XHSC 0911A Early American Literature

Credits: .5

Engages students in the analysis of early American (1600-1899) literary figures and their styles of writing. Explores samplings of various literary works. Develops understanding of meaning from context, inferring and interpreting themes in early American literature.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Analyze the role of literature in recording, reflecting and communicating human events in early American cultures.
Explain how style and structure contribute to the meaning of a text.
Analyze elements of nonfiction and fiction and explain how these elements are developed in early American literature
Support analysis with examples from text.

Content Outline

Early American and Colonial Period
- Discovery texts
- Early puritan society
- Anne Bradstreet poems
The Great Awakening
- Jonathan Edwards
- Sermons
- Diaries and journals
Revolutionary Writers
- Political pamphlets
- Satire
- Benjamin Franklin
- Thomas Paine
African-American Authors
- Poems
  - Phillis Wheatley
- Essays
  - W.E.B. DuBois
- Narratives
  - Frederick Douglas
  - Booker T. Washington
Post-War Movements and Authors
- Romanticism
  - Nathanial Hawthorne
- Gothic fiction
  - Edgar Alan Poe
- Transcendentalism
  - Ralph Waldo Emerson
  - Henry David Thoreau
  - Walt Whitman
- Early feminist voices
  - Kate Chopin
  - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Naturalism
- Stephen Crane
Analyzing Elements of Fiction and Nonfiction
- Plot
- Setting
- Character
- Point of view
- Theme
- Inference
- Style and tone
- Format