English 343 Spring 2006

Prof. Scott Peeples Office: 22-B Glebe St., Rm. 201
Phone: 953-1993 E-mail: peepless@cofc.edu
Office Hours: MWF 10-11, TR 2-3, and by appt.

COURSE OBJECTIVES
To familiarize students with a representative selection of major American writings (other than novels) from the period known as the "American Renaissnace" (1830--1870), to teach students to investigate those texts critically, and to help students improve their skills in analytical writing and oral communication.

TEXTS
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Selected Essays. . . (Bantam)
Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Civil Disobedience (Norton)
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (Norton)
Lydia Maria Child, Letters from New York (Georgia)
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown and Other Tales (Oxford)
Edgar Allan Poe, Selected Tales (Oxford)
Spengemann, ed., Nineteenth-Century American Poetry (Penguin)
Other selections available via Web-CT

GRADED REQUIREMENTS
In-class writing (see below) 40 - 50 pts.
Oral presentation (see handout) 10 pts.
Three essays, 4-5 pp. (see attachment) 30 pts. each
Mid-term exam 30 pts.
Final exam 50 pts.
Total 220 - 230 pts.

POLICIES AND OTHER INFORMATION

1. Attendance and participation are requirements of this course. If you miss more than three classes, I will deduct two points from your final grade for each additional class you miss. (For example, if you miss six classes and your numerical grade for the course is an 81, it would turn into a 75.) You should save the three absences you're allowed for illnesses and emergencies, because I do not distinguish between excused and unexcused absences when I calculate grades.

2. In-class writing: Each day, I will give a brief writing assignment to the class, the main purpose of which is to allow you to write without the pressure of a substantial grade, in order to generate ideas for discussion or for your essays. If you demonstrate adequate familiarity with the text and a sincere effort to develop an idea through your writing, I will give you full credit (2 pts.). For writing that shows little effort or little familiarity with the text, I will assign 1 point. No significant effort/familiarity, no credit. No make-ups.

3. Grades: I assign points to everything I grade. At the end of the semester, I divide the number of points you've earned by the number of available points and convert that percentage to a letter grade:

A = 90-100, B+ = 86-89, B = 80-85, C+ = 76-79, C = 70-75, D = 65-69, and an F = 64 or lower.

The penalty for turning in a paper late is one letter grade for each weekday an essay is late after classes end. I will not accept any written work after the date of the exam.

If you want to improve your grades, talk to me about how you can write better exams and essays in the future: that's what I'm here for. However, I will not allow you to retake an exam or do an additional assignment for extra credit.

4. Documentation and plagiarism: I will assign a grade of zero to any paper that is not adequately documented. For the specifics of MLA documentation, there's a link on my homepage to a documentation site; the library web page also includes easy access to MLA documentation guides, and copies of the MLA Handbook are available at the reference desk. I will turn over any paper that I suspect is plagiarized to the Honor Board, and if the student who submitted that paper is found in violation of the Honor Code, he or she will automatically fail this course.

Schedule (subject to change)

(W) = available via Web-CT

1/10 Intro / Emerson: "Nature"

1/12 Emerson: "Nature"

1/17 Emerson: "The American Scholar," "Cherokee Letter"

1/19 Thoreau: Walden (Ch. 1)

1/24 Thoreau: Walden (Chs. 2-8)

1/26 Thoreau: Walden (Chs. 9-14)

1/31 Thoreau: Walden (complete)

2/2 Douglass: Narrative (Prefaces, Chs. 1-10)

2/7 Doulgass: Narrative (complete), Exchange between A. C. C. Thompson and Douglass (88-92), "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?"

2/9 Essay 1 due. ** 7 pm: Gangs of New York **

2/14 Child: Letters from New York, 1-3, 6, 7, 10-12, 14, 33

2/16 Hawthorne: "Wakefield"; Poe, "The Man of the Crowd," "The Angel of the Odd" (W)

2/21 Child, "The Black Saxons" and "Slavery's Pleasant Homes" (W), Letters 19, 23, 26, 28, 29, 40, 55

2/23 Hawthorne: "The Minister's Black Veil"; Poe: "William Wilson"

2/28 Hawthorne: "The Birthmark," "Rappaccini's Daughter"

3/2 Mid-term exam

Spring Break

3/14 Poe: "Ligeia," "The Man that Was Used Up"

3/16 Poe: "The Fall of the House of Usher"

3/21 Melville: "Benito Cereno" (W)

2/23 Essay 2 due.

3/28 Whitman: "Song of Myself"

3/30 Whitman: "Cavalry Crossing a Ford," "Beat! Beat! Drums!" "Song of the Banner at Daybreak" (W), "The Wound Dresser" (W), "As I Lay with My Head in Your Lap Camerado," "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd"

4/4 Whitman: "Years of the Modern," "A Noiseless Patient Spider," "Passage to India," "To a Locomotive in Winter," "As I Ebb'd with the Ocean of Life" (W)

4/6 Melville: notes to Battle-Pieces (W), "The Portent," "Misgivings," "The March into Virginia," "In the Turret" (W), "A Utilitarian View of the Monitor's Fight," "Shiloh" (W)

4/11 Melville: both "Stonewall Jackson" poems, "The Swamp Angel" (W), "The House-Top," "The College Colonel," "The Martyr," "The Coming Storm" (W) "Formerly a Slave" (W), "The Apparition"

4/13 Dickinson: 135, 448, 613, 657, 709

4/18 Dickinson: 243, 328, 338, 501, 1551

4/20 Dickinson: 249, 577, 640, 670, 754, 1670

4/25 Essay 3 due.

5/2 Final exam (8-11 am)