American Lit 1

(Tentative Schedule; subject to change)

Part one: “Aboriginal Americans and Early Explorers”

Week 1

Computer Orientation

Syllabus

First reading assignment

The American Tradition in Literature (Perkins Textbook)

Perkins Textbook; American Scholar, Ralph Waldo Emerson 1309

The Last of the Mohicans (LOTM) by James Fenimore Cooper

LOTM Chapter 1 through Chapter 10

Week 2

LOTM Chapter 10 through Chapter 16

Perkins textbook; Read – Pages 11 –31

Perkins textbook; The Original Native Americans (aboriginals) 548

Perkins textbook; Read William Bartram (Handout)

Week 3

LOTM Chapter 16 through 25

Perkins textbook; Red Jacket – “The Great Spirit Has Made Us All” 553

Week 4

Perkins textbook; Tecumseh “The White Men Are Not Friends to the Indians” 555-556

Sherman Alexie “What I Pawn, You Will Redeem”

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/04/21/030421fi_fiction
Week 5

Perkins textbook; Benjamin Franklin: Pgs. 282 – 316 “The Autobiography”

Part 2: “The Transcendentalist and Social Reform of Concord”

Week 6

Concord, MA and Social Reform “An overview with handouts)

Week 7

Ralph Waldo Emerson “Transcendentalism,” pp. 865-866; Emerson’s “Nature,” pp. 882-909; “Self-
Reliance,” pp. 933-950

Website on Emerson http://www.transcendentalists.com/1emerson.html

Complete Works by Emerson http://www.rwe.org/

Week 8

Henry David Thoreau Walden

HDT 1410 through chapter “Reading” 1468

Website with criticism and discussions

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/

Week 9

HDT Chapter “Sounds” 1468 through “The Village” 1499

Week 10

HDT “The Ponds” 1499 to the end 1577

Week 11

Woman in the Nineteenth Century Margaret Fuller1384 – 1397

Elizabeth Peabody 1398 – 1400

Sojourner Truth and Fanny Fern 874 – 878

“Ain’t I a Woman” Performed by Cicely Tyson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0YR1eiG0us

Louisa May Alcott (reading TBA)

Week 12
The Scarlett Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne 1406 -151

Week 13

Billy Budd, Sailor Herman Melville

Week 14

Emily Dickenson (poetry)

Week 16

Presentations