We will read and discuss four novels and a wide assortment of short stories written by American authors in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Students will be expected to keep up with a reading schedule, attend class regularly, take part in class-discussion, and write a series of in-class essays in answer to study questions handed out in advance.

Required texts: Wallace and Mary Stegner, eds., GREAT AMERICAN SHORT STORIES; Milton Crane, ed., FIFTY GREAT AMERICAN SHORT STORIES; Nathaniel Hawthorne, THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES; John Steinbeck, EAST OF EDEN; James Baldwin, GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN; and Anne Tyler, A PATCHWORK PLANET