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Tentative Calendar
Week 1: August 16-19
16: Course Introduction. Introduction to the American Tradition in
Literature
17: Introduction to Puritanism; begin reading “Young Goodman Brown,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
18: Continue reading “Young Goodman Brown”
19: “Young Goodman Brown” writing exercise.
Week 2: August 22-26
22: Introduction to The Revolutionary Period. Introduction to
Romanticism. Begin reading “Rip Van Winkle,” by Washington Irving.
23: Continue reading “Rip Van Winkle”
24: Finish “Rip Van Winkle”
25: “Rip Van Winkle” writing exercise
26: Vocabulary Quiz #1. Begin reading “The Tell Tale Heart,” by Edgar
Allen Poe.
Week 3: August 29-September 1
29: Continue reading “The Tell Tale Heart”
30: “The Tell Tale Heart” writing exercise.
31: Introduction to Transcendentalism; Film: Henry Hikes to Fitchburg
1: Vocabulary Quiz #2; Introduction to Local Color/Regionalism; Begin reading “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” by Bret Harte
Week 4: September 6-9
6: Continue reading “The Outcasts of Poker Flat”
7: “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” writing exercise

8: Introduction to Realism; Film: The Civil War: Episode 1, by Ken
Burns.“
9: Vocabulary quiz #3; Read: “The Coup de Grace,” by Ambrose Bierce.
Week 5: September 12-16
12: “The Coup de Grace” writing exercise.
13: Introduction to Naturalism; Begin reading “Death in the Woods,” by
Sherwood Anderson
14: Finish reading “Death in the Woods”
15: “Death in the Woods” writing exercise
16: Vocabulary Quiz #4; Begin reading “A Rose for Emily,” by William
Faulkner
Week 6: September 19-23
19: Finish reading “A Rose for Emily”
20: “A Rose for Emily” writing exercise.
21: Read “Teenage Wasteland,” by Anne Tyler
22: “Teenage Wasteland” writing exercise.
23: Vocabulary quiz #5; Begin reading “Where Are You Going, Where
Have You Been,” by Joyce Carol Oates
Week 7: September 26-30
26: Finish reading “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”;
27: Film: Smooth Talk
28: Film: Smooth Talk
29: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” writing exercise.
30: Review for American Tradition in Literature exam
Week 8: October 3-7
3: Continue review
4: American Tradition in Literature exam
5: Essay preparation day
6: Essay preparation day
7: Essay preparation day
Week 9: October 10-14

10: Introduction to Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio; Read: “The
Book of the Grotesque,” pg. 3.
11: Read: “Hands,” pg. 9
12: Complete “Hands” chart
13: Read: “Respectability,” pg. 113
14: The American Tradition in Literature essay due; Vocabulary Quiz #6;
Complete “Respectability” chart
Week 10: October 17-21
17: Read: “Tandy,” pg. 138
18: Read: “Loneliness,” pg. 165
19: Complete “Loneliness” chart
20: Read: “The Untold Lie,” pg. 203
21: Vocabulary Quiz #7; Complete “The Untold Lie” chart.
Week 11: October 24-28
24: Read: “Death,” pg. 223
25: Complete “Death” chart
26: Read: “Sophistication,” pg. 237
27: Read: “Departure,” pg. 249
28: Vocabulary Quiz #8; Essay preparation day
Week 12: October 31-November 3
31: Essay preparation day.
1: Essay preparation day.
2: Introduction to Ernest Hemingway; Film: Wrestling With Life: A
Biography of Ernest Hemingway
3: Film: Wrestling With Life: A Biography of Ernest Hemingway
Week 13: November 7-November 11
7: Read: “Indian Camp,” pg. 91
8: Read: “Up in Michigan,” pg. 81
9: Read: “The End of Something,” pg. 107

10: Read: “Hills Like White Elephants,” pg. 273
11: Winesburg, Ohio essay due; Vocabulary Quiz #9; Read: “The Killers,” pg. 279
Week 14: November 14-18
14: Read: “Old Man at the Bridge,” pg. 78; Begin reading “A Way You’ll
Never Be,” pg. 402
15: Finish reading “A Way You’ll Never Be,” pg. 402
16: Read: “Soldier’s Home,” pg. 143
17: Read: “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” pg. 379
18: Vocabulary Quiz #10; Read: “Big Two-Hearted River: Part I,” pg. 209
Week 15: November 21-22
21: Essay preparation day
22: Essay preparation day
Week 16: November 28-December 2
28: Essay preparation day
29: Introduction to American Poetry; Read: “O Captain! My Captain!,” by
Walt Whitman and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
30: Film: The Civil War, Episode 9, by Ken Burns
1: Read: “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” by Emily Dickinson
2: Read: “Richard Cory,” by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Week 17: December 5-9
5: Read: “Birches,” by Robert Frost
6: Hemingway Essay due; Read: “Home Burial,” by Robert Frost
7: Read: “Mending Wall” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,”
by Robert Frost
8: Read: “Acquainted With the Night,” by Robert Frost and “If We Must
Die,” by Claude McKay
9: Read: “What Lips my Lips Have Kissed,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Week 18: December 12-16
12: Read: “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” by Langston Hughes, “A Black
Man Talks of Reaping,” by Arna Bontemps, and “The Ballad of
Birmingham,” by Dudley Randall
13: Read: “This is Just to Say,” by William Carlos Williams, and “Anyone
Lived in a Pretty How Town,” by e.e. cummings
14: Read: “Sestina,” by Elizabeth Bishop and “Juggler,” by Richard Wilbur
15: Final Review
16: Final Review
Week 19: December 19-22
Final Exam Week
1 st Hour: Monday, December 19
3 rd Hour: Tuesday, December 20
6 th Hour: Thursday, December 22