COURSE SYLLABUS
EARLY AMERICAN LITERATURE
AML4213

GENERAL INFORMATION • IMPORTANT INFORMATION • COURSE DETAIL • COURSE CALENDAR

GENERAL INFORMATION

PROFESSOR INFORMATION

	Instructor:	Bruce A. Harvey, Ph.D., Associate Professor of English & Associate Director of SEAS
	Office:	AC1 320 SEAS/College of Arts and Sciences--Biscayne Bay Campus
	Office Hours:	by appointment
	Phone:	(305) 919-5254
	FIU Email:	harveyb@fiu.edu

COURSE INFORMATION

All assignments--Discussion Board, a 3000 word Research Essay, and three objective exams (true/false & multiple choice)--are submitted online. There is no in-class Final Exam.

The rough rule for college courses is that you spend 3 hours of study outside of class for every hour in class; for the typical 3-credit course, that means about 9 hours of "home" work per week. So, for this online course during the regular school year, you should be prepared to devote at least 12 hours a week to it. For a summer semester, the pace is more than twice as fast.

I’m Dr. Bruce A. Harvey, former Director of FIU's Humanities Program, and currently a professor of English at BBC and the Associate Director of the School of Environment, Arts and Society (SEAS). My areas of expertise and interest include European Intellectual History, American Literary and Culture Studies, and Literature of the South Pacific.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Welcome to Journeys to America!

I have high ambitions for what you will obtain from enrolling in AML 4213. Many of you will have signed up with the notion that you're just completing an FIU English Dept. requirement, but I hope that by the time you conclude the class you will have opened your minds and hearts to fascinating realms of human inquiry as expressed in the works you'll be reading. Ideally, how you see "America" and your identity by virtue of living in "America," will be richly and complexly transformed.

Key concepts about this country's national identity took shape as European travelers explored and then settled upon the continent. In this course, we'll read travel narratives, autobiographies, political-religious treatises, novels, and other literary works to examine how the new nation, ideologically and psycho-culturally, came into being. Our readings will especially focus on pre-1830 cross-cultural encounters and clashes from a variety of perspectives (native American, European, and African). However, this "Early American" material also gives you a lens to understand much of what the nation is about, today.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Besides introducing you to a fascinating area and era of study, a major goal of this course is to improve your analytical abilities--specifically, your ability to see how texts work rhetorically, aesthetically, and culturally. Another major goal is to develop your skill and pleasure in communicating ideas, via Discussion Board exchange and a formal analytical/research essay.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION

POLICIES

Please review the policies page as it contains essential information regarding guidelines relevant to all courses at FIU and additional information on the standards for acceptable netiquitte important for online courses.

COURSE PREREQUISITES

Successful completion of Composition ENC 1101 & 1102, or their equivalents.

For information about prerequisites, click here.

TEXTBOOK

You must use the editions specified,as assignments and review notes will be keyed to their page numbers. The total cost, new, for the five books below should be less than $50.00.

The Tempest
Shakespeare,
Pelican; edition, Date

ISBN:

Sagely, imperialistic-minded Prospero vs. the sly, lyrical, beastly Caliban: this late play of the Bard presents the key issues that later define the New World experience.

Journeys in New Worlds
William Andrews, ed.
Wisconsin, date

ISBN:

This volume includes an autobiography of a demur Puritan woman, Mary Rowlandson, who learns to survive in the Indian “wilderness”; and the memoir of a Quaker woman who recalls her rebellious escape from paternal and cultural tyranny to carve out a space of independence in the New World.

The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings
Olaudah Equiano
Dover, edition, date

ISBN:

From village in Africa, to slave ship, to the Americas and middle-class success: Equiano’s life-story captures the early tensions of African-American identity in elegant and stirring prose.

Autobiography
Ben Franklin,
Dover; edition, date

ISBN:

The quintessential American—or is he? To know Franklin in his brief autobiography is to know key aspects of “American” identity.

Wieland and the Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist
Charles Brockden Brown
Penguin; edition, date

ISBN:

One of the first American gothic potboilers, this novel revolts against the sunny pragmatism and rationalism of Franklin.

EXPECTATIONS OF THIS COURSE

This is an online course, meaning that most of the course work will be conducted online. Expectations for performance in an online course are the same as for a traditional course; in fact, online courses require a degree of self-motivation, self-discipline, and technology skills that can make them more demanding for some students.

Students are expected to:

· Review the How to Get Started information located in the course content.

· Introduce yourself to the class during the first week by posting a self introduction in the appropriate discussion forum.

· Take the practice quiz to ensure that your computer is compatible with Blackboard.

