Assignments

English 206: Six American Authors/ Spring 2007 Kingsley

TENTATIVE* SCHEDULE/CALENDAR

(Please be aware that dates/assignments can change, but I will always give you plenty of warning when that is the case.)

February

Week 1: Mon. 5:

Class: Introduction to course. Review of syllabus and classroom policies. View

video “Africans in America” volume #4: “Judgment Day” to provide context for

our reading, class discussion. Introduction to the distinctly or uniquely

American genre of slave narratives.

Homework: Read: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Slave Girl) by Harriet

Jacobs. Read the Timeline at the front of the book, the Introduction (pg.xiii - xxvi), Preface by the Author and Chapter I (("Childhood") through XV ("Continued Persecutions").

Week 2: Mon. 12:

Class: Slave Girl.

Homework:

Write: Response Paper #1 Due (see description below.)

Read: Slave Girl Chapter XVI ("Scenes at the Plantation") through end

Chapter XLI --just like the Super Bowl ;) --("Free at Last").

ENG 206 / Six American Authors V.Kingsley

Assignment: Short Response Paper #1

Due: Monday, February 12

General Description/ Short Response Paper

As before, this is to be a two page response. Use the computer (submit work electronically as well as hard copy), use a 10 or 12 point font and double-space. Work closely with the text to answer the question either paraphrasing or quoting directly from the text to support or demonstrate your point(s). Be sure to attribute ideas/words to the text and use the standard MLA format. Remember to use textual evidence when making big claims or assertions about the author’s ideas and interpret quotations you use from the text. You need to make your reader see “your take” on the quotations you use as we might not all have/make the same interpretation. This should not be a research paper or a report of what other “experts” or literary critics think of the book nor should it be a summary.

Question for Response Paper #1

The slave narrative, a form of autobiography, has been described as “America’s only indigenous literary form” and as essential to understanding the development of a uniquely American literature as distinct from European literature. In his controversial 1993 study, Was Huck Black?, literary critic Shelley Fisher Fishkin asserts,

Understanding African American tradition is essential if one wants to

understand mainstream American literary history. And understanding

mainstream literary history is important if one wants to understand

African-American writing in the twentieth century. We can no longer deny the mixed literary bloodlines on both sides. (Was Huck Black?, 1993)

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an antebellum slave narrative or one of those slave narratives (the slave narrative tradition extends from approximately 1760 up to the 20th century – some have even argued that such books as The Autobiography of Malcolm X, rooted in and following many of the conventions of the classic slave narrative, extend the tradition well into the 20th century) published in the period just prior to the Civil War. These narratives became very popular among contemporary readers. Frederick Douglass’ slave narrative, published in 1845, in fact, became an international bestseller and sold more than more than 30,000 copies in the first five years after it was published! According to William T. Andrews, editor of the Oxford Companion to African American Literature contemporary readership” of such slave narratives far outpaced that “of such classic white autobiographies as Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.”

The significance of Harriet Jacobs’s, who wrote under the pseudonym Linda Brent, work is that she, for the first time, made readers see female slaves in a new, fuller and more complex way and “ proved the inadequacy of the image of victim that had been pervasively applied to female slaves in the male-authored slave narrative .”

Jacobs has a high barrier to get over to convince readers that she is credible, trustworthy, an author to be taken seriously and listened to. Name or note one or two strategies or places in the text where you see her showing readers that she is a writer who can believed and worthy of their attention. Describe what she says or does (you can quote from the book to illustrate this) and the effect that it has on you as a reader or readers of her day. In other words try to notice what is different about a slave narrative from more “traditional”.

Guidelines for Submitting Paper(s)/Assignment(s) via Email

Please help me manage my mail and avoid losing your papers by doing the following:

1. Use the following formula to name your paper or assignment when you save it for the first time: LASTNAME_COURSENAME_ASSIGNMENT#. For example, a person whose last name is Jones, is submitting assignment 01, would save the document as: Jones_SixAmerican_01. (If there is more than one person with the same last name, you would also need to use your first initial - for example: MJones_SixAmerican_01 ).

