English 3380: Survey of American Literature I: “Revolution and the Word”
* Paper Assignment: Prompts may be used, or you may create your own Open Topic *
Length: 5-7 pages (1,250-1,750 words), typed, double-spaced, with standard one-inch margins.
Focus: Each paper must include substantial treatment of one of the texts we read as a class from week eight through week twelve.
Additional Primary Sources: Each paper should make reference to 1 or 2 additional primary sources from the selections for Group 1 (Native American sources) or Group 2 (Slavery sources).
Secondary Sources: Each paper must make reference to a minimum of two secondary sources you find on your own, using the MLA Bibliography. The sources should discuss some aspect(s) of any of the primary sources you use. Brief sources such as articles from Explicator shall count as ½ of a source.
Thesis: your paper should have an identifiable thesis and be thesis-driven, whether your paper is expository or creative.
Title: All essays must have a TITLE. The title should reflect your thesis. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is not an appropriate title for a paper—it’s been taken! “The Function of the Narrator in ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’” is an appropriate title.
Works Cited: Please include at the end of your paper. A separate page is not required (save a tree!).
Drafts: I’m delighted to work with you at any stage of the paper development before the paper is due.
Specific Quotations and Close Readings: these should be at the center of every paragraph you write.
Due: Tuesday 23 November, in class.
Another View of the Paper:
Main Text / Primary Sources / Secondary Sources1 from weeks 8-12 / 1 or 2 from Group 1 or 2 / Minimum of 2; find on your own, MLA
The following prompts are suggestions only. You may choose one of the topics below or you may develop your own topic; if so, please contact me for guidance. All papers must include a minimum of two (2) secondary sources.
Prompts. Topics are broken out by reading groups:
1. (Group 1) Scholars have identified the myth of the vanishing American Indian as a common stereotype among nineteenth-century Euro-Americans. Analyze the extent to which Sigourney’s poem “Indian Names” and/ or Bryant’s poem “The Prairies,” and either Elias Boudinot’s essay from the Cherokee Phoenix or the Cherokee Memorials either refute or reinforce the myth of the vanishing American Indian. Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
2. (Group 1) Compare and contrast the persuasive power of religious critique as it is invoked either by Apess in “An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man” or in the Appendix in Douglass’s Narrative, and either Petalesharo’s “Speech of the Pawnee Chief,” or Boudinot’s essay from the Cherokee Phoenix. Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
3. (Group 1) Many of the texts we’ve read are concerned about the relationships among myth, history, and story-telling. Write an essay in which you analyze the extent to which the following texts can be understood as engaged in re-writing history, and/or are concerned with the limits of history, myth and fiction: Boudinot’s essay from the Cherokee Phoenix and either Apess’s “An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man,” or Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” or Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
4. (Group 1) Compare and contrast the issue of betrayal in one or two selections from the primary sources of Native American texts, and the issue of betrayal in Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.” Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
5. (Group 1) Compare and contrast the form(s) and style(s) of protest literature in Apess’s “An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man,” Elias Boudinot’s essay from the Cherokee Phoenix and/ or the excerpt from The Life…of Black Hawk. Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
6. (Group 2) Compare and contrast the extent to which ‘self-evident truths’ are either revealed or hidden in plain sight in Gray’s The Confessions of Nat Turner, Garrison’s “To the Public,” and Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.” Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
7. (Group 2) Compare and contrast the elements of style and the use of imagery in Douglass’s Narrative and the excerpt from David Walker’s Appeal. Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
8. (Group 2) How are Jefferson’s ideas about race (as articulated in the excerpt from Notes on the State of Virginia) reflected by and/ or refuted in Melville’s “Benito Cereno” and in the excerpt from David Walker’s Appeal? Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
9. (Group 2) Compare and contrast the portrait of antebellum American womanhood in Grimké’s Appeal and Truth’s “Speech” with the figure of Madeline Usher in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
10. (Group 2) Compare and contrast representations of the horror of dehumanization in the excerpt from Walker’s Appeal with either Douglass’s Narrative, or Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
Creative Options: *All Creative Papers must include a one paragraph summary describing your argument and how your paper interprets or re-interprets the reading(s) upon which your creative work is based.* Please also read the guideline for Creative Papers, located in the sidebar on the course web page. Creative Papers may sometimes be longer than expository papers due to the nature of creative work. Creative Papers must also use a minimum of two (2) secondary sources primarily found using the MLA Bibliography, and they must also include Works Cited.
10. (Group 1) Creative Option: Imagine a radio interview featuring Elias Boudinot and William Apess in which they are reviewing Sigourney’s “Indian Names” and Bryant’s “The Prairies.” Create a dialogue using references to and /or quotations from specific passages. * Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
11. (Group 1) Creative Option: Imagine a discussion among the following: Elias Boudinot, William Apess, Lydia Sigourney and William Cullen Bryant. They have all returned from viewing Thomas Cole’s series of five paintings, The Course of Empire. View this series using our course web page. Create a dialogue using references to and /or quotations from specific passages (and references to the painting, of course). * Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
12. (Group 1) Creative Option: Imagine a discussion about the value of civilization between Elias Boudinot and William Apess. Create a dialogue using references to and /or quotations from specific passages. * Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
13. (Group 2) Creative Option: Write a book review of Melville’s “Benito Cereno” as if written by Martin Delany and/ or David Walker. Create the review using references to and /or quotations from specific passages. * Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
14. (Group 2) Write an analytical review of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” as if written by Angelina Grimké and Sojourner Truth (use quotes and references from Grimké’s Appeal and Truth’s “Speech,” as well as quotes from Poe). * Include a minimum of two secondary sources.
*All Creative Papers must include a one paragraph summary describing your argument and how your paper interprets or re-interprets the reading(s) upon which your creative work is based.*