A survey of American masterpieces from the Civil War to the present.

Prerequisites and Corequisites

English 1020.

Course Topics

The course will cover selections of American literature from the Civil War up to contemporary times. Students will read stories, poems, novels, and/or plays from the realist, naturalist, modern, and postmodern literary periods.

Specific Course Requirements

To do well in this course, students should be prepared to read, analyze, and interpret the assigned literary works, retain specific knowledge about the works and their authors, and express ideas about the works in writing.

Textbooks, Supplementary Materials, Hardware and Software Requirements

Required Textbooks:

McMichael, George, et al. Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 2. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2007. ISBN: 0-13-221647-7

Supplementary Materials

None.

Hardware Requirements

The minimum requirements can be found below. No additional hardware requirements are needed for this course.
 

Software Requirements

Students must submit their writing assignments in one of the following formats:

• Microsoft Word (filename.doc)
• Rich Text Format (filename.rtf)
• HTML (filename.htm)

Students who cannot create files of one of these types will need to check with the instructor at the beginning of class to explore alternatives.

 Instructor Information

Since different instructors may be teaching different sections of this course, please see the separate page inside the course to find the instructor's contact information.

Assessment and Grading

Testing Procedures

Students will take their quizzes using the online quiz function. No proctors will be necessary for this course.

Grading Procedure

Homework and Class Participation

Class participation will be evaluated throughout the course. Students will participate in a variety of homework assignments to ensure that they are fully involved in the community of scholars that makes up their learning environment. Ten (10) homework assignments (Discussions, Creative Writing, Multimedia Presentations, Group Assignments) will count a possible 300 points toward the final grade.

Quizzes

Students will take quizzes to test their knowledge of specific works and to test their ability to apply knowledge of key words and concepts to those specific works. These quizzes will take the form of multiple-choice, matching, fill in the blank, short answer, and/or essay questions. Scores on reading quizzes will count a possible 300 points toward the final grade.

Written Assignments

Students will submit two (2) written assignments (Project and Paper) to test their ability to analyze and interpret literature and their ability to understand works of literary criticism. Combined, these assignments will count a possible 400 points toward the final grade.

Students should keep back-up copies of all written assignments.

High Achievement

To achieve the highest grade in this course, students should

• keep up with reading assignments (both in the textbook and in the content pages of the course);
• read the literary texts more than once when possible, making notes along the way;
• make every attempt to delve below the surface meaning of the text;
• attempt to find connections between (1) ideas within one text, (2) ideas in more than one text, (3) the text and the society which produced it, (4) the text and the contemporary world.

Grading Scale:

• Homework = 300 points
• Quizzes = 300 points 
• Project = 200 points
• Paper = 200 points
• TOTAL = 1000 points

Grade scale: 900 - 1000 = A 800 - 899 = B 700 - 799 = C 600 - 699 = D <600 = F

Assignments and Participation

Reading Assignments:

Module 1 - The Late Nineteenth Century

• Twain, Huckleberry Finn

• James, Daisy Miller

• Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper"

• Chopin, The Awakening

• Crane, "The Open Boat"

Module 2 - The Twentieth Century (1900 to 1945)

• Johnson, Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (selection)

• Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk (selection)

• Hurston, "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" and "The Gilded Six-Bits"

• Fitzgerald, "Winter Dreams"

• Hemingway, "Big, Two-Hearted River"

• Faulkner, "That Evening Sun"

Module 3 - The Twentieth Century (1945 to present)

• Heller, Catch 22 (selection)

• O'Brien, The Things They Carried (selection)

• Vonnegut, "Welcome to the Monkey House"

• O'Connor, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"

• Baldwin, "Sonny's Blues"

• Walker, "Everyday Use"

• Mason, "Shiloh"

• Carver, "Cathedral"

• Alexie, "What You Pawn I Will Redeem"

Class Participation:

Students will be expected to communicate regularly with the instructor and with other students via course email and discussion postings. Students should keep up with assignment deadlines, and they should submit assignments on time.  Students should check their course news, email, and discussion areas regularly to check for important information.