2. When you are submitting an assignment, write on the “subject” line of your email to me the same information as above: LASTNAME_COURSENAME _ASSIGNMENT#. In addition, make certain your name is at the top of the exercise or your paper. I probably will not open and record your submitted assignment until the afternoon or evening. At that time, I will send you a confirmation – a brief note that says “Thanks”. This will confirm my receipt. If you don’t receive a confirmation by the end of the next day, re-send the assignment and explain you are re-sending as you did not receive a confirmation from me. If you still don’t hear from me, print a hard copy and talk to me in class about it as something is wrong.

3. If /when you ask me a question, or have some kind of problem, write QUESTION or PROBLEM on the subject line. I will open and respond to your question as soon as I see it.

Please submit your assignment(s) as an attached document. If that does not work, do whatever works. (And if you have a complete system failure, submit a handwritten paper.) It is important that you submit your work on time to get full credit.

Week 3: Mon. 19:

Class: No Class President’s Day Holiday

Homework:

Read: We do not meet this week but you should read in Walden for our next

class. Read the introduction, timeline, etc. and Chapter 1 titled

"Economy." Also read the essay titled "On Civil Disobedience" which is

at the end of Walden. Gloss your reading as we discussed in class.

Week 4: Mon. 26:

Class: Discuss: Slave Girl/ Walden

Homework:

Read: See above Thoreau.

Write: Response Paper #2 Due. See description below.

ENG 206 / Six American Authors V.Kingsley

Assignment: Short Response Paper #2

Due: Monday, February 26 extended through Wed. 2/28 --see announcements on home page

General Description/ Short Response Paper

Question for Response Paper #2

You have read Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” and his chapter “Economy” from Walden. I have asked you to gloss as you read and to note ideas you find interesting, irritating, and confusing. Please choose one or two of Thoreau’s ideas you find interesting, useful, or provocative and discuss. Tell me why you chose the idea(s) you did and why or why not you think they would be useful or impractical for today’s reader. Thoreau makes many observations and asides in his writing. Try to choose those idea(s) which seem significant or most meaningful and be specific.

See electronic submission directions below.

We will discuss the following in class:

If we accept Walden as a “classic white autobiography” and, thus, similar to Jacobs’s work in that they are both autobiographies, how would you compare them? Look at what both authors say in the beginning of their works about why they have chosen to write their books and compare and contrast their audiences, objectives, tone, and styles. Consider what response Thoreau might have to Jacobs’s narrative and what Jacobs might say about Thoreau’s work/ideas. In order to do this, you will have to choose a specific idea(s) or passage(s) from Jacobs and Thoreau and connect them to one another. We will discuss.

Guidelines: Submitting Paper(s)/Assignment(s) via Email

Please help me manage my mail and avoid losing your papers by doing the following:

1. Title and save your paper for the Thoreau assignment as follows:

(I will use my name as an example): Kingsley_SixAm_02

Use the following formula to name your paper or assignment when you save it for the first time: LASTNAME_COURSENAME_ASSIGNMENT#.

For example, a person whose last name is Jones, is submitting assignment 01, would save the document as: Jones_SixAm_01. (If there is more than one person with the same last name, you would also need to use your first initial - for example: MJones_SixAm_01 ).

2. When you are submitting an assignment, write on the “subject” line of your email to me the same information as above: LASTNAME_COURSENAME _ASSIGNMENT#. In addition, make certain your name is at the top of the exercise or your paper.

I probably will not open and record your submitted assignment until the afternoon or evening. At that time, I will send you a confirmation – a brief note that says “Thanks”. This will confirm my receipt. If you don’t receive a confirmation by the end of the next day, re-send the assignment and explain you are re-sending as you did not receive a confirmation from me. If you still don’t hear from me, print a hard copy and talk to me in class about it as something is wrong.

