Course Syllabus

8/30  Welcome to English 10h.

9/1  Today we'll tackle a questionnaire, then talk a bit about nuts, bolts, and what to expect... and what to aspire to... this year.

9/5  Discussion: Louis Agassiz's fish and Robert Frost's "The Pasture."

9/6  Read Richard Wilbur's "Hamlen Brook" and Jane Kenyon's "Otherwise."

DE1: (ineffable) Explain how "Hamlen Brook" could be read as a response to "Otherwise," or "Otherwise" to "Hamlen Brook."

9/8  In class essay: summer reading.

9/11  Read the excerpt from Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's Adventures in the Unknown Interior of America.

9/13  Read John Smith's "The General History of Virginia."

9/14  Read the excerpt from William Bradford's "Of Plymouth Plantation;" Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband" and "Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our House;" and the excerpt from Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God."

DE2: (piety) Given the severity of the challenges they faced, what pragmatic purpose did the Puritans’ extreme religious devotion serve?  As ever, be sure to support your assertions with specific evidence. 

9/15  Read the first five chapters of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.  You can skip the introductory chapter, "The Customs House."

9/19  Read chapters six through nine of The Scarlet Letter.

DE3: (resolute) What is the source of Hester's strength, and why is Dimmesdale so lacking of it?

9/20  Read chapters ten through thirteen of The Scarlet Letter.

9/22  Read chapters fourteen through nineteen of The Scarlet Letter.

DE4: (ardent) Hester tells Dimmesdale, "What we did has a consecration of its own."  What does she mean?  Is she right?  Why?

9/26  Finish The Scarlet Letter.

9/27  Read the excerpt from Benjamin Franklin's autobiography.

9/29  Read the Declaration of Independence.

DE5: (seminal) What are the most important ideas to emerge from the first few paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence?  Why?

10/2  Read Phillis Wheatley's "on Being Brought From Africa to America," "To the University of Cambridge, in New England," and "To His Excellency General Washington."

10/4  Paper#1: An explanation of the broader implications of the Cabeza de Vaca and/or Smith excerpts; or an expanded and polished DE1; of The Scarlet Letter, open topic; or an analysis of the Franklin excerpt; or an expanded and polished DE5.

10/5  Read William Cullen Bryant's "Thanatopsis."

10/6  Read Washington Irving's "Rip Van Winkle."

DE6 (indolent) What--or who--is to blame for Rip's predicament?

10/12  Read Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven."

10/13  Read the excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Self-Reliance."

DE7: (enjoin) Pick a line or two that strike you and react.

10/17  Read Emerson's "Nature."

10/18  Read the excerpt from Henry David Thoreau's "Walden."

DE8: (zealous) From what you've learned of his thinking from the excerpt, what would Thoreau have to say about how you're living your life?

10/19  Read the excerpt from Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government."

10/23  Read Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener."

10/24  Read the excerpt from Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast.

DE9: (enjoin) Using Two Years Before the Mast as your primary evidence, explain how writing can be a testimony.  What role, then, can the printed word play in initiating social change?

10/26  Read Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport" and "A Psalm of Life."

10/27  Become an expert on the Emily Dickinson poem you've been assigned.

DE10: (adroit) Explain your interpretation of your Dickinson poem.

10/30  Today we'll continue our study of Dickinson's poetry.

11/2  Read Walt Whitman's "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking."

11/3  Read Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."

DE11: (ebullient) "...there is perfection in you also."  Explain.

11/7  Read the excerpt from Frederick Douglass' memoir.

11/8  Read Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

11/9  Paper #2: An expanded and polished DE6, DE7, DE8, or DE9; "Thanatopsis," open topic; "Bartleby the Scrivener," open topic; "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport," open topic; an analysis of a Whitman or Dickinson poem; a personal reaction to the Douglass memoir; or an analysis of the Gettysburg Address.

11/14  Read Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through chapter 7.

11/15 Read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through chapter 13.

11/17  Read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through chapter 18.

DE12: (rapport) Explain the evolution of Huck's relationship with Jim.

11/20  Read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through chapter 23.

11/21  Read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through chapter 29.

11/29  Read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through chapter 35.

11/30  Finish reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

DE13: (denouement). "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."

12/4  Read Bret Harte's "The Luck of Roaring Camp."

12/5  Read Charles W. Chesnutt's "Hot-Foot Hannibal."

DE14: (vernacular) What are the stories John and Julius tell really about?

12/7  Read Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron."

12/11  Read Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat."

12/12  Read Jack London's "To Build a Fire."

DE15: (hubris) How might "To Build a Fire" be read as an allegory of man's condition in the universe?  Explain.

12/14  Read Gertrude Simmons Bonnin's "Impressions of an Indian Childhood."

12/15  Read Edwin Arlington Robinson's "Richard Cory" and "Miniver Cheevy."

12/18  Read Willa Cather's "Paul's Case."

DE16: (prosaic) What, finally, is Paul trying to escape?

12/20  Paper #3: An expanded and polished DE14, DE15, or DE16; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, open topic; an analysis of one of the Robinson poems; an analysis of "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "A White Heron," "The Open Boat," or "Impressions of an Indian Childhood."

12/21  Vocabulary Olympics

1/2  Today we'll get started on Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome.

1/3  Read Ethan Frome through chapter four.

