UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO AT BAYAMON 170 Rd. 174, Minillas Industrial Park Bayamón, Puerto Rico 00959-1919

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

SYLLABUS

COURSE TITLE: United States Minority Literatures

CODIFICATION: INGL 3326

PREREQUISITES: English 3102, 3104, 3012

CREDITS: Three (3) credits

CONTACT HOURS: 45 contact hours

COURSE DESCRIPTION: English Language Minority Literature of the United States, with particular attention to African American, Asian American, Native American, and Latino/a works.

TEXTBOOK: Ventura, G. B. U.S. Latino Literature Today. NY: Pearson, 2005 ISBN-13: 978-0-321-19843-3

Other Texts will include the work of various minority authors. Some handouts will be provided.

Some possible required authors: African American Slave Narratives Langston Hughes Claude McKay Tony Morrison Alice Walker Maya Angelou

Latin American Julia Alvarez Nilo Cruz Martin Espada Cristina Garcia Sandra Cisneros Judith Ortiz Cofer Ed Vega Martin Espada Tato Laviera

Asian American David Henry Hwang Maxine Hong Kingston Amy Tan

Native American Louis Erdridge Leslie Marmon Silko

Other minority writers: Jamaica Kincaid Jhumpa Lahiri Edwidge Danticat

I. Course Goal:

Students will be guided through the reading and exploration of the fiction of the wide selection of minority writers including but not limited to the ones mentioned above. Through their exploration of and interaction with the texts students will be exposed to ideas, attitudes, values, and world views that may be similar to or vastly different from their own. Exposure to both fiction and nonfiction writing of the often ignored minority authors will provide the opportunity to understand and appreciate specific experiences of these marginalized groups in the U.S.

II. Objectives:

1. To become familiar with important literary contributions made by American writers from a variety of minority ethnic backgrounds. 2. To engage in the construction of meaning by bringing their own knowledge and experience to interact with those of the text. 3. To appreciate and analyze major minority authors 4. To comprehend the historical, cultural, personal, and spiritual context of the minority literatures. 5. To increase their own awareness, tolerance, and acceptance of these minority groups.

III. General Evaluation Criteria:

Students will be evaluated on the basis of: oral participation (class discussion, group work) and required oral and written assignments such as oral reports, research paper, essays, reader responses, and illustrated journals. Some professors may use portfolios as a showpiece of the multiple ways of knowing that students have been engaged in during their learning process. Methods of evaluation vary according to the goals of the course and the professor.

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IV. Reasonable Accommodation

The UPRB accomplish with Section 504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the ADA (American with Disabilities Act) of 1990 and its amendment in 2008, 51 Law of 1996 (Servicios Educativos Integrales para Personas con Impedimentos) and 238 Law of August 31, 2004 (Carta de Derechos de las Personas con Impedimentos) and its amendments in 2008 and 2009 in order to guarantee equality in education and services access. Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability must visit the Office of Disability Services, located on the first floor of the Students Center, next to the cafeteria, to discuss his/her specific needs and provide written documentation. At the request of the student, the Office of Disability Services will prepare an individualized letter for each professor. This letter certifies that the student has a disability and provides reasonable accommodations required by the student to obtain an adequate academic achievement. A request for reasonable accommodation does not exempt a student from complying with the academic requirements of their program of study.

Academic Integrity

The University of Puerto Rico promotes the highest standards of academic and scientific integrity. Article 6.2 of the UPR Students General Bylaws (Board of Trustees Certification 13, 2009-2010) states that academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to: fraudulent actions; obtaining grades or academic degrees by false or fraudulent simulations; copying the whole or part of the academic work of another person; plagiarizing totally or partially the work of another person; copying all or part of another person answers to the questions of an oral or written exam by taking or getting someone else to take the exam on his/her behalf; as well as enabling and facilitating another person to perform the aforementioned behavior. Any of these behaviors will be subject to disciplinary action in accordance with the disciplinary procedure laid down in the UPR Students General Bylaws.

