Assignments, etc. for Final Days of ENG 241

Outside of polishing your draft of your final learning reflection, there is no new reading or writing due these final days of class.  I want to give you a chance to finish up all work and to publish your best work for your final grade. You can find a checklist of all work due in a post below or by following the link this link:

• All Work, Revisions, and Your Portfolio Due: Saturday, 15 December by Midnight

Remember, you can continue to submit to committee discussions until midnight on Saturday, 15 December, and you can continue to revise and update your blog's essays, extra-credit, and learning reflections until midnight on Saturday, 15 December.

Make sure to write with any questions, and I will have a couple of final class announcements and lectures to post.  All-in-all, we've had fairly good coverage of what can only be the tip of an iceberg of literature.

I am looking forward to reading your final learning reflections and what you put together as the final edition of your blog.

As always, I am here to answer questions.

Steve  

Checklist of Assignments Due Arranged by Week

Below, I've excerpts a short checklist of all work due to your blog or discussion posts throughtout the semester. In these final days, I don't want to assign new reading; instead, I want to give you a chance to bring your work up to date, post missed assignments, and polish your final learning reflection. Saturday afternoon, 15 December, I will begin grading. Make sure to write with any last minute questions, and make sure to post pictures and reviews of any extra-credit you have done into your blog.

Thanks,

Steve


Week Twelve: The Literature of Spanish Colonialism (1492-1640)

• Draft of Final Learning Reflection to Blog (1000-1250)
• Committee Discussion: What Early Ame. Literature Should be Widely Known and Taught?”

Week Eleven:  The Literature of Early and Late Virginia Colonialism (1570-1720)

• Blog Post Compare and Contrast Early Indentured Service Literature to the Diaries of William Byrd, II--a plantation owner 100 years into Virginia settlement.
• Committee Discussion: New Virginia and Virginia as Frontier.
• Pre-writing and collection of notes for final learning reflection.

Week Ten: Fall Break

Week Nine: The Literature of the Founders (1740-1790).  Jefferson, Franklin, Edwards, and Paine

• Committee Discussion:  The Founders, the Bill of Rights, and the Separation of Church and State
• Blog Post (500 words).  Explain and discuss two religious beliefs you share with the authors we have read and which were in wide circulation in the colonial and Early Republic period.
• Blog Post: Learning Reflection on reading, discussion and writing.

Week Eight: The Literature of the Late Colonial Period, Revolution, and Early Republic (1777-1801).  Bill of Rights, The Federalist Papers, Jefferson’s “Inaugural Speech” and “Statute for Religious Freedom,” and Patrick Henry’s “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death.”

• Committee Discussion:  
• Part A:  What Civil/Public Virtues Must a Democratic Republic Cultivate
• Part B: a la Franklin, what private/personal virtues must we cultivate to live the good life in American society.  How can we best cultivate them?
• Blog Post:  List of Virtues you want to cultivate in your life with short definitions. See Franklin’s Autobiography and his “bold and arduous” plan.  Note: this is a list, not an essay.

Week Seven: Hurricane Sandy, Catch Up Week.

Week Six: The Romantic Literature of Social Reform: Abolitionism (1770-1860).  Harriet Jacobs, Henry “Box” Brown,” de Crececoeur’s letter from Charlestown,  Franklin’s “On the Slave Trade,” Thoreau’s “A Plea for John Brown,” and George Fitzhugh from Southern Thought.

• Blog Post (500-750 words).  Current Social Problems in Need of Reform.
• Committee Discussion: American Romantic Literature of Social Reform: Discussion of Contemporary Literature of Social Reform.

Below find the checklist of Assignments for weeks one - four.  This is from the class announcement for 10 October 2012:

Here's the promised checklist:

Checklist of Assignments by Week:  Weeks One-Four

Note:  Detailed descriptions and discussion of each reading and writing assignment can be found in the weekly assignment descriptions on the “Weekly Assignments” tab of eng241fall2012.weebly.com.  This is where you find out what to read and write about and not just what is due.

Week One:  Unless otherwise stated, all work is due on Monday at midnight following the Tuesday it was assigned.  Because students are still joining the class the first week, work for week one was due Monday, 2 October at Midnight, but--if possible--you should try to complete it by Monday, 24 September at Midnight.  
1.  Purchase texts for the course.
2.  Set up personal gmail account.
3.  Share the email address of the personal google account you will use for the class.
4.  Explore eng241fall2012.weebly.com, that is, the site used to implement the class.
5.  Read assigned literature for the coming week.
6.  Find your committee of correspondence assignment for the semester on the “General Assembly” tab of the class webpage.
7.  Under the week one discussion thread for your committee, post an introduction of yourself and in a follow up response, discuss possible extra-credit you might be interested in sharing with your committee.
8.  Read all class announcements.
9.  Write Dr. Brandon with any questions.   


