American Literature Course Research Articles

Strategy Analysis: Integrating Chinese Traditional Culture into the Teaching of English Literature Courses

As the spiritual treasure of the Chinese nation, the outstanding traditional Chinese culture, with its unique philosophical thoughts, values, historical inheritance and artistic forms, is of great significance for cultivating students’ intercultural communication ability and enhancing cultural self-confidence. Under the background of globalization, integrating excellent traditional Chinese culture into the teaching of British and American literature courses can not only enrich the course content and broaden students’ horizons, but also promote the exchange and integration of Eastern and Western cultures, and cultivate students’ global vision and critical thinking ability. Based on this, this paper actively explores the specific strategies for integrating excellent traditional Chinese culture into the teaching of British and American literature.

Practice of and Reflection on Drama Teaching in British and American Literature Course

Drama has the attribute of education and the potential function of action guiding. The integration of drama teaching into the course of British and American Literature provides an effective carrier for language learning, and can improve students' cross-cultural communication skills, innovation consciousness and ability. In teaching practice, the instructor explored the effective implementation of drama teaching through pre-class blended and task-driven teaching, in-class drama rehearsal, final theatrical performance, diversified assessment methods, and analysis of the teaching effect by means of online questionnaires and offline interviews, to reflect on the optimal solutions in drama teaching.

Multimodality and critical race theory as tools of canonical subversion

ABSTRACT Research has called for nuanced scholarly investigations that synergise, complicate, and advance social theories of literacy. Accordingly, this study melds critical literacy, critical race theory, and multiliteracies to distil students’ involvement with the canonical The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, investigating: What are participants’ design experiences reading canonical literature through a critical race theory lens, and what does multimodal design reveal about students’ critical literacies? Design reflects both understanding and meaning making using multiple sign systems. Applying case study methodologies, researchers investigated the experiences of 24 eleventh-grade students in an American literature course. Layers of inductive and deductive analysis reveal two findings specific to students’ experiences with multiliteracies: successes with literal transmediation and barriers to imaginative transmediation. Findings were then deductively treated with tenets of critical literacy and critical race theory, revealing that students identified Whiteness as property while simultaneously participating in Colour-evasion and upholding White saviour traditions. Implications for theory, research, and pedagogy are discussed.

On the Teaching Reform of History and Anthology of American Literature Course from the Perspective of Ideological and Political Education in the Curriculum

On the Teaching Reform of History and Anthology of American Literature Course from the Perspective of Ideological and Political Education in the Curriculum

The analysis of integration points of ideological and political elements in American literature course

The ideological and political education can be integrated into American Literature course from the perspectives of consolidation of the patriotism, cultivation of social responsibility, improvement of personal character and morality, culturing of humanity quality and training of international vision and cultural inheritance, which enable teachers to combine knowledge teaching and ability training with students’ thinking improvement, value guidance and moral training in class, thus achieving the profound exploration of the value of classic literary works and the maximization of teaching values.

Scaffolding Critical Reading

Teachers in any discipline where reading matters should practice a robust scaffolding pedagogy to teach critical reading, in contrast to the more common but less direct approaches that often leave students to learn or not learn these skills themselves. In this essay, I describe how to adapt established methods for teaching writing (including templates) to teaching reading. To answer critics who might find the approach too “reductive,” I turn to scaffolding theory, which calls for purposefully—but temporarily—reductive teaching. Finally, I present qualitative and quantitative evidence from three years of an American literature course to show how a scaffolding approach can help students read critically.

Care-Full Curricular Conversations: The Citizen Rhetor Project: Cultivating Voice And Empathy

Recognizing the importance of enhancing students’ capacity to participate in difficult conversations, teachers at a private school in Dallas revised the curriculum of their junior American literature course.

