Materials . . .

American Literature 1, Spring 2010

Here is the syllabus.

American Literature 1, Summer 2009

Here is the syllabus.

The value of frequent classroom low-stakes quizzes

Quizzes work for me, so I enjoy reading about scholarship that concludes they are a good idea. All students might benefit from David Glenn's May 1, 2009 article, "Close the Book. Recall. Write it down," for the Chronicle of Higher Education.

American Literature 1, Spring 2009

Here is the syllabus.

American Literature 1: The books

This is all you need for my section of American Literature 1 in Spring 2009:

Nina Baym, general editor. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Seventh edition. Package 1: Volumes A & B. Norton, 2007. ISBN13 978-0393929930. Note: Earlier editions will not work for you. Make sure you get the seventh edition.

Emily Dickinson's love life

For Slate, Christopher Benfrey summarizes biographical scholarship by Carol Damon Andrews, Brenda Wineapple, Genevieve Taggard, and George F. Whicher on Dickinson's early love, George Gould.

American Literature 1, Fall 2008

Here is the syllabus.

American Literature 1, Fall 2008, All the words

Here are all the beautiful words.

American Literature 1, Fall 2008, All the dates

Here are all the dates you need to know.

American Literature 1 book order

Here are the books for my section (number 002) of American Literature 1, 3300:341.

Nina Baym, general editor. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Seventh edition. Package 1: Volumes A & B. Norton, 2007. ISBN13 978-0393929930. Note: Earlier editions will not work for you. Make  sure you get the seventh edition.

Walt Whitman, Franklin Evans, or The Inebriate: A Tale of the Times. Ed. Christopher Castiglia and Glenn Hendler. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. ISBN13 978-0822339427. 

Classroom change

The classroom for American Literature 1 has been changed. We had this room, which is a bit big for 25 students. We now have Zook Hall 409. Zook is the home of the UA's College of Education. Find it here and here, right in the middle of campus and near the fountain.

"The Linwoods" available online

American Literature 1 students in need of a copy of Catharine Maria Sedgwick's 1835 novel, The Linwoods, can find it at Google Books. Link to volume 1. Link to volume 2. 

All the words, Fall 2007

Students in the undergraduate survey (American Literature 1) must memorize these words and definitions. And they remain useful for students in senior- and graduate-level seminars.

American Literature 1, Fall 2007

Here is the syllabus for my Fall 2007 section of American Literature 1.

Fifteenth-century chickens

Here is an AP report on the findings of research that describes and dates some chicken bones found in Chile. These chickens suggest Polynesians landed in South America many decades before Columbus made his 1492 voyage of discovery.

Researchers led by Alice Storey at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, report finding evidence that may ruffle some scholarly feathers. They found chicken bones of Polynesian origin at a site in what is now Chile.

Radiocarbon dating of chicken bones at the site on the Arauco Peninsula in south central Chile indicated a range of A.D. 1321 to 1407, well before the Spanish arrival in the Americas.

Like the work of Charles C. Mann, this study illustrates how little we know about the early history of the Americas. The story is always changing.

400-year anniversary of Jamestown landing

National Geographic has this interactive web feature to coincide with the anniversary. In the print issue - the May, 2007 number - Charles Mann (author of 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus) retells his story. This number also includes a pretty interesting map and pictorial essay comparing the East Coast as settled by Native Americans to the East Coast as settled, not much later, by Europeans.

Portrait of Susanna Rowson (1762-1824)

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 4 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 176.

Portrait of Royall Tyler (1757-1826)

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 4 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 92.

Book order for American Literature 1, Fall 2007

Here are the books for my Fall 2007 section of American Literature 1.

Portrait of William Byrd

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it with a scanner and an out-of-copyright book that I own. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 2 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 302.

Fall 2007 courses

Right now I am scheduled to teach the following courses: American Women Poets (MWF 9:55am), American Literature 1 (MWF 11am), and Whitman and Dickinson (Tuesday 5:20pm).

American Literature 1, Spring 2007, All the words

Here are all the words for the Spring 2007 sections of American Literature 1.

Cooper's Neutral Ground

Here's a Google Earth placemark to consider when beginning James Fenimore Cooper's 1821 historical romance, The Spy: A Tale of Neutral Ground.

American Literature 1, Spring 2007

Here is the syllabus for the evening section of American Literature 1. (Note that the words are here.)

American Literature 1, Spring 2007

I am teaching two sections of American Literature 1 this spring. Here is the syllabus for the late morning section meeting. (Note that the words are here.)

Portrait of Samuel Sewall

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge. This image file is in the public domain. I created it by scanning my copy of the original. Use it as you please. Source of the original image: Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds., A Library of American Literature: From the Earliest Settlement to the Present Time, vol. 2 (New York: Charles L. Webster, 1889) 188.

Slave gravesite on former sugar plantation found

Matt Probasco reports for the Associated Press that "researchers from Denmark and the U.S. Virgin Islands want to unearth up to 50 skeletons" found on private property in St. Croix.

American Literature 1, Spring 2007, book order

Here are the two books for next semester's American Literature 1.

American Literature 1, Fall 2006

Here is the syllabus for this fall's section of American Literature 1. (The word list is over here.)

American Literature 1, Fall 2006, book order

Here are the books for my section of the American literature survey.

American Literature 1: All the words

Here are all the words for American Literature 1.

American Literature 1, Spring 2006

Here's the syllabus for my Spring 2006 section of American Literature 1.

American Literature 1, Fall 2005

Less Franklin, more Hawthorne in this one. Blithedale, which I admired in the Poe and Hawthorne seminar, works well in the survey.

American Literature 1, Summer 2005

Here is a one-month version of the American Literature survey.

American Literature 1, Spring 2005

This syllabus I used in the Spring of 2005. It also features a lot of Benjamin Franklin.

American Literature 1, Fall 2004

More syllabi for sections of this survey can be found through my old site. This section includes much Franklin; earlier sections featured Whitman.