3. If /when you ask me a question, or have some kind of problem, write QUESTION or PROBLEM on the subject line. I will open and respond to your question as soon as I see it.

March

Week 5: Mon. 5:

Class: Walden.

Homework:

Read: Walden. I am going to shorten the reading assignment for this week.

Read the chapters titled: Where I Lived and What I Lived For;

Reading; Sounds; Solitude; and Visitors (these chapters

immediately follow "Economy " and are much shorter than

"Economy" in which Thoreau lays out or provides and overview

of his philosophy, goals, etc).

Week 6: Mon. 12:

Class: Walden/ Huck Finn

Homework:

Read: Thoreau: The last three chapters in Walden: The Pond in Winter,

Spring, and Conclusion (approx. 34 pages).

Huckleberry Finn: Introduction and Chapters 1-10 (these chapters

are fairly short and much easier reading than Thoreau although

the dialect Twains uses might seem a little alien at first.)

Write: Response Paper #3 Due. See description below.

ENG 206 / Six American Authors V.Kingsley

Assignment: Short Response Paper #3

Due: Monday, March 12

General Description/ Short Response Paper

As before, this is to be a two page response. Please word process/use the computer, use a 10 or 12 point font and double-space. Work closely with the text to answer the question either paraphrasing or quoting directly from the text to support or demonstrate your point(s). Be sure to attribute ideas/words to the text and use the standard MLA format. Remember to use textual evidence when making big claims or assertions about the author’s ideas and interpret quotations you use from the text. You need to make your reader see “your take” on the quotations you use as we might not all have/make the same interpretation. Once again, this should not be a research paper or a report of what other “experts” or literary critics think of the book nor should it be a summary.

Question for Response Paper #3

But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it. I been there before.

(Twain 307)

Please use the above quotation from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as an epigraph for a short essay you will write exploring what seems to be one or two significant ideas or motifs in Huckleberry Finn. In this quotation, which comes at the end of Huck and Jim’s journey, Huck seems to tell us his plans for the future as well as comment on the meaning of the journey, both literal and metaphorical, he and Jim have already made.

In order to write the paper, you will need to interpret the quotation—in relation to the novel. Think of the quotation as a generalization that explains or draws out the implications of what has taken place in the novel.

In order to do this, you may ask yourself/explore such questions as: What does Huck mean by “sivilize”? Does his conception of what it means to be “sivilized” seem to concur with that of his community or his world? How is it the same/different? What does the behavior of other characters in the novel show us about being/not being civilized?

When I say to use the above quotation as an epigraph for your essay I literally mean that you need to type the quotation at the top of your paper as you would an epigraph. Then you should write your paper from there or in response to the quotation. You may, of course, use other quotations from the text to illustrate, expand, elaborate on, or support your claims and observations. Don’t forget to draw out the implications of your observations!

Week 7: Mon. 19:

Class: Conferences to discuss 1st Long or Formal Paper. See

description below.

We will meet in pairs in the classroom at the time for which you

signed.

Continue discussing Huck Finn.

Homework: Read Twain Chapters 11 (pg. 58) through Chapter 31 (pg. 220).

Eng206-4-5/Six American Authors/ Kingsley/ Spring 2007

Assignment: Formal Paper #1

Draft Due In Class for Peer Review: Monday, March 26

Revision/Final Paper Due: Tuesday, April 3

Length: 7-10 pgs. (n.b.: those considering Portfolio option

for Writing Proficiency Req. need 5-6 pg. papers with

multiple sources for Portfolio)

Description:

You have two options for this paper:

Option #1

1. You may take one of the papers you have already written for the Short Response papers we have done to date and revise or expand it for this assignment. You will have to expand it to discuss/ connect at least two of the books we have read, thus far (Walden, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and Huckleberry Finn). Many of you have commented that you could have written a lot more in response to the short assignments we have done and felt frustrated by the two page limit. Obviously, you will have to do further work –expanding, elaborating, and specifying—in order to develop your ideas to 6 to 10 pages including a Works Cited page. You can consult outside works but you are not required to do this. I am concerned that you focus on your own reading and interpretation and am not interested in summaries of what “experts” think of these works.

