The following list shows a summary of the topics covered in this course. To see all of the course pages, visit the Table of Contents.

Module 1: Reading and Interpreting Literary Texts

• How to Analyze a Short Story
• A Short History of the Early American Novel
• Approaching Poetry
• Free Verse
• Literary Terms: A Guide
• Literary Criticism

Module 2: Early American and Puritan Literature (1650–1750)

• American Puritanism
• A Model of Christian Charity
• Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
• The Pilgrim’s Progress
• Verses upon the Burning of Our House

Module 3: Enlightenment Literature (1760–1820)

• Video: Edwards and the Transition to Enlightenment
• Video: The American Enlightenment
• Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death
• Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Module 4: Romantic Literature (1820–1860)

• The Romantic Period, 1820–1860: Essayists and Poets
• Thanatopsis
• Wakefield
• Song of Myself
• The Use of Nature in American Gothic
• The Indian Burying Ground
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
• The Raven
• History of American Literature
• The Second Great Awakening and Transcendentalism
• Nature
• The American Scholar
• Self-Reliance
• Walden
• Women’s Sphere and the Emergence of the Women’s Rights Movement
• Woman in the Nineteenth Century
• Resistance and Abolition
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Module 5: Writing About Literature

• Distinguish Between Primary and Secondary Sources
• Annotated List of Useful Online Resources
• Using Databases: Periodical Indexes and Abstracts
• Annotated List of Useful Databases
• Finding and Evaluating Research Sources
• Finding Literary Criticism
• Using Modern Language Association (MLA) Style