Instructor:

Carl Brucker

Phone:

(479) 968-0484

Office Hours:

MWF: 8-12, 1-3
TR: 8-3

This course will require you to complete five types of assignments: reading assignments, Discussion Board responses, examinations, a research report, and an analytic essay.
Click here to read a description of each type.

If you would like to view a video introduction to this online course click here. I am beginning to add some video comments on particular works. I have placed the boldfaced words [Video Comment] where they appear in the syllabus. You can view them by clicking on the bracketed phrase.

Wed
Aug 21

Read: Introduction to Assignment One
Literature reading assignment one:
Philip Freneau "On the Religion of Nature" Vol. I, pp. 419-420; William Cullen Bryant, "To A Waterfowl" and "The Prairies" Vol. I, pp. 540-543; Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature" Introduction and chapter 1, Vol. I, pp. 553-557 [view Emerson presentation] ; Henry David Thoreau, chapters 2 and 18 from Walden Vol. I, pp. 962-972 and pp. 988-996; Walt Whitman "A Noiseless Patient Spider," "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" and "The Dalliance of Eagles" Vol. I, p. 1144; Sarah Orne Jewett, "A White Heron" Vol. II, pp. 434-441.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment One forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, August 27.
Read:How to Use the Course Discussion Board and How to Write a 10-Point Response

Assignment Two : The Natural World
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Mon
Aug 26

Read: Introduction to Assignment 2
Literature reading assignment two:
Emily Dickinson "These are the days when Birds come back" Vol. I, pp. 1251, "Some keep the Sabbath going to Church" Vol. I, p. 1253, "A Bird came down the Walk" Vol. I, p. 1258, ""I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died" "The brain - wider than the sky" Vol. I, pp. 1263-1264; Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat" Vol. II, pp. 614-631 and "Stephen Crane's Own Story"; Jack London, "To Build a Fire" Vol. II, pp. 641-652 [view Crane-London presentation] ; Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken," Vol. II, p. 744 [Video Comment]; "Nothing Gold Can Stay," "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," "Desert Places," and "Design" Vol. II, pp. 747-748; William Carlos Williams "Spring and All" Vol. II, pp.790-791. [Video Comment].
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Two forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, September 3.
Read: Click here to view topics and instructions for the research report assignment that will be due Tuesday, October 8.

Tues
Sep 3

Read: Introduction to Assignment 3
Literature reading assignment three:
Walt Whitman "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" Vol. II, pp. 69-74; Herman Melville "Bartleby the Scrivener" Vol. I, pp. 1157-1181 [Video Comment] [view Bartleby presentation] ; Ezra Pound "In a Station of the Metro" Vol. II, p. 799; Carl Sandburg "Chicago" Vol. II, pp. 773-774; Gwendolyn Brooks "kitchenette building" Vol. II, p. 1301, "We Real Cool" Vol. II, p. 1303; Allen Ginsberg "A Supermarket in California" Vol. II, pp. 1402-1403.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Three forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, September 10.

Assignment Four : The Urban Environment
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Mon
Sep 9

Read: Introduction to Assignment 4
Literature reading assignment four:
Rebecca Harding Davis "Life in the Iron Mills" Vol. I, pp. 1275-1304 [view Davis presentation] ; Theodore Dreiser Chapter 1 from Sister Carrie Vol. II, pp. 597-603; Allen Ginsberg "Howl" Vol. II, pp. 1394-1411.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Four forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, September 17.

Mon
Sep 16

Read: Introduction to Assignment 5
Literature reading assignment five:
Nathaniel Hawthorne, "My Kinsman, Major Molineaux" Vol. I, pp. 655-681 [view Hawthorne presentation] and "The May-Pole of Merry Mount" Vol. I, pp. 678-685; Zitkala Sa "The Soft-Hearted Sioux" Vol II, pp. 660-665; William Faulkner "Barn Burning" Vol. II, pp. 1015-1028.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Five forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, September 24.

Mon
Sep 23

Read: Introduction to Assignment 6
Literature reading assignment six:
Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Vol. I, pp. 878-900 [view Jacobs presentation]; Countee Cullen "Incident" Vol. II, p. 1054; Richard Wright "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" Vol. II, pp. 1059-1067; James Baldwin "Going to Meet the Man" Vol. II, pp. 1331-1343.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Six forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, October 1.
Click here to access the Midterm Examination This examination covers Assignments One through Six and is due Thursday, Oct 3.

Assignment Seven : Parents and Children
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Mon
Sep 30

Read: Introduction to Assignment 7
Literature reading assignment seven:
Harriet Beecher Stowe, "The Mother's Struggle" from Uncle Tom's Cabin, Vol. I, pp. 840-850; Langston Hughes "Mother to Son" Vol. II, pp. 1037-1038; Gwendolyn Brooks "The Mother" Vol. II, pp. 1301-1302; Lucille Clifton "wishes for sons" Vol. II, p. 1497; Alice Walker "Everyday Use" Vol. II, pp. 1568-1574.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Seven forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, October 8.
Read: Click here to view topics and instructions for the analytic essay that will be due Monday, November 12.