OR,

Option #2

2. Look back at the description of the course on our course syllabus where I discussed “breaking away” “lighting out” and characters “transforming or finding themselves” as they break free from the constraints of the old or “sivilized” (by now you should know that this was not a typo but Twain's take on how Huck would spell it!) world. Take the idea/concepts expressed in this course description and apply them to two of the books we have read (choose from Walden, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Huckleberry Finn). Discuss whether and how this description does or does not apply to the central characters in these books and make connections between the two works/characters you choose to discuss. You have a lot of room here as to how you approach this and what features you focus on in the books. We will discuss further in class.

General Requirements:

Be sure to try and use the language, terminology (literary and rhetorical terms), and approaches we have developed in class for discussing these books. Remember, as we have said before, in any paper, you should have a central idea, argument, or position which you develop throughout the paper. Please

include a title, an introduction, and a conclusion as readers expect this in anything that they read. Your paper should be typed, double-spaced, 10 or 12 point font, and 7 to 10 pages long. This paper is worth 15 points or 15 percent of your grade for the semester. Papers that are late will lose one point for each day that they are late.

Week 8: Mon. 26:

Class: Huck Finn. Peer Review. Intro. Invisible Man.

Formal Paper #1 Draft due in class. We will discuss and work on

our papers in class.

Homework: Read Invisible Man (I.M.) by Ralph Ellison pgs. through Chapter Six.

Continue work on/revising Formal/Long paper.

April

Week 9: Mon. 2: (Note Pass/Fail and Course Withdrawal Deadline: April 4)

Class: Invisible Man.

Homework: Read I.M. Chapter 7 through Chapter 7 through Chapter 14.

Long/formal paper due to be submitted to me electronically

by 9:00 a.m. Tuesday, April 3rd.

Week 10: Mon. 9:

Class: Invisible Man.

Homework: Short Response #4 due Monday, April 23 see description below.

Read/finish Invisible Man Chapter 15 through Chapter 25 and

Epilogue. (TWO WEEKS).

ENG 206-4 -5 / Six American Authors / V.Kingsley/ Spring 2007

Assignment: Short Response Paper #4 – Invisible Man

Due: Monday, April 23

General Description/ Short Response Paper

Description/Question for Response Paper #4

As we have discussed in class, the story or journey in Invisible Man is told from the perspective of and through the eyes of the Invisible Man (I.M. for short) himself. We see places, events and other characters through his psyche and from his vantage point alone. Omniscience is not a feature of this novel. For this assignment, I would like you to consider or imagine a different perspective from that of I.M.

For example, we hear I.M.’s version of the visit to the Golden Day with Mr. Norton. We get I.M.’s take on Mr. Norton’s behavior there, his reaction to the Vet, Supercargo and others. What would Mr. Norton tell us about the Golden Day and the people he met there if we were to hear his story and perspective? Would he agree or disagree with I.M.’s perception of this visit?

As another example, we hear I.M.’s version of his interview or visit with Mr. Emerson wherein Mr. Emerson reveals that the letters of recommendation from Dr. Bledsoe are actually indictments warning people not to hire or help I.M. I.M. is confused by Mr. Emerson and his motives. How would Mr. Emerson describe or explain the interview? What would he say about his motives for revealing what he revealed to I.M.?

Choose one chapter (you will probably have to zero in on one incident or experience especially in the longer chapters) and re-tell it from the perspective of one of the other characters involved. Be sure to use excerpts from or make specific references to the text in order to justify or illustrate your interpretation (for example, show us why or how you decided that while I.M. thought Mr. Norton was horrified by Trueblood’s behavior, Mr. Norton was, in fact, sympathetic or understanding of it).

Week 11: Mon. 16:

Class: No Class Patriot’s Day Holiday

Homework: Read / finish Invisible Man.