· Interact online with instructor/s and peers and keep up with all assignments.

· Review and follow the course calendar.

COURSE DETAILS

COURSE COMMUNICATION

Instructor E-mail and phone: For routine course questions use the course's Blackboard messages tool. I usually will respond within one day in respect to individual questions. Essay feedback will take about one week. For truly unusual/emergency situations, you may use my FIU email address: harveyb@fiu.edu.

The message feature is a private, internal Blackboard only communication system. Users must log on to the Blackboard system to send/receive/read messages. There are no notifications in Blackboard to inform users when a new message has been received; therefore, it is recommended that students check their messages routinely to ensure up-to-date communication.

Instructor Conferences: For exceptional circumstances, you may make an appointment to see me at BBC.

DISCUSSION FORUMS

Keep in mind that forum discussions are public, and care should be taken when determining what to post.

EXAMS

In order to mitigate any issues with your computer and online assessments, it is very important that you take the "Practice Quiz" from each computer you will be using to take your graded quizzes and exams. It is your responsibility to make sure your computer meets the minimumhardware requirements.

ASSIGNMENTS

Discussion Board: Great intellectual and cultural works come vitally alive when they are actively pondered in dialogue. This is crucial to making your online learning experience match the benefits of a “real” classroom. This course component is designed to provide for relatively uninhibited student interaction and, at the same time, to give you a chance to convey your understanding of the material incrementally as the semester proceeds. Here are the rules:

1) Specific topics occasionally will be provided, but for the most part you should initiate topics that interest you and/or respond to other students who have initiated topics. I read the forums on a daily basis, but generally do not get involved, as it is best, once the forums get going, to let them evolve according to student interest and insight.

2) A total of at least 2000 words (equivalent to 8 pages double-spaced) by the end of the semester is expected. You must, to receive full credit, reflect on each of our major authors (i.e. in the ordered books) in a substantial manner and show some degree of exchange with your Discussion Board group. Biographical information in a Wikipedia style or a “plot” review summary does not count. Your postings should show insight, analysis, and (implicitly) that you’ve truly read the author or text in question, not just the first chapter. Engaged students will also want to respond, according to their interest and their group peers’ interests, to the e-text readings or points made in the lectures, although there cannot be a precise rule on the expected amount of such postings. You must make an effort to keep your postings/replies current with the calendar sequence. Although some lag-time is ok, and it is natural to return to earlier topics/authors, only posting several weeks later on an author will not give you full credit.

3) The goal is to engage your fellow classmates: so try to post musings, questions, or lines of inquiry that you would want others to respond to, and of course respond to others that have done so. Ideally, you will sustain a dialogue within your forum group about several author or issues. This means that you typically might offer several postings on an author, not just a singular posting that you submit and walk away from. Avoid getting personal; and please treat others in the forum as you would wish to be treated.

4) I also expect a degree of increasing sophistication in your postings. The course has been carefully designed such that various intellectual/cultural themes emerge as we progress through the semester, and, implicitly or explicitly, your responses should reflect that. Just as in a classroom course, what you say towards the end of the term should to some extent be “elevated” by the foundations you’ve built previously.

5) The Discussion Board will have 4 or so primary discussion groups, divided according to your last name (A-D, E-I, J-M, N-Q, R-Z, for example), depending on the number of students enrolled. Please stick to your group and work hard to make conversation/discussion engaging and intellectually productive. Note: use common sense in deciding whether to initiate a new discussion-“tree” or keep your topics/replies under an already-established discussion-“tree.” It is important to have a good balance between topics and replies; otherwise your forum will become too unruly.

6) Your grade will be worth 33% of the total course grade. Decent grammar, proper sentence construction and punctuation, and so on are required. Although a grading-curve mode of grading is not mechanically used, you should take note of the responses from your peers. Those who participate routinely, with more than several sentences here or several sentences there, and show true insight into the course materials (and write solid, error-free prose) should provide you with an "A" zone example. Those who do not respond to all our major authors, or respond in a sometimes perfunctory, non-insightful way, will be in the "B" or lower zone. Sporadic responses will put you in the "C" or "D" zone; etc. Last minute catch-up--flooding the Discussion Board at the end of the term--will guarantee a low grade for this component, and likely conclude in an overall “C-“ or less grade for the course.

7) Your grade for this component of the course will be assessed at the end of the semester. Should you want to know how you are doing before that, however, feel free to email me. If you request an assessment, you should provide a cut-&-pasted document of your significant responses; you are required to submit such at the end of the semester, regardless.