Mon
Oct 7

Read: Introduction to Assignment 8
Literature reading assignment eight:
Edward Taylor "Upon Wedlock, and the Death of Children" Vol. I, pp. 157-158; Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, chs. I-VII, Vol. II, pp. 108-131 [view Twain presentation]; F. Scott Fitzgerald "Babylon Revisited" Vol. II, pp. 991-1005; Theodore Roethke "My Papa's Waltz" Vol. I, p. 1093 [Video Comment]; Robert Hayden "Those Winter Sundays Vol. II, p. 1198; Anne Sexton "Little Girl, My String Bean, My Lovely Woman" Vol. II, pp. 1412-1414; Sylvia Plath "Daddy" Vol. II, pp. 1447-1449.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Eight forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, October 15.

Mon
Oct 14

Read: Introduction to Assignment 9
Literature reading assignment nine:
Washington Irving "Rip Van Winkle" Vol. I, pp. 515-527; Kate Chopin "At the 'Cadian Ball" and "The Storm" Vol. II, pp. 448-459 [view Chopin presentation] ; Mary Wilkins Freeman "A New England Nun" Vol. II, pp. 460-469; Charlotte Perkins Gilman "The Yellow Wallpaper" Vol. II, pp. 511-523; Susan Glaspell "Trifles" Vol. II, pp. 751-761; Ernest Hemingway "Hills Like White Elephants" Vol. II, pp. 1030-1035.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Nine forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, October 22.

Mon
Oct 21

Read: Introduction to Assignment 10
Literature reading assignment ten:
Kate Chopin "Desiree's Baby" and "The Story of an Hour" Vol. II, pp. 442-448; William Faulkner "A Rose for Emily" Vol. II, pp. 1009-1015; Flannery O'Connor "Good Country People" Vol. II, pp. 1367-1381; Eudora Welty "Petrified Man" Vol. II, pp. 10967-1106; Maxine Hong Kingston "No Name Woman" Vol. II, pp. 1544-1553.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Ten forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, October 29.

Mon
Oct 28

Read: Introduction to Assignment 11
Literature reading assignment eleven:
T. S. Eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" Vol. II, pp. 830-834; Zora Neale Hurston "Sweat" Vol. II, pp. 950-958; E. E. Cummings "anyone lived in a pretty how town" Vol. II, pp 966-967; John Cheever "The Swimmer" Vol. II, pp. 1183-1191; John Updike "Separating" Vol. II, pp. 1452-1460; Yusef Komunyakaa "My Father's Love Letters" Vol. II, p. 1577.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Eleven forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, November 5.

Assignment Twelve: Love Is All
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Mon
Nov 4

Read: Introduction to Assignment 12
Literature reading assignment twelve:
Anne Bradstreet "Before the Birth of One of Her Children," "To My Dear and Loving Husband" and "A Letter to Her Husband Absent Upon Public Employment" Vol. I, pp. 123-125; Edgar Allan Poe "The Raven" and "Annabel Lee" Vol. I, pp. 735-739 [view Poe presentation] ; Emily Dickinson "Wild nights - Wild nights" Vol. I, p. 1254; Li-Young Lee "This Room and Everything in It" Vol. II, pp. 1639-1641 .
Login:to Blackboard and review the Assignment Twelve forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, November 12.

Read: Introduction to Assignment 13
Literature reading assignment thirteen:
Walt Whitman from Drum-Taps Vol. I, pp. 1145-1148; William Dean Howells "Editha" Vol. II, pp. 316-326; Ambrose Bierce "An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" Vol. II, pp. 327-333 ; Stephen Crane from "War Is Kind " Vol. II, pp. 631-633.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Thirteen forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, November 19.
Analytic Essay is due today
Click here to view topics and instructions for the analytic essay

Read: Introduction to Assignment 14
Literature reading assignment fourteen:
Claude McKay, "The Lynching," "If We Must Die," and "America," Vol. II pp. 937-938; Carl Sandburg, "Grass" Vol. II, p. 774; E. E. Cummings "next to of course god america i" and "i sing of Olaf glad and big" Vol. II, pp. 964-966; Randall Jarrell "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" and "Second Air Force" Vol. II, pp. 1201-1202; Robert Lowell "For the Union Dead" Vol. II, pp. 1298-1299; Yusef Komunyakaa "Facing It" Vol. II, p. 1576; Louise Erdrich "Dear John Wayne" Vol. II, p. 1624.
Final Exam: Click here to access Final Examination.
Login: to Blackboard and review the Assignment Fourteen forum questions on the Class Discussion Board. Post a 150+ word response to one of the questions by Tuesday, November 26.

Thurs
Dec 5