Let's talk in class about how we can change/adjust the following assignments to accomodate the schedule.

Week 12: Mon. 23:

Class: Invisible Man; Presentations; Introduce Silko

Homework: We will eliminate Short Response #5 being turned in as a paper. Instead look at assigment below and come to class prepared to discuss this. Read entire novel: Ceremony. I will discuss On the Road in terms of assignment below and you are responsible for reading On the Road for last class (5/7).

ENG 206-4 -5 / Six American Authors / V.Kingsley/ Spring 2007

Assignment: Short Response Paper #5—Ceremony or On the Road

Due: Monday, April 30

General Description/ Short Response Paper

Description/Question for Response Paper #5

You may choose the novel Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko and I will be responsible for On the Road by Jack Kerouac for this paper.

We have spent some time in class discussing different reading or interpretive strategies and practiced applying some of these strategies. We have also discussed how our objective for doing this is not necessarily to become expert literary analysts or critics but to make us more aware of approaches or tools we can use to help us as readers begin to “unpack” or interpret a text or novel. Becoming aware of the interpretive tools or strategies available to us can make it easier for us to think more consciously about where and how we can begin to write about a text(s).

For this paper, choose a section (Ceremony is not broken into chapters in a traditional pattern), passage or chapter to analyze. Choose which strategy you will use to apply to this piece of text and analyze it through this strategy.

For purposes of this paper, you may begin your paper by telling me which text you are looking at and which strategy you are using. You may also discuss why you have chosen the particular strategy you have chosen. Another thing you may wish to discuss in your paper is how this strategy makes a reader focus on particular details.

Again, use the sheet I distributed to you and that is posted in the "Resources" section of the class web sitel) with questions for each of the strategies to help you think about what kinds of questions each strategy is concerned with and on what kinds of things/issues each strategy focuses.

As always, we will discuss this further in class.

Week 13: Mon. 30:

Class: Silko and introduce Kerouac.

Homework: Formal Paper #2 draft (see description below)

due in class for Peer Review on Mon. 5/7.

Read Kerouac.

Eng206-4-5/Six American Authors Kingsley

Assignment: Formal Paper #2

Draft Due In Class for Peer Review: Monday, May 7

Revision/Final Paper Due: Monday, May 14 (submitted electronically by early a.m. Tuesday, May 15)

NO LATE PAPERS WILL BE ACCEPTE

Length: 6--10 pgs.

Description:

You have two options for this paper:

Option #1

1. You may take one of the papers you have already written for the Short Response #4 or you can create a paper for Short Response #5 which we eliminated. Again, many of you have commented that you could have written a lot more in response to the short assignments (in the past, some have said, for example, that they found #4 easier or more fun to write and felt they could do more with it) and felt frustrated by the two page limit. Obviously, you will have to do further work –expanding, elaborating, and specifying—in order to develop your ideas to 6 to 10 pages. Again, you can consult outside works but I would prefer that you do not do so. As usual, I am concerned that you focus on your own reading and interpretation and am not interested in summaries of what “experts” think of these works.

Option #2

This semester we’ve talked about civilization, lighting out, invisibility and blindness, equality and democracy, the journey from innocence to experience, assimilation vs. resistance, the role and function of nature as well as that of religion, and what it means to be an American. In Ceremony, Invisible Man, and On the Road we see protagonists who struggle with some of these same issues and questions.

Choose one protagonist from Ceremony, Invisible Man or On the Road and discuss how this character illustrates these questions, ideas or struggles. Which struggle, question or issue do you see as being most important to this character and why? Does this character come to terms with this struggle? What does this character decide about this issue or question and why does he decide this?

Be sure to use textual evidence to support your claims or illustrate your observations but be careful not to simply summarize the plot.

May

Week 14: Mon. 7:

Class: Kerouac. Presentations. Last class meeting.

Homework: Formal Paper #2 due --This will be pushed up to due Monday, May 14 because of lost class..