Throughout this course, you'll be using these pages to gain a sense of the world surrounding the text and to prepare for class.

Each lesson will follow this plan:

• Lesson Plan/Teaching Notes
• Terms/People to know
• Discussion questions
• Voices from the past (a selection of period quotations)
• Pictures from the past
• Quotes from critics

I'll expect you to use these throughout the course and will refer to material posted on the web as well

And here our tale begins . . . .

 And what a tale it is. We'll be covering a broad sweep of literature, from the colonial period on through the Civil War (what year was that? . . . )

I'd like to start off with a basic question: Okay . . . why American lit for teachers. I mean, if you’re teaching . . . say, business or biology, why both with American lit?

I want my course to explore two areas: how does literature create meaning – and connected to this – what did the text “mean” for its contemporary readers, and what can it mean for modern readers?

Home Page | Lesson Plans | Supplemental Readings | Links | Contact Dr. Bordelon

Last Revised August 2002
David Bordelon