Professor, Prize-Winning Poet, Translator

Professor Herbert Woodward Martin and his family arrived in Pécs thirty years ago, in early September 1990. He earned a Fulbright grant to teach American and African American literature courses to students of the English Department of Janus Pannonius University as the institution was called at that time. Martin was not the first Fulbright scholar in the department but the first African American who, among other subjects, familiarized the English majors with poems published in The Poetry of Black America: Anthology of the 20thCentury, edited by Arnold Adoff and introduced by Gwendolyn Brooks. The anthology contains some poems by Martin too, including “A Negro Soldier’s Viet Nam Diary,” which has heart-wrenching lines about a black soldier facing the loss of innocent lives in a land destroyed by modern weapons, where “Death hangs on the rice” (Martin, “A Negro Soldier’s” 228)

Knowledge in movement: configuring Asian American studies in Asian classrooms

ABSTRACT This article takes classrooms as crucial sites to explore the critical challenges and opportunities arising from Asian American studies’ relocation to Asia. Taking a cue from Erin Manning’s theory on “the minor gesture,” I conceive classroom dialogism as operating not as much to pass on inured thoughts as to generate “minor” forces that push knowledge into movement. Specifically, I argue that the confrontations and encounters of various nationalist, culturalist and imperialist perspectives—which usually contribute to the differences and difficulties of teaching Asian American studies in Asia—may be taken less as obstructions than as “minor” activators that push for renewed knowledge structures. Section one of this article reads selected teaching accounts to not only highlight the implications of Asian classrooms’ readings of Asian American texts in the power dynamics between Asia(s) and America(s), but also excavate from students’ readings and responses the habitual models of receiving Asian American studies in Asia. Section two then turns to my experience of teaching an undergraduate Asian American literature course in Taiwan to explore classrooms’ potential to usher in the time and space needed for opening habitual thinking paradigms into movement and variation. By mobilizing in classroom switches and exchanges between thinking positions and interpretive frames, I invoked from the documentary film Voices in the Clouds (2010) the intersecting life stories of Atayal, Han Taiwanese, Asian Americans and Americans to underscore the importance to think in terms of historical change and human movements.

Polish university students’ and recent graduates’ reflections on discussing controversial topics in American literature courses: a preliminary qualitative study

Exploring contentious subjects in literature courses can provide students with cognitive, social, and emotional benefits (Flynn & Rivera 2022; Rybakova et al. 2013). Hand and Levinson (2012) note that discussion is commonly considered as the most effective means to explore sensitive topics in the classroom. According to Flynn and Rivera (2022), teachers should seek appropriate pedagogical approaches to engage students in meaningful discussions on controversial issues. Critical pedagogy, most famously promoted by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator striving for social justice, may be useful in foreign literature classes to help create an inclusive environment for awareness-raising discussions on challenging topics, especially concerning social inequities and politics (Darder et al. 2009; Kincheloe 2008; McLaren 2009). This research explores Polish university students’ and recent graduates’ perceptions of discussing controversial topics in American literature classes. Written critical reflection prompts were administered to fifteen Polish university students and graduates to gather qualitative data, which were subsequently evaluated using content analysis. The study revealed that classroom discussions on sensitive issues can benefit Polish students, provided that American literature instructors remain impartial, promote inclusivity, and raise awareness of cultural and linguistic differences between Poland and the United States. In light of this, critical pedagogy is recommended as an effective approach to teaching controversial topics.

Exploration on Curriculum Reform of British and American Literature for English Majors in China’s Provincial Medical University

Abstract: As one of the compulsory courses for English majors, British and American Literature plays an indispensable role in cultivating students’ foreign literature knowledge and literary appreciation competence, as well as improving students’ comprehensive qualities such as humanistic quality and moral sentiment. This paper analyzes the status of British and American Literature Course by demonstrating the existing problems and their causes. Taking the curriculum reform of British and American Literature in a provincial medical university as an example, this paper discusses ways to revise and adjust the Talent Training Program according to the National Standard (for Foreign Language and Literature Majors), puts forwards exploratory strategies on reforming the traditional training mode and creating new mode suitable for the growth needs of students’, aiming to perfect the curriculum system suitable for the university, achieve the goal of talents training and meet the new national requirements of undergraduate education.

