During the first week of class, you will sign up to create study guides for two of the following topics. You must sign up for two topics. You'll post the guides on the blogs on the dates indicated on the spring syllabus.
Instructions
The guides should contain the following:
• A 1 – 2 page summary of the major themes, issues, and questions associated with
the period, author, or genre
• A list of significant works that are likely to show up on the exam
• A bibliography of materials (print and online) you consulted in order to prepare
your guide (in MLA style)
The challenge in creating these guides will be boiling down a vast amount of material and ideas into a one-page guide that will be helpful to others as they study for the exam. I will be evaluating the guides on the following criteria:
• Accuracy: Is the information in the guide relevant and gleaned from trustworthy
sources?
• Efficiency: Does the guide strike a productive balance between thoroughness and
concision?
• Readability: Is the writing clear and digestible?
• Insight: How well does the guide sum up the themes, forms, questions, and ideas
that characterize a given period, genre, or author?
You may want to choose topics because you’re already familiar with them, or because you want or need to learn more. (One of each isn’t a bad idea.)
See below for a list of the literary periods, genres, and authors you'll be choosing from when you sign up to create your two guides. See the next entry for tables of contents for the Norton anthologies of British and American literature.
British Literature
The Middle Ages: Overview
Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman
Middle English: 14th Century
Chaucer
Middle English: 15th Century
The British Renaissance: Overview
Shakespeare: Plays
Shakespeare: Poetry
Milton
Renaissance Poetry (other than Shakespeare and Milton)
Renaissance Drama (other than Shakespeare)
The Restoration and Eighteenth Century: Prose
The Restoration and Eighteenth Century: Poetry
British Women Writers: 18th and 19th Centuries
The Nineteenth Century: Overview
The Romantic Period
Victorian Poetry
Victorian Prose
Modernist Poetry
Modernist Prose
1945 - Present
The British Novel: Overview (18th – 21st Centuries)
American Literature
Early American (to 1700): Poetry
Early American (to 1700): Poetry
1700 – 1820: Poetry
1700 – 1820: Prose
Native American Literature: Overview
Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau
1820 – 1865: Poetry
1820 – 1865: Prose
Literary Responses to American Slavery
American Women Writers: 18th and 19th Centuries
The American Novel: Overview
1865 – 1914: Poetry
1865 – 1914: Prose
1914 – 1945 (American Modernism)
The Harlem Renaissance: Overview
Modernism and Postmodernism: Overview
1945 – Present: Poetry
1945 – Present: Prose