Early College Experience American Studies: ENGL 1065/ INTD 1065

American Studies

Early College Experience American Studies: ENGL 1065/ INTD 1065

Course Syllabus 2011-2012

Theresa Vara-Dannen

University High School of Science and Engineering

351 Mark Twain Drive

Hartford, Connecticut 06112

General Course Description:

American Studies: Growing Up in America: AmericanYouth in Transition

This year-long course is a meld of American literature, history,social sciences and culture. Especially in American culture, children and youth reflectthe values of ourculture and society. Parenting, consumerism,the media, arts and literaturesuggest ideas aboutthe nature of the culltural world of youth, its values and priorities. An examination of these issuesprovidesvaluable insights within the discipline of American Studies.

Did the "childhood" always exist? Are childhood and adolescence, as we have known them, lengthening into adulthood? Is there a biological period of childhood built into the human species? Have we created an eternal adolescence in contemporary American society,handicapping underachievingmales more than females?

Myriadresources, including literature, academic works and film constitute the course content. The goal is to engage the student in reflection of historical and cultural patterns of childhood and adolescence.*

*I am indebted to the National Endowment for the Humanities and Dr. Harvey Graff for the inspiration of this syllabus.

General Course Objectives:

A. To provide an interdisciplinary framework for the study of history and culture of the United States.

B. To promote individual inquiry and small and large group interaction in meeting

the course objectives

C. To nurture critical thinking skills

D. To approach the American experience thematically

E. To focus on the analysis of events, movements, groups, and individuals who haveshaped and continue to shape American culture and history.

Student Objectives:

Students in the American Studies course will be able:

A. To interpret historical data

B. To use maps, charts and data tables as an aid to historical study.

C. To evaluate the "cause and effect" relationship between historical events.

D. To defend a personal interpretation of historical data in classroom discussion.

E. To identify the major periods and associated persons in the development of United States culture and history

F. To demonstrate a mastery of effective oral, written and visual communication of ideas related to American culture through art, music, film and other cultural artifacts.

G. To explore through inquiry and research, the interdisciplinary nature of a topic, as well as make a critical response to that inquiry

H. To read, comprehend and take extensive notes and commentary on complex historical and cultural documents.

Methods of Presentation: Lecture; homework assignments (nightly); class discussion; field trips; audio-visual presentation; independent research; work with Oxford University Press and the African-American National Biography (online); National Humanities Center Resource Toolbox (online).

Grading Rationale

Essays/Tests/Participation: Most essays will be begun in class; rough drafts will then be peer-edited before students revise essays for tutorial workshops. The student will then self-edit, proofread and type the final product. The research papers will be weighted more heavily than essays.

Participation includes active discussion, thoughtful peer-editing, vocabulary exercises, serious annotation of texts in an organized notebook, all the individual phases of going from rough draft to final paper, and punctuality and class attendance. Notes will be checked periodically and graded.

Assessments -In each unit, students will be quizzed and tested on reading content, comprehension and SAT vocabulary. Writing assignments will include personal essays, letter writing, college essays, persuasive and argumentative essays, compare/contrast, synthesis and analytical essays, with both semesters culminating in research papers.

Academic Honesty: Academic honesty is expected and required. Information on dishonesty, including plagiarism, is provided in the Student Handbook and the UHSSE Honor Code. When in doubt, consult the instructor.

Key Elements of the Course:

*Acquisition of college level vocabulary so that students will understand the readings and be able to respond with the appropriate subtlety and nuance of language

*Active student participation in every aspect of class activities and assignments

*Completed, revised and proofread essays every two weeks

*Grammar instruction at a college level

*Daily reading analyses on excerpts from texts

*Occasional creative writing in several genres, inspired by readings

*Daily journal and free writing to encourage fluency

*Daily class discussion of texts

*Writing workshops and tutorials individually and in small groups to teach the skills of careful reading, revision and rewriting in their own work and in the work of others

*Review and/or teaching of the proper use of citations, attribution, paraphrasing and a full understanding of the dangers of plagiarism

*Analytical historical and literary essays written clearly and powerfully with advancing argumentation supported by the text

*Familiar and fluent use and detection of literary devices and advanced vocabulary required for analysis

*By the end of the course, students will have in their writing portfolio thirty pages of their revised and reworked formal prose.

*Both an in-class midterm and final essay will be required, with the final essay written at the time required by the University.

*Students will be required to write a short research paper on a topic of interest to them in order to practice their research, writing, synthesizing, documenting and citation skills.

WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

Students will produce a paper about every two weeks, as well as bring drafts to class for discussion. This schedule requires class members to turn all work in on time and to keep up with all reading. Papers should be typed double-spaced or printed neatly by skipping lines. All papers are due in class on the due date.

Requirements:

1.  Regular attendance, preparation, and participation

2.  Seven 2 page (two full pages, double-spaced, size 12 font) "reaction\evaluation" papers at regular intervals during the semester, each 3-4 weeks, responding to required reading, films, due the first weeks in October, November, January, February, March, April and May.

3.  Completion of 10-page research paper, integrating course ideas and materials with new secondary sources of scholarly work to interpret some issue of student interest related to growing up American, due week 13.

