Faculty Syllabus

REQUIREMENTS: ESSAYS AND ASSIGNMENTS
● Writing assignments, including analytical essays and tests, will constitute at least two-thirds
of the student’s final grade.
● The instructor may count other types of class projects, together accounting for no more than
one-third of a student’s final grade. Projects might include quizzes, readings, dramatizations,
journal writing, brief literary writing exercises, oral book readings, reports on authors, or other
activities.
● The instructor will provide more specific course objectives and requirements. A student not
complying with these requirements may be withdrawn from the course at any time up to the
Updated Fall 2025

4

last official withdrawal date.

We will read selections from The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volumes C, D, and E.  In addition, we will read short stories and poems by Edgar Allan Poe and students will choose a classic or critically acclaimed long text from a list that I will provide.  

ENGL 2328, American Literature: Civil War to the Present, is a survey of American literature from the Civil War period to the present.  You will read, analyze, discuss, and think critically about American literary texts from this period; you will learn to understand these literary texts in relation to their original historical and cultural contexts; and you will consider what relevance these texts might have to the contemporary world and to your life.

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of literature survey courses, students should be able to:
● Identify key ideas, representative authors and works, significant historical or cultural events,
and characteristic perspectives or attitudes expressed in the literature of different periods
or regions.
● Analyze literary works as expressions of individual or communal values within the
social, political, cultural, or religious contexts of different literary periods.
● Demonstrate knowledge of the development of characteristic forms or styles of
expression during different historical periods or in different regions.
● Articulate the aesthetic principles that guide the scope and variety of works in the
arts and humanities.
● Write research based critical papers about the assigned readings in clear and
grammatically correct prose, using various critical approaches to literature.
PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES
The following outcomes are developed in all literature survey course students regardless of student
age or course location:
● Write clearly, coherently and effectively about various genres in literature
● In discussions and writing, address the culture and context of the work of
literature ● Write about and discuss elements of literary texts and relate these to the
work as a whole.

GENERAL EDUCATION COMPETENCIES
Upon completion of the general education component of an associate’s degree, students
will demonstrate competence in:
● Critical Thinking Skills (CT) - creative thinking, innovation, inquiry, and analysis,
evaluation and synthesis of information
● Communication Skills (COM) - effective development, interpretation and expression of
ideas through written, oral and visual communication
● Teamwork (TW) - ability to consider different points of view and to work effectively with
others to support a shared purpose or goal
● Social Responsibility (SR) - intercultural competence, knowledge of civic responsibility, and
the ability to engage effectively in regional, national, and global communities
● Personal Responsibility (PR) - ability to connect choices, actions and consequences to
ethical decision-making