation between religion faith, reason, and science, the meaning of democracy, liberty and equality, slavery and racial equality, the place of Native Americans in the American nation, and the rights of women. This course will emphasize the interconnectedness of reading and writing; throughout the semester you will respond to the readings through a variety of formal and informal writing prompts.
Course Objectives: Upon successful completion of the course, you will be able to:
1) Demonstrate written and oral familiarity with specific works of literary and historical significance from the Colonial Period to the Civil War.
2) Use literary texts as a window and springboard to understanding the social, historical, political, religious and philosophical ideas and conflicts central to this period of American history.
3) Identify and discuss the characteristics and significance of the major literary movements of the period.
4) Identify and discuss the characteristics and significance of the major literary genres represented by the works we read.
5) Use specific textual evidence and close reading of selected passages in support of an interpretative argument about a selected work or works.

Course Work: In order to fulfill these objectives, the day-to-day work of the course will consist of a range of elements:

1) Discussion of assigned readings.
2) Group work and discussions.
3) Brief lectures to provide context on assigned readings.
4) Free writing and brainstorming exercises.
5) Reading Journal Entries
6) Midterm and Final Exam.
Grading:
Journal: 25%
Class Participation, including in-class writing: 25%
Mid-term Exam: 25%
Final Exam: 25%
Attendance: This is a quickly paced class with a rapid turnover of readings and assignments. Missing even a few classes will severely affect your ability to keep up with our work. You will also miss important discussions and lessons that can’t be recreated outside of class. So be on time, prepared, with cell phones and pagers turned off in order to get the most out of class.
If you must miss class, let me know ahead of time. If you do not notify me, and you miss class for reasons other than illness, family emergency or a religious holiday, the absence will be recorded as unexcused. I reserve the right to drop from the class with a W any student with more than three unexcused absences. You are responsible for keeping track of your number of absences, and you are required to take the initiative for making up the work you have missed.
Required Text: The Health Anthology of American Literature, vols. A & B. Paul Lauter, general editor. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Course Website:
The course website, www.SCCCEG71.blogspot.com, contains changes to our schedule and copies of assignments and handouts given in class. If you lose a handout or miss class, consult the website for replacements or updates. The website will NOT contain detailed information about the work you missed; please consult one of your colleagues for notes. If you have questions, don’t leave a note on the website; instead, email me or come to office hours.
Plagiarism: Plagiarism occurs any time that a writer passes off the work of another as their own. This includes copying materials, in whole or in part, from published sources or web pages, buying papers from a "paper mill," hiring someone to write a paper for you, or failing to properly attribute sources used in your writing. The minimum penalty for plagiarism is a grade of zero for the assignment; a second offense will result in failure in the course.
Course Schedule: Please note that this schedule is subject to change and that you are responsible for learning of changes if you miss class, via our course website and your fellow students.

Thursday, August 31st
Course Introduction: Ways of Writing, Ways of Knowing
HW: Read Relation of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (excerpts) (p. 139-152)

Tuesday, September 5th
Discuss Cabeza de Vaca: The Spanish Empire; the Encounter
Historical Overview: Native America, New Spain, New France, and New England
HW: Read William Bradford, "Of Plymouth Plantation" (p. 324-346).

Thursday, September 7th
Discuss Readings: Religion, Virtue, and Conflict
HW: Read Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (p. 666-677)

Tuesday, September, 12th
Discuss Readings: The Art of Preaching
HW: Read Cluster: "On Nature and Nature's God" (p. 635-643)
Journal Entry #1

Thursday, September 14th
Discuss Readings: Faith and Reason
HW: Read Benjamin Franklin, "A Witch Trial at Mount Holly," "The Speech of Polly Baker," The Autobiography (excerpts) (p. 804-807; 814-17; 828-839; 876-886)
Tuesday, September 19th
Discuss Readings: Life Writing and American Literature
HW: : Read Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer, letters III and IX (p. 921-2; 928-33; 934-941)