4.  Completion of the African-American National Biography research project, using primary documents to write a biography of a Connecticut-related African-American who is not yet listed in the AANB, due week 25.

MAJOR TEXTS:

·  Dan Agin, More Than Genes

·  Stephen Crane,Maggie, A Girl of the Streets.

·  E.L. Doctorow,World's Fair.

·  Frederick Douglass,Narrative of the Life. . . an American Slave

·  Robert Epstein, The Case Against Adolescence, excerpts

·  Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering, excerpts

·  Harvey J. Graff, ed.,Growing Up in America: Historical Experiences.Wayne State University Press, 1987

·  W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson,Broken Promises: How Americans Fail Their Children.

·  Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

·  Arthur Miller, The Crucible

·  J.D. Salinger,The Catcher in the Rye.

·  Leonard Sax, Boys Adrift, excerpts

·  Kate Simon,Bronx Primitive.

·  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

·  Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

·  National Humanities Center Toolbox Library: http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/index.htm

Recommended Reading

·  Eve Merriam, ed.,Growing Up in Female in America: Ten Lives.Beacon

·  Hamilton Holt, ed.,The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans as Told by Themselves, ed. Werner Sollers. Routledge, 1990

·  Harvey J. Graff,Conflicting Paths: Growing Up in America

Syllabus

8/29 Week 1.Introduction: Questions, Issues, Approaches

·  Reading: Graff, ed.,Growing Up in America[GUA], Part I readings, 1-4.

·  Film: "Lord of the Flies" (90)

9-6-9/12 Week 2-3.European Traditions, American Origins: Early Paths of Growing Up

·  Reading: Keith Thomas, "Children in Early Modern England," inChildren and Their Books, ed. Gillian Avery and Julia Briggs (Oxford Univ. Press, 1989), 45-77

·  Film: "The Return of Martin Guerre"

9/19-10/3 Week 3-5.Seventeenth-Century Beginnings of Growing Up in America: Change and Continuity, Variations on Themes

·  Reading: GUA, 5, 6, 7

·  The Crucible by Arthur Miller

·  National Gallery of Art: http://www.nga.gov/education/american/narrative.shtm-

An exploration of early American art.

10/10-10/17 Week 6-7.Eighteenth-Century Transitions: Rebellions Over the Land

·  Reading: GUA, 8, 9, 10

·  Film: "The Wild Child"

10/24-11/7 Week 8-10.Diversity and Early Transformations: Commercialization, Migration, Urbanization. Family Change and Growing Up Change, c. 1780s-1840s

·  Reading: GUA, 11, 12, 13; and Frederick Douglass,Narrative.

·  Research Paper (on related topic of student’s choosing) begins.

11/14-12/5 Week 11-14.Early Modernity: Remaking Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century America

·  Reading: GUA, 14, 15; Douglass continued.

·  Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

·  Film: "The Molders of Troy" (90)

·  Week 13: Research Paper due.

12/12-1/23 Week 15-22. Early Modernity continued.

·  Reading: GUA, 16, 17

·  Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

·  Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering, excerpts.

·  Week 20: the AANB Research Project begins.

1/30-2/13 Week 23-25.Slouching toward the Modern Ways: Contradictions and Irregularity in the Transformations toward Modern Paths of Growing Up. Race, Sex/Gender, Social Class, Ethnicity, Geography

·  Reading: Stephen Crane,Maggie, Girl of the Streets

·  Slides from Canada's Visual Past series

·  Week 25: AANB Research Project due.

2/20-2/27 Week 26-27.Change and Continuity: The Incomplete Revolution Among the Young. Policy, Institutions, the State, and the Family

·  Reading: GUA, 18-20

3/5-3/12 Week 28-29.Turning the Century: A Progressive Synthesis? Reforming the Young (Again?)

·  Reading: GUA, 21-24

·  Kate Simon,Bronx Primitive

·  Film: "My Brilliant Career" (101)

3/26-4/23 Week 30-34.Twentieth-Century Transitions I c. 1900s-1940s

·  Reading: GUA, 25-28

·  Henry James, Daisy Miller

·  E.L. Doctorow,World's Fair

·  Film: "Rebel Without a Cause" (111)

4/30-5/7 Week 35-36.Twentieth-Century Transitions II c. 1940s-1960s

·  Reading: GUA, 29-31

·  J.D. Salinger,The Catcher in the Rye

·  Film: "High School" (75)

5/14 Week 37.Boom! Boom! Baby Boomers! Radical Youth, Conformist Youth

·  Film: "Street Wise" (92)

·  Robert Epstein, The Case Against Adolescence

·  Leonard Sax, Boys Adrift, excerpts

5/21 Week 38.All Fall Down? The Rise and Fall of the Cult of Childhood and Adolescence

·  Reading: GUA, 31-33

·  NPR Series, summer 2010, “The Emerging Adult”

·  Dan Agin, More Than Genes

5/28-6/4 Week 39-40.Today?/Tomorrow? Is There a Future for Growing Up in the Age of "the childlike adult and the adult like child"? Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

·  Reading: W. Norton Grubb and Marvin Lazerson,Broken Promises: How Americans Fail Their Children, Part I

·  Film: "Heathers" (102)

·  FINAL ESSAYS DUE THE FIRST DAY OF SENIOR EXAMS