ENG 3210—American Literature to 1865
Three Semester Hours
ET 3/14
Prerequisites
University Prerequisite: ENG 2010 or 2020 or 250 or 2 courses above ENG 200 or (Jr or Sr)
Course Description
Authors, works, and genres of American literature from the beginnings through the Civil War.
Methods of Course Instruction
All material for this course is print-based. Instructor and students communicate and exchange materials through postal mail.
E-Print Option
In this course an option exists to use e-mail to submit your lesson assignments. Your assignment will be returned to you either as an e-mail attachment or as a hard copy sent through the postal mail, depending on the preferences of the instructor and/or program.
Textbooks and Supplies
- Rowlandson, Mary White and Neal Salisbury. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: and Related Documents . Boston: Bedford Books, 1997.[ISBN: 9780312111519]
- Crèvecoeur, J. Hector and Warren Barton Blake. Letters From an American Farmer . Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2005. [ISBN: 9780486444086]
- Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin . Dover ed. New York: Dover Publications, 1996. [ISBN: 9780486290737]
- Davidson, Cathy N. Charlotte Temple . New York: Oxford University Press, 1986. [ISBN: 9780195042382]
- Brown, Charles. Edgar Huntly, or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker , eds. Philip Barnard and Stephen Shapiro. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 2006.[ISBN: 9780872208537]
- Cooper, James Fenimore, and John P. McWilliams. The Last of the Mohicans . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. [ISBN: 9780199538195]
- Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of the Seven Gables . New York: Signet Classics, 2010. [ISBN: 9780451531629]
- Thoreau, Henry David. Walden , ed. Jeffrey Cramer. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. [ISBN: 9780300104660]
- Brent, Linda (Harriet Jacobs). Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl . Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, 2001. [ISBN: 9780486419312]
Included in course guide:
- Captain John Smith, from The General History of Virginia and from A Description of New England
- William Bradford, from Of Plymouth Plantation: 1620–1647
- Judith Sargent Murray, “ On the Equality of the Sexes ”
- John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity”
Number of Lessons
The course has eight lessons complete with graded assignments and two supervised course examinations, one for each half of the course. The lessons are as follows:
- Lesson 1: God and Community
- Lesson 2: Land and Community
- Lesson 3: Reason and Community
- Lesson 4: Feelings and Community
- Lesson 5: Midcourse Examination Information
- Lesson 6: Race and Community
- Lesson 7: Family and Community
- Lesson 8: Self and Community
- Lesson 9: Self and Community
- Lesson 10: Final Examination Information
Types of Writing Assignments
Specific instructions are given in each lesson. You can submit your assignments by mail, e-mail, or fax. To do the writing assignments well, you need first to complete the reading assignments and have a good understanding of all new concepts, definitions, and so on.
Handwritten assignments are acceptable, but the preferred method is a typed assignment, double-spaced, using 12-point font and one-inch margins. As with all assignments, good grammar and standard written English are paramount.
Grading Criteria
Here is how I will weight your work:
- Lessons (8) — 40%
- Midcourse — 30%
- Final — 30%