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Syllabus # 1
English 370B: Survey of American Literature, 1865-
Professor David Peck
Professor Peck writes:
One of the real advantages of the Heath Anthology is that it allows instructors to present ethnic writers--as Paul Lauter wrote in the feature article in the spring Newsletter--not as some alternative to `mainstream' writers, but as the warp and weft of the whole multiethnic fabric that is American literature.
In my English 370B this past spring--after a fairly conventional opening few weeks--in which students and teacher alike explored the possibilities of the HeathAnthology for the first time--we more and more began to break into groups for various class presentations. During the final weeks on contemporary prose and poetry, we would spend part of each class session discussing the writers I had chosen as representative of different genres, and part in our groups preparing our class presentations.
The advantage of this system is that it allowed students to concentrate on one group of writers, and to learn that literature in depth. At the same time, and as their generally spirited presentations made clear, we all became aware of how American literature is in fact the product of a number of different literatures. It was a useful arrangement of the material, and one that only the Heath Anthology allows us. I plan the same arrangement in the fall when I tackle the first volume of the Heath in 370A.
Schedule for April/May: contemporary literature
I. prose Read all of the stories in A. below; select one of the six groups of stories in B. and read the four stories for a class report. (Group to decide on one work for whole class to read.)
A. for class discussion:
Richard Wright Ralph Ellison Michael Herr Donald Barthelme Flannery O'Connor Bobbie Ann Mason John Updike
B. groups:
1. women writers: Toni Morrison Joyce Carol Oates Tillie Lerner Olsen Alice Walker
2. male writers: Saul Bellow E. L. Doctorow Norman Mailer Thomas Pynchon
3. African American writers: James Baldwin Martin Luther King, Jr. Ernest J. Gaines James Alan McPherson
4. Asian American writers: Carlos Bulosan Hisaye Yamamoto John Okada Maxine Hong Kingston
5. Chicano/Latino writers: Nicholosa Mohr Rolando Hinojosa-Smith Tomas Rivera Aurora Levins Morales
6. Native American writers: N. Scott Momaday James Welch Louise Erdrich Leslie Marmon Silko
II. poetry
Read all the poets in A. (selections), and pick one of the groups in B. for a class report.
A. for class discussion Theodore Roethke Richard Wilbur John Ashbery Gary Snyder Anne Sexton Marge Piercy John Berryman James Dickey Lawrence Ferlinghetti Elizabeth Bishop Adrienne Rich Carolyn Forché Robert Lowell Robert Creeley Allen Ginsberg Denise Levertov Sylvia Plath
B. groups 1. African American women writers: Gwendolyn Brooks Mari Evans Audre Lorde Sonia Sanchez
2.African American men Etheridge Knight Jay Wright Michael S. Harper Amiri Baraka Ishmael Reed Robert Hayden
3. Chicano/Latino writers Bernice Zamora Tato Laviera Judith Ortiz Cofer Lorna Dee Cervantes Pedro Pietri Victor Hernandez Cruz Gary Soto
4. Native American writers: Simon Ortiz Wendy Rose Roberta Hill Whiteman Joy Harjo
5. Asian American writers: Janice Mirikitani Garrett Hongo Cathy Song |
