ENG225

To advance your literary and critical thinking skills by reading and writing about a number of literary works.

To broaden and enhance your appreciation of American culture and American history reflected in literary works.

To recognize key aspects of Calvinist theology as practiced in seventeenth and eighteenth-century New England and acquire an understanding of how Puritan beliefs were manifested in selected writings of the period.

To study the following aspects within the context of the American Romantic Movement: individualism, attitudes toward nature, symbolism, transcendentalism, and reform and social protest.

To familiarize you with a fairly broad rangeboth historically and stylisticallyof American literature with the processes and vocabulary of literary analysis.

To develop your close reading skills; acquaint you with major historical genres of the period; and familiarize you with critical theory (theories of interpretation), which literary students and critics use to analyze texts.

To demonstrate your ability to analyze, synthesize, and interpret by writing several discussion board responses, academic journals, and a mid-tern essay.

To leave this class with a greater willingness to read works of American literature that you would not have previously considered reading and with an increased ability to read and write with insight and enjoyment.