Course Policy and First Week

Readings in American Literature
Tuesday through Thursday 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.
KH 224
Sophia Kartsonis
skartsonis@ccad.edu

Text: We will work with various online texts. You are expected to read, note and bring in relevant print-outs.
Additionally, we will be watching many videos in here. The Voices and Visions series is invaluable for giving you a sense of the authors. Your attendance will be docked if you text, talk, sleep or open your laptop during these. (I will count you absent for any of the above, and that will mean dropping the course with the stringent absence policy I have for summer—see below

Course Policy:
Attendance:
Because we are taking a fast train through the subject matter, as summer courses often require, attendance will be crucial. We will be reading a lot and dealing with that reading in class with writing assignments and activities.
You will be afforded one absence for reasons I will not need to know. I do not excuse any absence after that first one and if you accrue two absences (as the course is so short,) I will likely ask that you drop the course. Please don’t inform me as to the reason for your absence. What time you missed you will be expected to catch up on your own with the blog. Some things cannot be caught-up. Quizzes, class discussions, videos. Ideally, for any shot at a decent grade, you will be here every one of our too-few days.

Tardies: After two you have an absence.

Grades: You will be graded heavily on class participation and attendance: (30%) Your written work will comprise 70% of your total grade. Perfect attendance does not mean that you have that 30% guaranteed. I expect lively discussions and real engagement with the topics. I hate to resort to pop quizzes, but I have decided that we will be having quizzes many days before we begin discussion. It will be good for you to be prepared, have done the reading and to know that you will be quizzed.

The written work will consist of some reading responses, in-class exercises and at least one artistic or ekphrastic interpretation of the material. Please be generous and thoughtful in your class discussions.

Cell Phones: Please turn them off. Brain surgery can wait.

I am available to conference with you at any time throughout the course. Please contact me in class or through the email address and we can set a time to meet.



JUNE
T 15 Introduction.
Poetic Terms, what makes something literature? Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman

Homework:
Read all of the biographical materials here:
Walt Whitman
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/126
and the following poems:
America: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20157
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20006
I Sing the Body Electric:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15753
O Captain, My Captain!
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15754
Song of Myself:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15755
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20277
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16402
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16133
When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16083
When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20270

Emily Dickinson:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/155

W 06/16: Quiz and Discussion of Whitman, Dickinson.


H 06/17: Continued Discussion
Possible Movie.