American Experience: Introduction

1. American Experience: Introduction

2. “Rome can be my Jerusalem” • Can Loyola Blakefield be yours? • Can your neighbors? • Can your area? • Can your city?

3. General Expectations • Mr. Stewart on “respect”: you practice respect • Mr. McCaulon “curapersonalis,” and “character/integrity”: you develop character and integrity; sophomore year is all about developing your foundation (like installing a sill plate) • Fr. Michinion “reputation”: you earn a good reputation

4. A Case Study: Two American Homes Henry David Thoreau’s in On Walden Pond Edgar Allan Poe’s in “The Fall of the House of Usher”

5. Ignatian Learning Model • Context (=Background) • Experience (=Text) • Reflection (=Discussion) • Action (=Coursework) • Evaluation (=Assessment)

6. What We Will Do • Identify different thematic tensions and how they grow and change in American Literature from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century. • Identify the ways in which context and genre inform the language of a text. • Analyze a primary text using close reading. • Supplement the analysis of a primary text using close reading with relevant research from secondary sources. • Craft effective arguments at the essay-level using thesis statements, evidence, explanations, and transitions. • Craft effective arguments at the paragraph-level using points, illustrations, explanations, and transitions. • Speak and write using conventional grammar, usage, and mechanics, appropriate vocabulary, accurate facts, and coherent logic.

7. How We Will Do It • Read great books. • Talk and write about their formal, thematic, and contextual/generic features. • Do research on the critical conversations surrounding these books. • Devote every other Friday to writing instruction. • Devote every other Friday to vocabulary building.

8. Class Mascot MORE.

9. Class Mottos • “Ishmael”: “God prevent me from ever finishing anything [including this book]” (Moby-Dick) Think magis: Re-reading and re-writing are key to learning. Do not be complacent. • Melville: “[Judge…] if you are qualified to judge” (“Hawthorne and His Mosses”) Think magis: It is impossible to become the perfect thinker; however, you should aim to become better “qualified to judge” texts—including their meaning, value, and place in our nation’s literary canon.

10. Questions with which to Push Yourselves • Who is writing/From what point of view is this being told? • Who is the speaker, character, or narrator addressing? • What tone is the speaker, character, or narrator using? • What is the speaker, character, or narrator trying to accomplish? What is his/her/its goal? • What confidences does this information inspire? What questions does it raise?