ENGLISH PAPER

About this course: This course focuses on a highly select number of African-American literary productions, many which do not have high visibility in introductory African-American literature courses.Though the authors of the texts on this syllabus have well-established places in the history of African-American letters, this course focuses on dynamic and brilliantly crafted texts that have received ambivalent or controversial criticism in the annals of African-American literary history. The aim of this course is that students leave the course with the ability to discuss the thematic and stylistic characteristics of some of the most well-known Black writers, that the students are able to discuss the relationship between the novels and poems and the political and social climate in which the works were written, that the students are able to articulate their appreciation for the peculiar characteristics of varying genres, that the students are able to write about these works using reasoned arguments, that the students are able to appreciate the diversity of race, class, and gender as well as have some understanding of how race, class, gender, and sexuality function as foundation/location for how or what we think, and that the students are able to share their knowledge of these works orally without embarrassment and with confidence.

Paper Two: 1. 5-7 pages;

No outside sources; only excerpts from the following essays or poems(at least 1 essay, 1 poem): Zora Neale Hurston(essay), There Eyes Were Watching God(essay), Theme for English B(poem), The Ballad of the landlord(poem), To A Dark Girl(poem), Little Brown Baby(poem), We wear the mask (poem)

Choice a thesis or topic use those sources;