Week Two:  All work due on Monday, 2 October at Midnight.
1.  Create a blog you will use for the course.  On this blog, you will post short essays and learning reflections you will write.  Blogs are created, so your committee can have easy access to you writing for comment and to help them learn.  Blogs will also be used to help you learn about the revolutions in literacy (the move from an oral to a print culture) and the impact of cheap printing on creating American literature and America.
2.  Using an online form, share the web address of the blog you create.
3.  Post to your blog an essay of ~750 words in which you describe America and what it means to be America.  In your essay, use the reading from week one as a source to drawn on.
4.  Read all class announcements.
5.  Review the literature and announcements from Week One.  
6.  Read all assigned literature for the upcoming week.  
7.  Explore the extra-credit for Edgar Allen Poe, found under the “Extra-Credit” tab.
8.  Under the Week One discussion thread in your committee’s coffee house forum, continue to introduce yourselves and discuss possible extra-credit.
9.  Write Dr. Brandon with any questions.


Week Three:  All work due by 8 October at midnight.
1.  In a post to your committee’s Week Three, Part One discussion thread, compare and contrast your committee’s essays on America and what it means to be American to that of de Crevecoeur's essay.  Your committee’s essays were posted to their blog on week two. Links to your committee’s blogs can be found under the “General Assembly” tab.  Over the next couple of weeks, make sure to write follow up responses to at least two of committee member posts.
2. In a post to your committee’s Week Three, Part Two discussion, create a post in which you describe your moment of the Romantic sublime.  Over the next couple of weeks, write follow up responses to your committee’s initial posts on their sublime moments.  
3. Read Emerson’s essay, “Self-Reliance” for this week.
Post to your blog a 500-750 word essay in which you describe your best self.  In your essay, use Emerson’s “Self-Reliance.”
4. For next week, read Thoreau’s “Walking” and “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.”
5. Read class announcements for the week.  
6. For attendance purposes, fill out a questionnaire/survey.
7. Write Dr. Brandon with any questions.

Week Four:   All work for this week is due by Monday, 15 October at Midnight.
1.  Read all class announcements/lectures.
2.  Review Thoreau’s “Walking” and “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” from week three.
3.  Read background literature for coming week.
3.  To your week four committee discussion thread, post one response to the discussion topic and at least two responses to what other committee members have to say.  
4.  To your blog, create a post containing a learning reflection.
5.  To your blog, create a post containing a short, ~500 word essay.  
6.  Write Dr. Brandon with any questions.

Week Twelve Assignment Descriptions and Committee Discussions Now Active

Week Twelve, we make the final steps backward in our journey to understand Early America. All of this week predates the United States, the Revolution, and late British colonialization  This week's reading deals with Spanish Conquest and Colonization (1492-1640).  

As you will discover, Spanish Conquest and Colonization was fundamentally different than that of the British.  The Spanish had two intertwined models of colonialization.  One established missions to convert Natives to Catholicism and--as a related by product--Spanish subjects.  Please note the use of subject as opposed to citizen.  The second model was one of out right conquest, which allowed grants to newly created nobles and  made Natives into what were, in essence, serfs or slaves.  In turn, this new aristocracy created echos of Old Spain, and this included work to convert the nations to Catholicism--the state church of Spain.   

Week Twelve will also give you a very brief glimpse into the Native literatures, societies, and traditions which    continue into today, were changed by contact, and in the process informed everything American society became.  

Enjoy, and write with questions.

Steve

Native America and Native American Literature

As background to the literature of British and Spanish Colonization and Conquest, we must never forget that the land which became “America” was already discovered, already settled, and the United States continues to colonize tribal nations.  To give you some idea of the land and people prior to contact, watch part 1 of “500 Nations” (Youtube Link Below).  Unlike most Western literature, Native literature was mostly oral, so pay particular traditions to the creation stories shared and to the people telling stories to explain Native culture and society.  The section on the Ancestors tells the story of the people who became the Acoma and offers another perspective on the story of the Spanish Conquest of New Mexico.  The section on the Mound Builders tells the story of the society which would develop into the people contacted by the early Spanish and British settlers of North Carolina and Virginia.   Also notice the contrasts between Native cultural outlook and that of the settlers.  Most Natives came from a world view which believed they were in the best of all worlds already.  Most settlers were seeking a new and better world and attempting to create it in what became America.