American Studies
2004/2005
1st semester
2nd semester
Summer reading:
There Are No Children Here - Alex Kotlowitz
Core major work #1:
The Jungle - Sinclair Lewis
Core major work #2:
Choose from supplemental list for first
semester
Core short stories:
“Young Goodman Brown” - Nathaniel
Hawthorne
selections from Grapes of Wrath -John
Steinbeck
Core poems:
2 Transcendental poems
“America” - Claude McKay
“America” - Henry Dumas
Core nonfiction:
“Declaration of Independence”- Thomas
Jefferson
American Crisis - Thomas Paine
Autobiography of Slave - Frederick Douglass
The Seneca Falls Declaration on Women’s
Rights - Elizabeth C. Stanton
Core activities:
argumentative essay
one literary analysis process essay
ACT diagnostic (2 days in September)
midterm/formative (based on ACT)
Grammar (Year-long Objectives)
• reinforce all freshman and sophomore skills
• active/passive voice 3-5 (new); 32(old)
• danglins modifiers 12-13 (old); 14-15 (new)
misplaced modifiers 11-12(old); 13(new)
• comparison of adjectives 41-42(old); 4647(new)
• comparatives
• superlatives
• usage: however; although (not in Hacker)
(all grammar pages from A Pocket Style Manual Diana Hacker)
On the FINAL - DO NOT TEACH:
• “Lachrymal Imagery in Young Goodman”
• “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” by
Nathaniel Hawthorne
• ACT passage on Literary Criticism
• “That Lean & Hungry Look” by
Suzanne Britt
• “The Ritual of Fast Food” by Margaret
Visser
Core major work #1:
The Things They Carried- Tim O’Brien
Core major work #2:
Choose from supplemental list for
second semester
Core poems: none
Core nonfiction:
Argumentative articles and logical
fallacies analysis
• hasty generalizations
• inaccurate cause-effect
• attacking individual not principle
• misleading statistics
Core activities:
research paper using department style manual
one speech
midterm/formative (based on ACT)
Literary Analysis essay
one argumentative essay
Final Exam: CRT 50% Teacher essay 50%
On the FINAL - DO NOT TEACH:
• ACT passage on archeology
• samples of logical fallacies
• “Four-Letter Words Can Hurt You”
by Barbara Lawrence
• “The Brown Chest” by John Updike
• “Drinking the Pounds Away” by
Andrea Joseph
First Semester
Supplemental Materials:
Major Works:
Cold Mountain
Book of David
Crucible
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Our Town
My Antonia
O Pioneers
Ethan Frome
Cherokee Trail
Huckleberry Finn
Maggie A Girl on the Streets
Red Badge of Courage
The Jungle
Moby Dick
Scarlet Letter
The Grapes of Wrath
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
House of Mirth
In Our Time
Cold Sassy Tree
Sister Carrie
Main Street
Babbit
House of Seven Gables
Killer Angels
Shorter Works:
Fiction
“Fall of the House of Usher”
“Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Hawthorne short stories (Celestial Railroad)
“Bride Comes to Yellow Sky”
“Outcasts of Poker Flat”
“Devil and Tom Walker”
“Blue Hotel”
Fitzgerald Stories
Hemingway Stories
“Yellow Wallpaper”
“Desiree’s Baby”
“The Worn Path”
Nonfiction
“Say it ain’t so, Huck”
article on Fitzgerald-Roaring Twenties
Jonathon Edward’s “Sinners in the Hands. . .”
Patrick Henry’s Speech - Virginia Convention
Crévecoeur letters
Thomas Pain essays
Twain’s “Advice to Youth”
Emerson's “Economy,” “Self-Reliance,”
“Nature”
Slave narratives
Crane
Second Semester
Supplemental Materials:
Major Works:
The Joy Luck Club
Animal Dreams
Snow Falling on Cedars
Going After Cacciato
In Country
In Pharaoh’s Army
Rumor of War
Citizen Soldier
Women of Brewster Place
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
Color Purple
On the Road
Native Son
Goodbye, Columbus
Death of a Salesman
Cuckoo’s Nest
Born on the Fourth of July
Letters Home from Viet Nam
If I Die in a Combat Zone
Fallen Angels
House on Mango Street
Shorter Works (Fiction/Nonfiction)
“The American Slurp”
“The struggle to Be an All-American Girl”
“Aria” [excerpt from Hunger of Memory]
“Soap and Water”
“American History”
“A Wife’s Story”
Studs Terkel American Dream interviews
“American Dreams”
“Two Ways to Belong in America”
20th Century American Short Stories
“The Culture of Narcissism” - Christopher Lasch
Film:
Joy Luck Club
Platoon
Born on the Fourth of July
Speeches:
An American Crisis
J.F.K. Inaugural Address
Song Lyrics:
“American Tune” and “Richard Cory”--Paul Simon
“Fast Car”--Tracy Chapman
“Born in the USA”--Bruce Springsteen
“Pink Houses”--John Mellancamp
First Semester (continued)
Supplemental Materials:
Second Semester (continued)
Supplemental Materials:
Film:
The Crucible
Guilty by Suspicion
Glory
Avalon
Poetry:
“The Melting Pot”
“A Nation’s Strength”
“Running to America”
“Elena”
“Tomorrow”
“Ellis Island”
“America” - Langston Hughes
“America” - Allen Ginsberg
Poetry:
“Richard Cory”
5/2002