Mar 29, 2024  
2022-2023 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2022-2023 Undergraduate Catalog [Archived Catalog]

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EH 203 - American Literature I


Credits: (4 credits)

This survey course begins with a selection of poetry of Colonial America and continues with a focus on works by the major writers of the nineteenth century. Included are Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson.

Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to do the following:

  1. A deeper understanding of the complexity within individuals and groups;
  2. Increased appreciation for the skill and wisdom exemplified in some of the finest writing in American Literature;
  3. Insight into the connection between the author’s lives and their writing;
  4. Expanded imagination through identifying with characters and situations, which are often quite different from the student’s way of life, thus feeling the commonality of the human experience; 
  5. An awareness of the universally human values in the literature we study;
  6. Improved writing skills gained through continual exposure to beautifully written essays, stories and poems and through writing a paper which involves the critical thinking required for organizing, synthesizing and analyzing a specific aspect of one of the assigned writings;
  7. Stronger listening and more confident speaking skills gained through the dynamics of class discussion;
  8. An expanded vocabulary. The students will extend their vocabulary by writing down words they are unfamiliar with and learning their meaning.  These words will be taken from the literature we study.




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