ENGL 2740 - Introduction to African American Literature
Credit Hours: 3.00
(3 contact hrs)
This course introduces students to the African-American literary tradition and facilitates critical thinking, reading, and writing through the interpretation of texts significant to the African-American experience. The course exposes students to such issues as literacy and Enlightenment values, power relations, survival and resistance strategies, race relations and identity formation, and changing literary standards and writers’ responses to those changes. Literature to be read, discussed, and analyzed may include slave narratives, novels, short stories, plays, poems, spirituals, lyrics, speeches, essays, and articles conceived by such writers as Wheatley, Equiano, Douglass, Chesnutt, Johnson, Washington, Du Bois, Larsen, Hughes, Hurston, Locke, Toomer, Garvey, Attaway, Wright, Ellison, Baldwin, Baraka, Kincaid, Morrison, and Walker.
Prerequisites:
Prerequisite: ENGL-1220 or ENGL-1190
OUTCOMES AND OBJECTIVES
Outcome 1:
Upon completion of this course students will be able to explain the role literacy and Enlightenment standards played in directing and defining 18th and 19th century African‐American writing, and African‐American writers’ efforts to meet, exceed, and/or challenge those standards.
Objectives: The student will:
- Identify elements of African‐American texts that reveal efforts to meet, exceed, and/or challenge Enlightenment standards.
- Describe Enlightenment standards as they relate to African‐American literature.
- Identify the use of vernacular in slave narratives, hymns, spirituals, and folktales.
- Analyze the use of vernacular in slave narratives, hymns, spirituals, and folktales.
Outcome 2:
Upon completion of this course students will be able to interpret works that have been categorized as participating in the Harlem Renaissance.
Objectives: The student will:
- Recognize works from the Harlem Renaissance.
- Assess works from the Harlem Renaissance.
- Recognize the ways works from the Harlem Renaissance contributed to emerging popular culture.
- Explain connections between the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Migration.
- Explain Pan‐Africanism.
Outcome 3:
Upon completion of this course students will be able to critically evaluate the tenets of various literary movements and critical debates fostered by African‐American literature during the 20th century.
Objectives: The student will:
- Identify elements of an urban realism text, including seting and the impact of social forces.
- Investigate the conflicts and debates over the protest novel.
- Explain the conflicts and debates over the protest novel.
- Analyze literature and polemics advocating a black arts movement.
Outcome 4:
Upon completion of this course students will be able to interpret examples of contemporary African‐American literature.
Objectives: The student will:
- Recognize and discuss the multiplicity of African‐American identities.
- Identify the uses of history in contemporary African‐American fiction.
- Assess works produced by an emerging community of black women writers.
Outcome 5:
Upon completion of this course students will be able to write papers that combine literary analysis with standard documentation format.
Objectives: The student will:
- Shape a controlling idea for each paper, stated in an introduction.
- Develop the controlling idea for each paper in a body, using appropriate support and evidence.
- Organize each paper appropriately, unifying paragraphs by means of topic sentences, linking paragraphs by a variety of transitions, and arranging the main points effectively.
- Summarize the controlling idea of each paper in a conclusion.
- Document sources used for each paper according to standard format.
COMMON DEGREE OUTCOMES
(Bulleted outcomes apply to the course)
- The graduate can integrate the knowledge and technological skills necessary to be a successful learner.
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- 2. The graduate can demonstrate how to think competently.
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- The graduate can demonstrate how to employ mathematical knowledge.
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- 4. The graduate can demonstrate how to communicate competently.
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- 5. The graduate is sensitive to issues relating to a diverse, global society.
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COURSE CONTENT OUTLINE
- 18th and 19th Century Writing
- Poetry
- Slave Narratives
- Abolitionist Literature
- Hymns and Spirituals
- African‐American Folktales
- Harlem Renaissance
- Poetry
- Literature
- Essays
- Literary Movements
- Urban Realism
- Debates over the Protest Novel
- Black Arts Movement
- Contemporary African‐American Literature
- Multiplicity of Identities
- Uses of History
- Women Writers
Primary Faculty
Peller, Scott
Secondary Faculty
McGee, Nancy
Associate Dean
Williams-Chehmani, Angie
Official Course Syllabus - Macomb Community College, 14500 E 12 Mile Road, Warren, MI 48088
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