Final Project: Create Your Own American Literature Course
Task:
Throughout the semester, we have explored the question what is American Literature? We have studied American Literature through various approaches and frameworks, and have seen how the field of American Literature looks different depending upon whose story we are reading.
For your final project, you will design your own course on American Literature from the US Civil War period (1861-1865) to the Present, choosing the readings that will comprise the course and the approaches that will be used to study the literature. You are encouraged to explore readings and topics that relate to your personal interests, but be sure to include enough variety in your course to allow for the study of American Literature in multiple historical and social contexts from the Civil War period to the present day.
Imagine your audience as students who will be taking your course next semester: what would you want them to know about how you designed the course, why you chose the readings you’ve selected, and what you hope they will get out of taking the course?
To help you develop and organize your essay, consider the following suggestions:
Include an explanation of how the class will approach the study of American Literature in this course: what specific aspects of the field will the course focus on or what approaches to literary study will the course take?
Discuss the course’s organizational structure(s): did you design this course chronologically, generically, culturally, thematically? Why? What are both the advantages and the limitations of this organizational structure (i.e., historical gaps or jumps, unrepresented genres, etc.)?
Offer a rationale for the texts you have included: why is each text important or relevant to your course? How do these texts relate to one another and fit together to create a comprehensive picture of American literature and America itself? Depending on how many texts you include, you might discuss each text individually, or you might discuss texts together in pairs or groups if they relate to the same historical period, thematic focus, etc.
In order to clearly demonstrate why a text fits in with your course or is important to read, it is advisable to include some quotations from your texts that are particularly powerful, memorable, or telling
You might mention 1 or 2 texts that were not included in your project: what works did you read or encounter but ultimately not include as part of your course? This might include works that you enjoyed or found very important, but did not have room for. It also might include works that you read (including any from our class syllabus) that you did not enjoy or find important, or that did not seem to fit in with your approach(es) to “American Literature” for this course.
How will genre inform your course reading list? What different genres (short stories, poems, biographies, memoirs, novels, plays, essays, speeches, etc.) will you include or not include?
What historical periods will be covered in your course? How will works from different historical periods connect to one another and allow us to see a trajectory of both American literature and American history? How will you account for historical “gaps” in your course?
How will America’s diversity be represented in your course? What different cultural, ethnic, racial, socioeconomic, linguistic, and regional perspectives will you include?
What different themes, topics, or issues will you emphasize in your course? How will you connect literature to history, culture, and contemporary society?
