Cross listed with BL_STU 3400W

Cross listed with BL_ST 3400W-01 This 8-week online writing intensive course introduces students to the major developments, themes, and works of African American literature from its eighteenth-century beginnings to the post-Civil War and Reconstruction Era.  The course has three objectives: 1) to explore African American literature's continuing response to the call of African, American, and Afro-British American oral and written traditions in the form of folktales, songs, sermons, prose, and poetry; 2) to examine the social, political, and cultural influences of early African American literature; and 3) to learn how to analyze and write about this body of work. In this course, students will 1) post discussion board responses to weekly readings, 2) do an independent research project that they will present in video form at the end of the semester, and 3) write a paper about works on the syllabus. This paper, which is the major project for the course, will grow out of discussion board posts, be revised multiple times over the course of the eight weeks, and eventually incorporate students' independent research.