1. Understand the genres and dimensions of African-American Literature
2. Develop positive attitudes about literature and African-American literature
3. Research and understand the relationship of African-American literature to the literary canon
4. Recall and match important African-American writers with their works
5. Develop and effective strategy for analyzing African-American literature
6. Articulate in written and oral communication an understanding of African-American literary trends.

1. Attend all classes and participate in class discussions
2. Respond to the instructor with a three paragraph e-mail message.
3. Read all assigned material
4. Write 3 reaction papers which are 3-5 pages in length.
5. Complete a mid-term and a final exam.
6. Present a paper to the group.
7. Use accurate and grammatically correct writing for all assignments.

Abolition and Reconstruction

The Nadir

The Black (Harlem) Renaissance

The Protest Movement

The Civil Rights Movement

The Women’s Movement

What belongs in the canon? From Wheatly to Morrison

Black Voices Introduction pp. 21-49

Literary Cafe

"Ethnic Notions"               

Marbury v. Madison

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave,Text pp. 231-269

Charles Chestnutt, pp. 50-62

Dred Scott

Plessy v. Ferguson

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E. B DuBois, Pp. 493

Along This Way by James Weldon Johnson, Pp. 269 & The Creation Pp. 364

The New Negro by Alain Locke, Pp. 512

Selections from Free At Last edited by Ira Berlin, Barbara Fields, Steven

Miller, Joseph Reidy, and Leslie Rowland

"Karintha" and "Blood Burning Moon" by Jean Toomer

"Common Meter" by Rudolph Fisher

"Tales of Simple" by Langston Hughes

Selected poems by Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Fenton Johnson, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, and selections from Zora Neale Hurston

Autobiographical Notes -James Baldwin

"The Ethics of living Jim Crow" & "How Bigger Was Born" by Richard Wright and the film Native Son based on Wright’s novel

The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Selected worked by Sterling Brown & Gwendolyn Brooks

"Amos a Man" by Richard Wright

"In Darkness and Confusion" by Ann Petry

Take Home Exam and Reaction Paper

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and the film

"I’ll Never Escape the Ghetto" by Stanley Sanders

"To Da-duh, in Memoriam" by Paule Marshall

"Neighbors" by Diane Oliver

Selected works by Langston Hughes, Frank Marshall Davis, Robert Hayden,

Owen Dodson, Margaret Walker, Dudley Randall, Lance Jeffers, Naomi Long

Madget, Mari Evans, LeRoi Jones, Sterling Stuckey, Clarence Majors

"The Road to Brown"

Brown v. Board of Education

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

The Black Renaissance Writers

Reports-African-American writers and selections from works by Toni Morrison, Alice

Walker and other women writers

A Lesson Before Dying and other stories by Earnest Gaines, selections from works

by Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and other women writers

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (film)

Bringing the Literature Together-Overview-Film-Final Exam