COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

This course is an American Studies Junior Colloquium.  Etymologically, "colloquium" means "an occasion for speaking together."  You can't speak if you're not there, and you shouldn't speak if you're not prepared.  So COME TO CLASS and DO THE READING.

The class meets fewer than 30 times.  That means if you miss three classes you've missed more than 10% of the colloquium.  Therefore:
 

-More than three unexcused absences will affect your grade.
-More than five unexcused absences may require you to withdraw from the course.
 

-one short paper (3-5 pages), due in class, Thursday, January 31.
-one longer paper ( ca. 10 pages) due on the last day of reading period, by 5:00.
-four brief but finished response papers (1.5-3 pages).  These are very short papers intended to comment on a single aspect of the reading for a given class.  You may choose a brief passage for comment, analyze or criticize a character, a plot element, or an aspect of the writer's language, discuss any ideas that the reading suggests to you, criticize the gist of the reading, or relate it to something else that has been read or said in the course.

Sample possible titles and questions:

"Crevecoeur and the 'Indians'"
"Daniel Boone:  Imperialist?"
"What (if anything) makes Kirkland's story "feminine"?"
"Annie Dillard's Frogskin"
"What does Thoreau mean by wildness?"

I would be glad to suggest topics.  Please ask in class, office hours, or by email.

Each class member will be assigned five due dates for responses, but need write on only four of them.  Response papers are to be submitted by e-mail (please paste in body of message AND include as attachment) by noon at the latest on the day they are due.  Because they are keyed to readings, they will not be accepted late.  Responses submitted out of schedule without previous consultation will be penalized.