American Experience: Introduction

“Rome can be my Jerusalem”

• Can Loyola Blakefield be yours? • Can your neighbors? • Can your area? • Can your city?

General Expectations

• Mr. Stewart on “respect”: you practice respect• Mr. McCaul on “cura personalis,” and “character/integrity”: you

develop character and integrity; sophomore year is all about developing your foundation (like installing a sill plate)

• Fr. Michini on “reputation”: you earn a good reputation

A Case Study: Two American Homes

Henry David Thoreau’s in On Walden Pond

Edgar Allan Poe’s in “The Fall of the House of

Usher”

Ignatian Learning Model

• Context(=Background)• Experience (=Text)• Reflection (=Discussion)• Action (=Coursework)• Evaluation (=Assessment)

What We Will Do

• Identify different thematic tensions and how they grow and change in American Literature from the seventeenth to the twenty-first century.

• Identify the ways in which context and genre inform the language of a text.

• Analyze a primary text using close reading.• Supplement the analysis of a primary text using close reading with

relevant research from secondary sources.• Craft effective arguments at the essay-level using thesis statements,

evidence, explanations, and transitions.• Craft effective arguments at the paragraph-level using points,

illustrations, explanations, and transitions. • Speak and write using conventional grammar, usage, and mechanics,

appropriate vocabulary, accurate facts, and coherent logic.

How We Will Do It

• Read great books.• Talk and write about their formal, thematic, and

contextual/generic features.• Do research on the critical conversations

surrounding these books.• Devote every other Friday to writing instruction.• Devote every other Friday to vocabulary building.

Class Mascot MORE.

Class Mottos

• “Ishmael”: “God prevent me from ever finishing anything [including this book]” (Moby-Dick)

Think magis: Re-reading and re-writing are key to learning. Do not be complacent.

• Melville: “[Judge…] if you are qualified to judge” (“Hawthorne and His Mosses”)

Think magis: It is impossible to become the perfect thinker; however, you should aim to become better “qualified to judge” texts—including their meaning, value, and place in our nation’s literary canon.

Questions with which to Push Yourselves

1. Who is writing/From what point of view is this being told?

2. Who is the speaker, character, or narrator addressing?3. What tone is the speaker, character, or narrator using?4. What is the speaker, character, or narrator trying to

accomplish? What is his/her/its goal?5. What confidences does this information inspire? What

questions does it raise?