Thursday, September 21st
Discuss Readings: Freedom and Slavery
HW: Read Cluster: "On the Discourse of Liberty" (p. 1049-1066)
Journal #2

Tuesday, September 26th
Discuss Readings: The Language of Freedom and Revolution
HW: Read Thomas Paine, excerpts from “Common Sense,” “The American Crisis” and “The Age of Reason” (p. 957-973)

Thursday, September 28th
Discuss Readings: The Press and the Revolutionary Period
HW: Review/Catch-Up

Tuesday, October 3rd
Review Colonial & Revolutionary Period: Study Guide
HW: Read William Lloyd Garrison, editorial from The Liberator (p. 1838-41) (VOLUME B); Preface and Introductory Letter to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (p. 1882-89)

Thursday, October 5th
Discuss Garrison and Douglass: Life Writing and Abolition
HW: Read Douglass, Chapters I-VII (p. 1889-1908)
Journal Entry #3

Tuesday, October 10th
Discuss Douglass
HW: Read Douglass, Chapters VIII-X (p. 1908-1933)

Thursday, October 12th
Discuss Douglass
HW: Read Douglass, Chapter XI & Appendix

Tuesday, October 17th
Discuss Douglass
Begin Midterm Review: Handout
HW: Read Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance" (p. 1621-1638)
Begin Midterm Review

Thursday, October 19th
Discuss Emerson
Midterm Review
HW: Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Experience" (p. 1653-1669)
Journal Entry #4

Tuesday, October 24th
Discuss Emerson
HW: Finish Midterm Review

Thursday, October 26th
Midterm Exam in Class

Tuesday, October 31st
Discuss Midterm
Continue discussion of Emerson
HW: Read Henry David Thoreau, “Resistance to Civil Government” (p. 1735-1752)

Thursday, November 2nd
Discuss Thoreau and Context of 19th Century Politics: Slavery and Empire
HW: Read Henry David Thoreau, Walden (excerpts) (p. 1753-1787)
Journal #5

Tuesday, November 7th
Continue Discussion of Thoreau: Nature, Politics and the Self
HW: Read William Apess “An Indian’s Looking Glass” and Frederick Law Olmsted A Journey Through Texas (excerpts) (p. 1459-65; 1556-1559)

Thursday, November 9th
Discuss Apess and Olmsted: Native America and the West
HW: Read James Fenimore Cooper, The Pioneers (excerpts) (p. 2185-2207)

Tuesday, November 14th
Discuss Cooper: Another Look at the West
HW: Read Sojourner Truth, Assorted Readings (p. 2092- 2099) and Elizabeth Cady Stanton Eighty Years and More: Reminiscences (excerpts) and “Declaration of Sentiments” (p. 2109-2115)

Thursday, November 16th
Discuss Truth and Stanton: Women, Civil Rights and 19th Century America
HW: Read Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Minister’s Black Veil” (p. 2242-2245; 2267-2275)
Journal #6

Tuesday, November 21st
Discuss Hawthorne: American Fiction; Another Look at Puritanism
HW: Read Edgar Allan Poe “The Black Cat” (p. 2495-2501)

Thursday, November 23rd
No Class – Thanksgiving Break

Tuesday, November 28th
Discuss Poe: The Birth of Genre Fiction
HW: Read Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (p. 2621-2651)

Thursday, November 30th
Discuss Melville: Another View of Individualism
HW: Read Collection of Poems by Emily Dickinson (pages TBA)
Journal Entry #7

Tuesday, December 5th
Discuss Dickinson: Poetry and the Self
HW: Read Song of Myself (excerpts) (pages TBA)

Thursday, December 7th
Discuss Whitman: Poetry and the Nation
Begin Final Exam Review: Handout
HW: Read “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” and Drum Taps (excerpts) (pages TBA)

Tuesday, December 12th
Discuss Second Collection of Whitman Poems: The Poetry of War
HW: Begin Exam Review
Finish Collecting/Revising Journal Entries

Thursday, December 14th
Turn in Revised Journals; Review for Final Exam

Tuesday, December 19th
Final Exam (During Regular Class Period)