American Literature since 1865
Z. Watson - RKT
Dropped as of May 3, 2019 - Too much for mental health at the moment - RKT
Rochester College, RKT compilation of research from class
Dates of Class
Information
Introductory Videos
Video about Class Commonplace Book and Google Meet HangoutsURL
Campus and Moodle Resources
Course Resources
Course Description
Data of Course
SU-19_ENG3323-WA01A American Literature since 1865 - Z. Watson
Instructor Contact Information
NAMEProf. Zachary Watson
Rochester College Emailzwatson@rc.edu
Alternate EmailN/A
telephone office: 248-218-2132
Office Location & HoursBy appointment in summer
Program Learning Outcomes (PLO)
They are so brilliant I wanted to create a link to all the information and videos to help my students and myself.
Richard Kerry Thompson
Assessment Percentages
Assessment Percentages
Exercises (20%)
Reading Responses (25%)
Peer Responses (15%)
Reflective Journals (10%)
Papers (30%)
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Week 1 - March 6, 2019
Learning Outcomes Week 1
Friday - Saturday
Saturday - Monday
Sunday - Tuesday
Monday - Wednesday
Thursday - Friday
Video Introduction
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M3Z98S5L99TC0H_Mo_iRAA3NVabzi2n-/view
Change from Romanticism to Realism
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wweEZm2Fxb87dcGu8SLwRGDulCIr59qrL8JFrGA3B0Q/edit#
Reading Response Introduction
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10nDDlQbzw_vsYeJD7WyBpnpEldLUE6-PdiNPw8hs5HY/edit
Sample Annotations
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-SM7XKlm-ZIuatztz2wrcLE7H065oexoQAcK92YHyXQ/edit
Week One Worksheet answers
W1-Workbook-RKT-AL1865
Richard Thompson
Exercise 1.1 Think of one or more works of literature (in the narrower sense) that you’ve read or seen recently. This might be a book or movie. Look back through the quotes, and explain how your interaction with the work achieved two or three of the reasons for studying literature.
In the movie Dead Poet Society, the main character opens the minds of the students and encourages them to Seize the Day - Carpe Diem.
1-To grow in self-awareness
“Having a wide range of experiences can enlarge and deepen our personalities, which is why reading can enrich our lives” (Veith 31).
This quote relates to this movie because it connects with the teacher as he challenges the students to look deeper in themselves and their thought processes.
2- To understand the present time and culture
“Though literature can provide us with relaxation and with images of the world as it might ideally be, it is neither an escape from reality nor a saving transformation of it. Instead, it enables us to respond to the order, beauty, and grace of God and his world and to the disorder that our sin has brought into that world” (Gallagher and Lundin xxiv).
As the teacher asks the students to look at the photos behind the glass in the trophy case, this connects with the past and the sanctity of live as all humans die. These same students were standing in the same exact place as the ones looking.
3- To promote creative and aesthetic experiences
“Fiction of one kind or another--including movies and television program--comprises much of our entertainment and takes up much of our leisure time. We seem to have a need for stories” (Veith 59).
The teacher in Dead Poets Society, continually shared stories and related them to the challenges of living and loving and being. It was the need for stories that enlightened. -Captain my Captain...
Exercise 1.2 For the work you wrote about in the first exercise, consider how it contains at least one conflict. Describe who or what this conflict is “between.” What is each “side” wanting, and how is the conflict resolved? Look at the list of conflicts on the top of p. 5, and explain which one of these fits best with the conflict you’ve described.
The Dead Poets Society had many conflicts within its storyline. The one I speak of is - Person vs. Society. The society I speak of is the society of the Institution. The Institution is the university in which the teacher taught. The teacher taught outside the norm of techniques which then created the conflict for the institutional leaders. The Society (Institution) wanted to be status quo and teach the way things always have been, the teacher empowered the students and used every means available even jumping on desks to get his point across. This frightened the institution as it was not in their handbook of how to teach. Thus, challenging the system of which the university was founded on. This conflict is not resolved it actually terminates the teacher and indeed the students all rebel and stand on the desks to prove that the outlandish techniques actually worked.
The best conflict then as stated above is Person (Teacher) vs. Society (Institution)
Exercise 1.3 In The American Novel and its Tradition (1957), Richard Chase says, “The imagination that has produced much of the best and most characteristic American fiction has been shaped by the contradictions and not by the unities and harmonies of our culture. In a sense this may be true of all literatures of whatever time and place. [. . . .] The American novel tends to rest in contradictions and among extreme ranges of experience. When it attempts to resolve contradictions, it does so in oblique, morally equivocal ways” (1). Look back over Lesson 1.3 that highlights certain texts from a few periods of American history. How do you see evidence of “contradictions and not [. . .] unities and harmonies of our culture”? You might think of some of the following incongruous aspects of American culture: safety and liberty, innocence and experience, illusion and reality, freedom and oppression, hero and villain, rural and urban, unity and diversity, tradition and change, conservative and progressive, individual and society, violence and peace, simple and sophisticated, democracy and apathy, certainty and skepticism, ideal and practical, serious and playful, sacred and secular. Just use references to two works as your “evidence” for this exercise.
The first to be highlighted is...
B. Political treatise
1. “The Declaration of Independence” (1776) by Thomas Jefferson
In the Declaration of Independence, the premise is that of contradictions of the current state of laws as the premise of change and writing as opposed to highlighting the King and it's laws. It was only through challenging authorities that the document was written.
In particular.. “For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:” This is totally opposite of how the current state of law was. Thus a conflict and contradiction.
The second work is
1. Letters from an American Farmer (1782) by J. Hector St. Jean de Crèvecouer
In this except I point out that contradiction is that of the fact of patriotism and new beginnings of dedication. The old ways are no more and a new world is emerging even to the fact of cross cultures marrying and having first generation Americans. This conflict is evident and strong in the following excerpt
“He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. He becomes an American by being received in the broad lap of our great Alma Mater. “
Exercise 1.4 Romanticism has never completely disappeared, but as an artistic movement, it was lessening by 1865 and being surpassed by the new art movement of Realism, which we’ll focus on with our first short story for the class. Before we do that, watch the following video that asks you to consider whether your personality tends to be more “Romantic” or “Classical.” (As you’ll see when we discuss Realism, the term “classical” as being used in this video might be called “realist” or “realistic.”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QmJofRAB9M The narrator in the video says cultures seem to sway back and forth between promoting romantic or classical ideologies. How do you view the dominant mindset of our current culture? Is it more Romantic or Classical/Realistic--or is it more balanced? Mention one or two specific examples to support your assertion.
Indeed the current culture we live in is so vast that not one or the other has total dominance as in years past. The Romantic or Classical/Realism is therefore a dichotomy in its power. Since the dawn of the internet people are no longer prisoners of their geography and propaganda of who ever owned the information delivery system. When looking at movies that are produced, Hollywood does not have the monopoly over what stories are prostituted in the minds of Americans. Today there are more movies than ever before and all types of genres are open to all to enlighten their minds. Thus I don't think there is a dominance. The dominance is in the eye of the beholder.
Thank you
Richard