Punctuality:

To receive full credit, students must hand assignments in on time. 10% of the score will be taken away for each 24-hour period a paper or other assignment is late.

Assignment due dates can be found on the course calendar.

Course Ground Rules

This course moves quickly. Students must keep up with their reading or they will have a very difficult time catching up.

Students who have not had any previous experience with online courses must be willing to dive in and learn quickly. The instructor will provide tools to make this learning process easier. In addition, many other students taking will have had prior experience with online courses and are usually happy to assist their less experienced classmates.

Students should communicate with the instructor and their other classmates regularly. They should use their assigned course email addresses in regular communication. They should also give the instructor a personal email address for a backup.

Students should address technical problems immediately. A toll-free telephone number and a web link to the Helpdesk are provided below.

The instructor of this course always welcomes questions, but students should be sure to read all of the pertinent pages in the online class content area before asking questions about assignments, procedures, and requirements. Usually, all of the information needed can be found there. 

To excel in this or any other online course, students must be willing and motivated to do a lot of reading online. The instructor recommends making printed copies of the online course content pages for reading and note taking.

Students should observe course netiquette at all times. This includes being respectful of others in all email and discussion posts. A good rule of thumb is write as though your little old granny were going to read it. (It goes without saying that your little old granny was also a terrific literary critic.)

Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Students who copy someone else�s work (from the Internet or anywhere else) and pass it off as their own will get a "0" on the assignment or fail the course. 

Since Composition I and II are prerequisites for American Masterpieces II, you are expected to know and understand rules of documentation when you enter this course. Rules of documentation are reviewed within the course, but ignorance of documentation rules will not be accepted as an excuse for plagiarism.

Guidelines for Communications

Email:

• Always include a subject line.

• Remember without facial expressions some comments may be taken the wrong way. Be careful in wording your emails. Use of emoticons might be helpful in some cases.

• Use standard fonts.

• Do not send large attachments without permission.

• Special formatting such as centering, audio messages, tables, html, etc. should be avoided unless necessary to complete an assignment or other communication.

• Respect the privacy of other class members

Discussion Groups:

• Review the discussion threads thoroughly before entering the discussion. Be a lurker then a discussant.

• Try to maintain threads by using the "Reply" button rather starting a new topic.

• Do not make insulting or inflammatory statements to other members of the discussion group. Be respectful of other's ideas.

• Be patient and read the comments of other group members thoroughly before entering your remarks.

• Be cooperative with group leaders in completing assigned tasks.

• Be positive and constructive in group discussions.

• Respond in a thoughtful and timely manner.

Chat:

• Introduce yourself to the other learners in the chat session.

• Be polite. Choose your words carefully. Do not use derogatory statements.

• Be concise in responding to others in the chat session.

• Be prepared to open the chat session at the scheduled time.

• Be constructive in your comments and suggestion.

Web Resources:

• Columbia Guide to Online Style by Janice R. Walker and Todd Taylor

• Citation Styles Online http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/cite6.html

These resources provide guidelines for citing sources used in academic papers. For this course, be sure to follow the guidelines for MLA style documentation. The MLA (Modern Language Association) style is the one most commonly used in the humanities disciplines.

The Tennessee Virtual Library is available to all students enrolled in the Regents Degree Program. Students will use this resource to complete their critical paper assignment for the course.

Qualified students with disabilities will be provided reasonable and necessary academic accommodations if determined eligible by the appropriate disability services staff at their home institution. Prior to granting disability accommodations in this course, the instructor must receive written verification of a student's eligibility for specific accommodations from the disability services staff at the home institution. It is the student's responsibility to initiate contact with their home institution's disability services staff and to follow the established procedures for having the accommodation notice sent to the instructor.

The instructor reserves the right to make changes as necessary to this syllabus. If changes are necessary during the term of the course, the instructor will immediately notify students of such changes both by individual email communication and posting both notification and the nature of any changes on the course bulletin board.

In cases of variation between the public syllabus and the syllabus contained inside the virtual classroom, the classroom version is the official version of the course syllabus.

For HELP with

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