American Literature II 205-95 Internet 
Fall 2003

Edward Eller

Syllabus

Class Texts:
The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. A & B. 6th Edition. Ed Nina Baym. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 2003.
A Good Dictionary.

Summary of Course Goals:

• To learn common vocabulary from the masters and mistresses of Literature.
• To acquire some specific knowledge about the historical and social context of Early American life and culture.
• To acquire some basic literary and philosophical vocabulary and learn how it applies to our texts.
• To graduate from the class having gained a basic understanding of how the values of early Americans were alike and different from ours own.
• To understand that the emergence of what we now believe is rooted in the literature of the past.
• To act as a useful community member by contributing to the discussion of ideas in an effort to understand our common reading.

Class Policies:

• Attendance:  Timely participation in discussion groups, email, tests, and writing assignments is the same thing as attendance.
• Time Spent:  The three hours normally spent in a resident classroom become on-line activities.  This means that you will spend approximately the same amount of time attending to this class as you are expected to spend for a resident class.  In other words, you will spend the three hours normally spent sitting in lecture reading and participating in class activities plus the normal expectations of classes -- 2 hours for every hour in class -- a total of 8-9 hours a week spent working on this class.  This is the standard formula for all college classes.
• Teacher's schedules:
  • Students can expect about a 24-48 hour turn return on emails.  Not all emails will be answered especially if the question can easily be answered by reference to previous emails or by looking on the Internet and Blackboard.
  • Teacher is not on email 24/7.  After 5o'clock in the evening during the work week, email will not be answered.  On weekends, teacher will usually spend a period responding to emails.  If teacher takes a short email holiday for conference visits, etc. he will inform the class before hand.
  • You can find teacher's weekly resident schedule by going to <http://www.ulm.edu/~eller/schedule.htm>.
• Email:  
  • Use your Blackboard Email utility to send email to the class.
  • Use your username@tribe.ulm.edu for all class email.  See instructions for accessing tribe email by going to <http:www.ulm.edu/~eller/things/email>. 
• Late Fees:  Writing will be accepted late with a 5% deduction for each day late. 
• Submitting Final Assignments:  All final writing assignments should be dropped off in Blackboard.ulm.edu digital dropbox in a readable file format [Click here for sending and file format requirements].
• First time plagiarism or cheating of any kind, whether intended or "accidental," will fail a writing assignment or test.  Second time plagiarism will fail you in the course.

Course Requirements and Evaluation 

Four short essays (50 pt. apiece for 200 pt.)--

• A retelling of the "Blue Thunder Winter Count"  (See details under the "Orature" link at www.ulm.edu/~eller/amlit/focus)
• Three annotations -- a brief (200 word) explanations of an obscure person, place, or thing mentioned in one of our texts.  It includes a graphic.  Limited to one page with graphic and caption.

Three Tests (350 points)--
All three tests will be a mixed objective, short answer and short essay:

• Multiple choice and matching characters, events, and quotes to stories, and poems;
• Multiple choice and matching quotes to texts we've read together;
• Multiple choice and matching ideas and themes to the authors and stories which promote them;
• Matching definition to vocabulary and giving short answer definitions for vocabulary;
• Occasional memorization of selected items--dates and short quotes;
• Short answers to questions about ideas and independent thinking on issues discussed in class--usually a paragraph or two long.

The first test will be delivered on line as take-home test, and the other two will be taken in class or by proctor.  The first two tests will be worth 100 points apiece and the final will be worth 150 points.

The final is comprehensive.

15 quizzes (20 pt. apiece for 300 pt.)--
Quizzes are completely objective and ask for information from all readings for a week. Quizzes are posted on Monday and you have till Tuesday night @ 11 p.m. to take the quiz on that week's readings.

Occassionally two quizzes will be posted. If so, the extra quiz will

15 Discussion Participations in Blackboard Discussion Board (300 pt.)
Everybody is expected to participate substantively in 15 weekly discussions using Blackboard.ulm.edu Discussion Board.  A weekly discussion is:

• One substantive initial response (100-150 words give or take, deadline every Wednesday night)

AND

• Two substantive reactions to other class members' initial responses (50-100 words give or take, deadline every Friday night)

A:  90%-100%

B: 80%-89.9%

C: 70%-79.9%

D: 60%-69.9%

F: -60%

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This page last updated on Monday, August 18, 2003 12:00:00 AM