Description

- Describe the major events in American history. - Distinguish the major movements in American literature. - Identify the various prominent writers of American literature. - Identify the various themes, techniques and styles of writing related to the texts under study. - Explain how the texts reflect the cultural and social movements of the time. - Demonstrate an understanding of elements needed for writing critical reviews. - Demonstrate the significance of major events in the history of America from a literary perspective. - Distinguish the relationship between a text and its biographical and cultural contexts. - Distinguish a variety of techniques with relation to literary analysis. - Interpret, and critically analyze classical and contemporary literature as well as works of nonfiction and informational texts. - Develop reading responses and critical analysis of the texts under study. - Develop critical oral presentations on selected texts in American literature. - Interpret and critically analyze classical and contemporary American literature, underlining their knowledge of the genre. - Develop and demonstrate an understanding of the human experience through analyzing a variety of texts from different historical periods. - Analyze literary works as expressions of individual or communal values within the social, political, cultural, or religious contexts of different literary periods. - Compare and contrast literary texts from a critical analysis perspective.

Objectives

• This course is intended to identify major historical events and background of the significant periods. A selection of travel/history and literary texts are discussed as samples of the socio-cultural features of the period studied. Specific literary movements like “feminism”, “gothic romanticism” and “transcendentalism” are examined and applied to the selected texts. The cultural Harlem Renaissance movement is also tackled as an important step in the history of American literature. Furthermore, the course introduces students to the idea of the American Dream and links it to Miller’s text, as well as to other texts.