8) Please routinely cut-and-paste your dated substantial contributions to the Discussion Board into a "Word" file. You will be asked to submit this at the end of the semester so that the totality of your contributions can be accurately assessed. Prudent students will, before submitting the compilation, want to do some editing: winnow out trivial “chit-chat” stuff and check your grammar and style. Such will help foreground what you’ve really learned in the course.

Essay: Topics will be given for this ten-page paper, as well as a listing of online-available research materials. It is worth 33% of your total course grade. Full instructions will be provided down-the-road. Little slack will be given for sloppy prose. Any essay with a number of major grammatical or sentence-construction glitches will be returned without a grade, and at my discretion will be deemed late. A late paper will be penalized a notch (e.g., B to B-) for each day submitted late, and only emergencies will allow you to submit your essay late without a penalty. Revisions will only be possible in extraordinary circumstances, and at my discretion (and if there is time allowing, given the brevity of the summer term).

Your essay will be submitted through the Turnitin site, which is now integrated within Blackboard. PLEASE NOTE: YOU MUST, AFTER YOU’VE TURNED IN YOUR MATERIAL, DOUBLE-CHECK TO MAKE SURE YOU TURNED IN WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU TURNED IN. JUST GETTING THE TURNITIN RECEIPT DOES NOT SUFFICE. I WILL NOT ACCEPT, DAYS LATER, EXCUSES SUCH AS “I TURNED IN A DRAFT BY MISTAKE.”

Three Exams: These will be objective-style exams. Each will be available over a three-day period (Saturday-Monday, to accommodate varied student schedules), but you will have, once you open the exam, strictly one hour to complete it. Trivial questions will not be asked; but all the course materials--e-texts, lectures, the main book readings--will be considered as testable. These exams are designed to gauge whether you’ve done the basic reading for the course; if you’ve read our materials diligently and thoughtfully (using the lectures as a highlight guide) as the course proceeds, you should not need to study per se for them. The exams are rarely curved; however, “bad” questions (ones that, say, the bulk of the top quartile of students get wrong) are tossed from the mix. Each exam is worth 11%, for a total of 1/3rd of your total grade.

GRADING

COURSE REQUIREMENTS	WEIGHT
Essay	33.3%
Discussion Forum	33.3%
Three Objective Exams (11.1% each)	33.3%
Total	100%
All written assignments are submitted via Turnitin, linked internally from Blackboard. The Exams will be conducted through the Blackboard system. Grades are calculated with the standard 100-0 scale (90+ = A- to A; 80+ = B- to B+; etc.). A not-turned-in assignment will receive a zero.

Incompletes: University policy is that these can only be given in the case of a health or family emergency, and only one outstanding assignment is allowed to permit the incomplete being granted.

Late Submissions: Late essays will be accepted only under extraordinary, documented emergencies. Otherwise, for every day late, an essay will be docked a notch (i.e., B to B-).

Online Exams: The three Exams will be given within a three-day window (Saturday evening thru Monday evening) and you will have a delimited amount of time to complete each (an hour). A make-up exam period will only be granted for, again, extraordinary, documented emergencies.

All assignments--including the Discussion Board compilation--must be turned in order to receive a passing grade in the course..

OTHER POLICIES

Disability Notice
If you have a disability and need assistance, please contact the Disability Resource Center(MMC: GC190; 305-348-3532) (BBC: WUC139, 305-919-5345). Upon contact, the Disability Resource Center will review your request and contact your professors or other personnel to make arrangements for appropriate modification and/or assistance.

Religious Holy Days
The University's policy on religious holy days as stated in the University Catalog and Student Handbook will be followed in this class. Any student may request to be excused from (on-line) class to observe a religious holy day of his or her faith.

Academic Misconduct Policy
By taking this online course, you promise to adhere to FIU’s Student Code of Academic Integrity. For details on the policy and procedures go to ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT (Section 2.44).

Intensive auditing (via Turnitin) of the course will be conducted to prevent academic misconduct. It is very easy to detect plagiarism: SO DON'T DO IT: YOU WILL BE CAUGHT!!! And, when you are caught, the consequences will be severe, such as getting an "F" in the course or worse. If, for some reason, you are taking this class (from me) again, it is ok if you wish to submit essays you submitted (to me) a previous term; but please let me know in a sidebar email, as otherwise the Turnitin system will flag you down as plagiarizing yourself!

If you are tempted to plagiarize out of desperation to get an assignment in on time, DON'T DO IT; talk to your professor first, in this class and other classes.

COURSE CALENDAR

SCHEDULE

The course calendar is a dynamic document that is continually being updated. Click here to view the calendar.