Hebron University

Department of English
Course Syllabus
Fall, 2016
Eng. 322: (American Literature, 3 credit hours)
(Prerequisite: Literature I)
Dr. SALAH SHROUF
Office#: 332
Office Hours: M, W. 10-11
Sun & Thu 11-12
E-mail: shroufsalah@yahoo.com
salahs@hebron.edu
Texts:
Lauter, Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. 4th ed. 2 vols. New York: Houghton and
Mifflin Company, 2001.
Recommended Reference:
Buell, Lawrence. New England Literary Culture. London: Cambridge University
Press, 1986. (Library Classification: 801.11 B.N).
Bercovitch, Sacvan. The Cambridge History of American Literature. Vol. 5. London:
Cambridge University Press, 2003. (Library Classification: 811.09 B.C).
Parrington, Vernon. Main Currents in American Thought: The Beginnings of Critical
Realism in America, 1860-1920/ Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press,
1986. (Library Classification: 810.1 P.B)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/sites.htm
http://www.nagasaki-gaigo.ac.jp/ishikawa/amlit/#contents
http://www.infomotions.com/alex/
http://guweb2.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/litleft.html
Course Description:
This course is a survey of diverse United States writers from 1620-the present. This course begins with a
study of Puritan poets: Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, and other American writers (including Phillis
Wheatley). Other traditional authors, such as Emerson, Hawthorne, Melville, Poe and Douglass share the
spot light with non-traditional, women, African American, Native American, Chinese American writers
and others. The objective of this course is to study the works of specific canonical and non-canonical
American writers from the Colonial period to the present; to study major philosophical, social and
cultural trends which parallel and/or influence literature of the United States; to examine the styles and
points of view of the writers studied.
Objectives:
I to study the works of specific major and selected minor American writers from 1620- the present.
II to study major philosophical, social and literary trends which parallel or influence literature.
III to examine the styles, points of the writers studies.
IV to emphasize the technical skills of reading, writing and analyzing literary works.
Outcomes:
I. differentiate among authors; their works and thematic content.

2. evaluate literature, using knowledge of point of view, characterization, setting, plot, and figurative
language.
3. employ critical thinking skills and logic to promote understanding and analysis in literary works by
avoiding the use of fallacies and generalization.
Evaluation:
First exam
Second exam
Final exam
Research paper and oral report
Week

20%
25%
40%
15%

Topic

Method of
teaching
Lecturing

Introduction and overview

Anne Bradstreet "The Flesh and the Spirit"

Benjamin Franklin "On the Slave-Trade"

discussion

3&4

Ralph Waldo Emerson "The American

Scholar"
Edgar Allen Poe "The Tell-Tale Heart"

Presentations and
discussion

5&6

Walt Whitman, Selected Poems

Emily Dickinson Selected Poems
Mark Twain "A True Story"
Stephen Crane "The Bride Comes to
Yellow Sky"

Mary Freeman "The Revolt of "Mother"'

First Exam
The following texts and related resources
will be available on-line (blended
learning)
Robert Frost, Selected Poems
Sherwood Anderson "Death in the Woods"

8&9

Presentations and
discussion

Presentations and
discussion

Presentations and
discussion

10 & Arthur Miller "Death of a Salesman"

11
12&13

E. E. Cummings O sweet spontaneous

Ernest Hemingway
"A Clean WellLighted Place"
Langston Hughes Selected Poetry
Anzie Yezierska "America and I"

Second Exam

Collaborative
work

14& 15

William Carlos Williams "The Red

Wheelbarrow"
Alice Walker "Everyday Use"
Adrienne Rich Valediction Forbidden
Mourning

Presentations,
discussion, and
Collaborative
work