{"id":951,"date":"2020-12-11T12:13:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T12:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-africanamericanlit\/?post_type=front-matter&p=951"},"modified":"2020-12-17T17:29:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T17:29:07","slug":"how-to-use-this-book","status":"publish","type":"front-matter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-jefferson-africanamericanlit\/front-matter\/how-to-use-this-book\/","title":{"raw":"How to Use This Book","rendered":"How to Use This Book"},"content":{"raw":"How to Use This Text<\/strong>\r\n\r\nReading African American Literature<\/em> is meant to accompany book length explorations of Black literature.\u00a0 In my community-college course, I would pair this OER resource with drama, as well as a novel such as William Attaway's Blood on the Forge<\/em>, an account of the Great Migration and Pittsburgh steel strikes.\u00a0 The text's aim is not to cover every major voice, but to present enough genres and figures that the arc of African-American literary history could be covered sufficiently well.\u00a0 For example, early in a course, I might focus heavily on mythology from Africa, the origins of rap and hip hop, and how openly political art can compromise its quality.\u00a0 This in turn would bring up discussions of quality, Western literary standards, and binaries.\u00a0 The OER has only slight coverage of those matters, but enough with which to begin a course.\u00a0 Different instructors can use the readings as a sort of skeletal structure on which to build their own approaches.\u00a0 There are numerous Creative Commons images in the book which may be useful for discussion or classroom activities.\r\n\r\nInclusion of Jean Toomer's book Cane<\/em> works well for students, since it includes poetry and explicit use of the blues.\u00a0 Other works are linked.\u00a0 If any of the links fails to function, users can search for the work on the web, often by adding \"PDF\" to a query.\u00a0 There are several chapters focused on the conventions of academic writing and literary analysis.\r\n\r\nI adopt The New York Times<\/em> editorial convention of capitalizing Black<\/em>.\u00a0 Following recent convention, I use African American<\/em> without the hyphen unless the words are part of a compound adjective.\r\n\r\nGenre chapters could be broken up into a theme-based course, as there are many obvious thematic connections among them.\u00a0 Alternately, a historical organization could be fashioned from them.\u00a0 The more thorough slave narrative selection brings up questions of authorship, identity, and representation that can be applied to any of the later readings.\u00a0 This OER is being created for a recently-approved class at Jefferson Community College, so it is going to reflect the strengths and weak points of that newness.\r\n\r\nUsers of Open Educational Resources often find navigation of the books to be difficult, especially if the OER is included in a learning management system like Blackboard.\u00a0 Electronic use of the book as a PDF allows for easy navigation using CNTRL F (find command) searches.\u00a0 Instructors should be aware that page numbering can differ among texts due to text sizing.\u00a0 Most OERs are also available in both print or EPUB formats.\u00a0 The latter can be used easily on tablets.\r\n\r\nSince the goals of OER include making quality materials accessible to more students and encouraging adaptation, I would welcome any feedback on the text, its blind spots, or usability issues.\u00a0 Contact me at jdickinson@sunyjefferson.edu<\/a> or by calling (315) 786-2221.\u00a0 Thanks!","rendered":"

How to Use This Text<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading African American Literature<\/em> is meant to accompany book length explorations of Black literature.\u00a0 In my community-college course, I would pair this OER resource with drama, as well as a novel such as William Attaway’s Blood on the Forge<\/em>, an account of the Great Migration and Pittsburgh steel strikes.\u00a0 The text’s aim is not to cover every major voice, but to present enough genres and figures that the arc of African-American literary history could be covered sufficiently well.\u00a0 For example, early in a course, I might focus heavily on mythology from Africa, the origins of rap and hip hop, and how openly political art can compromise its quality.\u00a0 This in turn would bring up discussions of quality, Western literary standards, and binaries.\u00a0 The OER has only slight coverage of those matters, but enough with which to begin a course.\u00a0 Different instructors can use the readings as a sort of skeletal structure on which to build their own approaches.\u00a0 There are numerous Creative Commons images in the book which may be useful for discussion or classroom activities.<\/p>\n

Inclusion of Jean Toomer’s book Cane<\/em> works well for students, since it includes poetry and explicit use of the blues.\u00a0 Other works are linked.\u00a0 If any of the links fails to function, users can search for the work on the web, often by adding “PDF” to a query.\u00a0 There are several chapters focused on the conventions of academic writing and literary analysis.<\/p>\n

I adopt The New York Times<\/em> editorial convention of capitalizing Black<\/em>.\u00a0 Following recent convention, I use African American<\/em> without the hyphen unless the words are part of a compound adjective.<\/p>\n

Genre chapters could be broken up into a theme-based course, as there are many obvious thematic connections among them.\u00a0 Alternately, a historical organization could be fashioned from them.\u00a0 The more thorough slave narrative selection brings up questions of authorship, identity, and representation that can be applied to any of the later readings.\u00a0 This OER is being created for a recently-approved class at Jefferson Community College, so it is going to reflect the strengths and weak points of that newness.<\/p>\n

Users of Open Educational Resources often find navigation of the books to be difficult, especially if the OER is included in a learning management system like Blackboard.\u00a0 Electronic use of the book as a PDF allows for easy navigation using CNTRL F (find command) searches.\u00a0 Instructors should be aware that page numbering can differ among texts due to text sizing.\u00a0 Most OERs are also available in both print or EPUB formats.\u00a0 The latter can be used easily on tablets.<\/p>\n

Since the goals of OER include making quality materials accessible to more students and encouraging adaptation, I would welcome any feedback on the text, its blind spots, or usability issues.\u00a0 Contact me at jdickinson@sunyjefferson.edu<\/a> or by calling (315) 786-2221.\u00a0 Thanks!<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Public domain content<\/div>