DE17: (repress) By what is Ethan imprisoned?

1/4  Read Ethan Frome through chapter seven.

1/8  Finish reading Ethan Frome.

DE18: (shackle) Is Ethan admirable or foolish?  Explain.

1/9  Today we'll begin our study of John Madden's film version of Ethan Frome.

1/12  Today we'll finish and discuss the Madden film.

DE19: (transmute) Explain the impact to the story and its themes of the changes Madden has made.

1/16  Read Wharton's "Roman Fever."

1/17  Read Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-paper."

DE20: (impede) How is "The Yellow Wall-paper" a story of protest?

1/19  Read E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime through chapter seven.

1/23  Read Ragtime through chapter 14.

1/25  Read Ragtime through chapter 21.

DE21: (intimation) Explain Doctorow's style and how it suits his purposes.

1/26  Read Ragtime through chapter 29.

1/29  Read Ragtime through chapter 35.

1/31  Finish reading Ragtime.

DE22: (tumult) Choose a scene, a moment, a plot line, and assess Ragtime as social commentary.  What is Doctorow saying?

2/1  Today we'll conclude our study of Ragtime.

2/5  Paper #4: Using Ethan Frome and "Roman Fever" for your evidence, explain Wharton's themes, concerns and methods; or the evolution of a primary fictional character in Ragtime and how she or he advances Doctorow's themes.

In class we'll read Amy Lowell's "September, 1918;" E.E. Cummings' "in Just-," "Buffalo Bill's," "i sing of Olaf glad and big;" Edna St. Vincent Millay's "I Think I Should Have Loved You Presently;" Sarah Teasdale's "There Will Come Soft Rains;" Langston Hughes' "I, Too," "Song For a Dark Girl" and "Democracy."

2/6  Read the first two chapters of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

2/8  Read chapters three and four of The Great Gatsby.

DE23: (revelation) "Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night.  He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor."  Explain.

2/12  Read chapters five and six of The Great Gatsby.

2/13  Read chapters seven and eight of The Great Gatsby.

2/15  Finish reading The Great Gatsby.

DE24: (coquette) Explain Daisy, her motivations, her methods, her impact.

2/16  Today we'll wrap up our study of The Great Gatsby.

2/26  In class today we'll scrutinize Robert Frost's "The Tuft of Flowers," "After Apple-Picking," "The Wood Pile," "Good Hours," and "Out, Out..."

2/28  Read Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Desert Places," "Design," "Storm Fear," "Afterflakes," "Unharvested," and "The Most of It."

DE25: (georgic) One of today's Frost poems, open topic.

2/29  Read T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men."

3/4  Read Zora Neale Hurston's "How It Feels To Be Colored Me" and chapter thirteen of Sterling Hayden's Wanderer.

3/5  Read Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place."

DE26: (disconsolate) What's with all the "nada" business?  Explain.

3/7  Read Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants."

3/11  Read Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro."

DE27: (squander) Explain the significance of the italicized passages.

3/12  Read William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily."

DE28: (ghastly)  "A Rose for Emily," open topic.

3/14  Read the first forty pages of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.

3/15  Finish reading Of Mice and Men.

3/18  Today we'll wrap up our discussion of Of Mice and Men.

3/20  Paper #5: The Great Gatsby, open topic; an expanded and polished DE25 or 28; "The Hollow Men," open topic; an analysis of one of the Hemingway stories, or of Of Mice and Men.

3/21  Read William Saroyan's "The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze."

3/25  Read Dorothy Parker's "Big Blonde."

3/27  Read Irwin Shaw's "The Girls in their Summer Dresses."

DE29: (fraught) Is Mike's behavior commendable candor, vindictive cruelty or gross sexism?  Explain.

3/28  Read the Ernie Pyle columns.

4/1  Today we'll get started on Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.

4/4  Read Scenes One and Two of Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.

4/5  Finish reading A Streetcar Named Desire.

DE30: (enmity) Explain the tension between Stanley and Blanche.

4/9  Paper #6 is due today.

In class we'll conclude our discussion of the text of A Streetcar Named Desire and start Elia Kazan's film version of the play.

4/10  Today we'll continue Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire.

4/11  Today we'll finish and discuss Kazan's film.

DE31: (evoke) Pick a metaphor in the play and explain its significance.

4/22  Today we'll begin Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

4/23  Read Death of a Salesman through Act One.

4/25  Read Act Two of Death of a Salesman through Charley's line, "Jesus!"

4/26  Finish reading Death of a Salesman.

4/29  Today we'll continue our study of Death of a Salesman.

5/1  Today we'll conclude our discussion of Death of a Salesman.

DE32: (elegy)  "Willy was a salesman.  And for a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life.  He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine.  He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.  And when they start not smiling back--that's an earthquake.  And then you get yourself a couple spots on your hat, and you're finished.  Nobody dast blame this man.  A salesman is got to dream, boy.  It comes with the territory."  Explain.

5/3  In class we'll begin Budd Schulberg's and Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront.

5/7  Read Schulberg's piece.

Today we'll continue On the Waterfront.

5/8  Today we'll finish and discuss On the Waterfront.

DE33: (redemption) On the Waterfront, open topic.

5/9  Today we'll begin our study of J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye.

5/13  Read the first six chapters of The Catcher in the Rye.