The Practice of English and American Literature Course in Teaching

The Practice of English and American Literature Course in Teaching

The attitudes of Jordanian English language and literature undergraduate students toward open-book exams

IntroductionThe paper aims to investigate the attitudes of English Language and Literature students toward implementing the open-book exam in literature courses.MethodsThe research applied a mixed-method approach. The researchers interviewed five undergraduate students enrolled in the American Literature course for the qualitative part. In contrast, the research includes the results of 62 questionnaires for the quantitative part. Moreover, a survey questionnaire was developed by the researchers to collect data concerning the participants’ attitudes toward OBEs.ResultsThe study found a positive attitude toward OBEs. Moreover, the study participants demonstrated that OBEs reduce stress levels that occur during exams in general. A statistical representation of the findings showed that the sample students have a positive attitude in relation to this unconventional assessment protocol.DiscussionOBEs should be allowed more space in academic institutions since today’s world does not depend on the amount of information a job applicant deposits in his memory. What matters is the person possesses enough high-order thinking abilities and skills like problem-solving.

Steinbeck Ireland Symposium Student Panel

Abstract The Steinbeck Ireland Symposium, held on November 27, 2021, at Drenagh Estate in County Derry, included an interdisciplinary panel made up of students from Ulster University’s Environmental Science and American Literature courses. These student voices bring fresh insights on Steinbeck’s Log from the Sea of Cortez.

A Study of the Individualism Accounts on American Literature through Reader Response Criticism

This study is by no means a comprehensive account of individualism or more accurately, individualism, in America. It is intended to be more suggestive than comprehensive though it is characterized by more summery than controversy. Many ideas as well as some of the highlights of American manifestations of individualism and modes of individualistic thought and philosophy have been added. What follows, then, is merely a look at some of the high-water marks of literary American individualism and an attempt to offer some cursory explanations for this American phenomenon in theory and practice. This study was under an exploratory qualitative method supported by an interdisciplinary approach of American Studies. Reader-Response criticism is used to make perspective and interpretation without a doubt. The sample was 28 students taking the American Society and literature course at the Universitas Islam Sultan Agung Semarang. The completion of this research shows the students have creativity and freedom to express their innovation in learning American literature. The cornerstone of individual conscience has to be their credos for changing into a better life through the social, political, economic, and moral autonomy of each individual.

A Metadata-Based Multimodal Model for Resource Sharing of British and American Female Literary Works

Based on the perspective of multimodal teaching theory, this study analyzes the establishment of English and American literature appreciation standard course in universities and discusses the necessity of course offering, multimodal teaching implementation, and multi-evaluation of the course, to provide ideas for English literary teaching reform and talent training in universities. In terms of the training of professional talents, to improve their critical thinking and humanistic quality, a British and American literature course in English major study holds a significant place as a mandatory course for English majors. Basic abilities such as an awareness of Western literature and culture are developed into the ability to appreciate and evaluate literary works. This study, based on the premise of standardizing spatial data and sharing data, argues that the traditional data sharing model has flaws and that a sharing mechanism based on metadata management is required. It also proposes a metadata management strategy that can be used as a model for addressing the problem of heterogeneous storage in data sharing.

A Brief Analysis of the Reform of British and American Literature Education Mode Based on Artificial Intelligence

With the development of society and progress, the computer technology has been widely used to the life of people, now fairy many teaching using multimedia technology, British and American literature course makes students’ compulsory course for English majors, for students to British and American literature, oh sister have a vital role to improve your English, multimedia technology has been widely applied to the British and American education mode, education technology in British and American literature play a crucial role in the education reform, the application of multimedia teaching, make the British and American literature course more vivid, more effective.

Research on the Construction of Multimedia Assisted Classroom Education Mode of British and American Literature Course

At present, there are still many problems and deficiencies in the teaching of British and American literature, especially the examination oriented education mode is difficult to ameliorate the comprehensive quality of students, which limits the amelioration of the teaching quality and level of British & American literature. Based on this, this paper first analyzes the connotation and principle of multimedia assisted classroom education mode, then studies the multimedia assisted classroom education mode of British & American literature course, and finally gives the construction strategy of multimedia assisted classroom education mode of British & American literature course.

