ENGL 2235 - American Literature Since 1865

1. Analyze representative works of American literature from approximately 1865 to the present.
2. Understand that literature reflects the philosophical, religious, or historical norms and values of specific cultures at specific times.
3. Use various writing techniques to analyze literature.
4. Apply a critical lens to analyze selected works of American literature.
5. Identify the presence of literary elements in genres such as fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, or drama.
6. Recognize how race, ethnic group, gender, class, and sexuality differences in the United States both inform and are illustrated by literature, how these differences have reshaped the “traditional” American literature canon, and how literature can be used to discuss, understand, and appreciate these differences.
7. Recognize how historically marginalized writers both resist and fit into the commonly accepted literary periods and what these writers contribute to the American literature canon.
8. Identify the literary characteristics of the literary periods of the time, such as Ages of Realism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism, and place selected American authors within those literary movements/periods.
9. Understand the literary meanings of such concepts as Romanticism, Local Color, Regionalism, Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, and Post-Modernism.
10. Comprehend the ways in which American literature helps us understand ourselves, other people, and the world around us.

1. Study of works of American literature from 1865 to the present, which includes the following literary movements and/or periods: Realism, Naturalism, Modernism, and Post-modernism
2. The study of American literature in its varying forms-e.g., journals, diaries, essays, newspaper articles, political documents, poetry, short stories, novels, and plays
3. Literary elements and devices
4. Critical and/or affective writing in response to American literature
5. Critical approaches to literature (may include, but not be limited to, reader-response, feminist, biographical, historical, psychological, deconstruction, archetypal, and new criticism)
6. Support for Interpretations and evaluations of American literature
7. The role of literature as a cultural, historical, political, and personal artifact
8. Race, ethnic group, gender, class, and sexuality conflicts in American literature
9. The contributions of diverse writers to the American literature canon