The Powhatans and the English in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake by David J. Voelker

Reviewed by: The Powhatans and the English in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake by David J. Voelker Rebecca M. Lush (bio) The Powhatans and the English in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake david j. voelker Oxford University Press, 2020 102 pp. The Powhatans and the English in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake is a teaching text designed for the undergraduate history classroom, but its selection of primary texts could also work well in an undergraduate early American literature course. Part of the "Debating American History" series from Oxford UP, this textbook reader takes an argument-model approach to historical study to encourage students to think like historians and engage in the methodologies of the field. Rather than taking a coverage model approach, where students are presented with an account of many events over a longer timeline and may accept those events at face value, the argument-model frames the study of history around key questions that invite deeper reflection on the accuracy of sources and source biases. In this volume the key guiding question, which the editor describes as the "big question," is "How were the English able to displace the thriving Powhatan people from their Chesapeake homelands in the seventeenth century?" The volume provides a general overview of historical information to contextualize this question and includes a glossary of Indigenous terminology. It also includes a timeline visualization of the key events that are [End Page 985] mentioned in the subsequent sources. The most useful section is the one titled "Debating the Question," where selections from primary texts are organized with "guiding questions" at the start of each selection and a "drawing conclusions" section at the end. The questions at the start and end of each primary text encourage student-readers to think critically and to see the archival materials as not offering any easy answers regarding how and why events happened. The selection of primary text includes the usual colonial accounts commonly covered in classes and appearing in other teaching anthologies such as Richard Hakluyt, Thomas Hariot, and Christopher Newport. The book also includes visual and material texts such as engravings and Powhatan's Mantle. Importantly, the primary text selection also includes the Mattaponi oral tradition more recently published by Linwood "Little Bear" Custalow and Angela L. Daniel "Little Star," giving students more than just colonial perspectives. Following the "Debating the Question" section filled with primary selections are two case studies. The first explores the subset question "Did Pocahontas rescue John Smith from execution?" and features primary sources by Edward-Maria Wingfield and John Smith with guiding questions for the student to note issues of inconsistency and credibility. The structure of case study 1 encourages students to form their own answers to the question. The first case study would also work well for literature courses that are already looking at this issue via various literary and media representations beyond Wingfield and Smith (such as James Nelson Barker's musical play The Indian Princess or even the 1995 Disney feature film). The second case study explores the subset question "What was the strategy behind the 1622 Powhatan surprise attack?" and features two scholarly essays by historians with different perspectives. The second case study is more fitting for a history classroom context than a literature one. However, the idea behind the structure of case study 2 could be used by instructors to select relevant literary scholarship to have students compare scholarly debate. The selections in this second case study also seem like comparatively older scholarly works, which can work well for a comparative approach to show how conversations in the field have changed. The subset section of case study 2 would have been stronger if it also included a more contemporary scholarly example to reflect the growing place of Indigenous and decolonizing methodologies. [End Page 986] Overall, The Powhatans and the English in the Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake is a useful supplemental text to literary study of early America since its argument-based approach complements the methods of the undergraduate literature classroom. The text also provides instructors with ways to think about how to frame classroom material to encourage active student learning and engagement. [End Page 987] Rebecca M. Lush California State University San Marcos...

The Changing Status of the Undergraduate Literature Survey Course

Requirements for the undergraduate major in Hispanic literature and offerings of Spanish peninsular and Latin American literature courses surveying the canon, masterpieces, major works, major authors, major trends, or representative works at fifty-six selected US colleges and universities were examined for academic years 1990–91, 2002–03, 2013–14, and 2017–18. The number of literature survey courses at these institutions decreased during this 27-year period, as did the number of schools requiring such courses. The composition of the literature survey courses also changed, most notably to incorporate other cultural products and approaches.