V. Specific Evaluation Criteria and Grading

Tasks and grades for the semester may vary from professor to professor. Professors will be assessing reading, writing, and oral participation in class as related to the literary pieces selected and through a variety of assignments. Following is an example of specific evaluation criteria and grading:

Participation/Attendance 100 Reader Responses 100 Oral Presentation 100 Analytical Essay 100 Research Project 100 Multigenre Assignments 100

Points Disbursements: 600-560=A/559-519=B/518-474=C/473-424=D/423-0=F

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VI. Tentative Course Schedule

Students will be presented with a balanced variety of minority literature. Following is an example of how the course may be conducted:

Week 1: Course Introduction Week 2: Native American Literature Week 3 Native American Literature Week 4: African American Literature Week 5: African American Literature Week 6: African American Literature Week 7: Latino/a Minority Writers Week 8: Latino/a Minority Writers Week 9: Latino/a Minority Writers Week 10: Latino/a Minority Writers Week 11: Asian American Literature Week 12: Asian American Literature Week 13: Other Minority Writers Week 14: Other Minority Writers Week 15: Course Closure

VII. Bibliography

Teacher Resources

Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me Ultima. New York: Warner, 1994.

Brunk, Terence Literacies: Reading, Writing, Interpretation (2nd. ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000.

Bustle, Lynn. (2004). The Role of Visual Representation in the Assessment of Learning. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 47 (2004): 416-423.

Danticat, Edwidge. Brother, I’m Dying. New York: Knopf, 2007.

---. The Farming of Bones. New York: Penguin, 1999.

Diner, Hasia R. Lower East Side Memories : A Jewish Place in America. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000.

Esteves, Sandra. Bluestown Mockingbird Mambo. Houston, Texas: Arte Publico Press, 1990.

Flores, Juan. From Bomba to Hip-hop: Puerto Rican culture and Latino Identity. New

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York: Columbia UP, 2000.

Garcia, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballentine, 1992.

Guerin, Wilfred. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature (3rd. Ed.) New York: Oxford UP, 1992.

Holden, James. Inquiry and the Literary Text: Constructing Discussions in the English Classroom. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2002.

Hughes, Langston. The Collected Works of Langston Hughes. Volume 13. Autobiography: The Big Sea. Columbia and London: U of Missouri P, 2002.

Kingston Hong, Maxine. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts. New York: Vintage International Random House, 1976.

Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Easrth. New York: Vintage, 2008.

McKay, Claude. Harlem-Negro Metropolis. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1972.

---. Home to Harlem. London: Black Classics, 2000.

---. The Negroes in America. Trans. Robert J. Winter. Port Washington, New York and London: Kennikat, 1979.

Pugh, Sharon. Metaphorical Ways of Knowing: The Imaginative Nature of Thought and Expression. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 1997.

Rivera, Carmen. Kissing the Mango Tree: Puerto Rican Women Rewriting American Literature. Houston, Texas: Arte Publico, 2002.

Rivera, Edward. Family Installments: Memories of Growing up Hispanic. New York: Penguin, 1983.

Wucker, Michele. “Edwidge Danticat: A Voice for the Voiceless.” Americas 52.3 (May-June 2002): 40-45.

Student Resources

Electronic Sources:

5 http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/general/gl_lit.html

Online Writing Lab at Purdue University provides useful tips on how to develop and essay about literature.

http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/jonsmith/writing.html

Steps in writing process are reviewed as are the parts of a paper on literature. Sample student papers are provided. http://.www.literatureclassics.com/ancient paths/litcrit.htm

Present an overview of many literary criticism approaches.

http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg (U of Minnesota)

Voices from the Gaps: Women Artists and Writers

http://digital.nypl.org/schomburg/writers_aa19

Schomburg Center, New York Public Library: Extensive collection of online texts of African

American Women Writers of the nineteenth century.

http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/literature/bedlit/authors_depth/hwang.htm

Literary criticism of the work of David Henry Hwang

http://www.native-languages-.org/creationmyths

Provides creation myths from various Native American Tribes

www.hccfl.edu/.../sherman%20alexie%20this%20is%20what%20it%20m

The short story “This is What it means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” by Sherman Alexie

http://allpoetry.com/LangstonHughes

A variety of Langston Hughes’ poems

http://www.feminist.com/resoures/atspeech/genwom/s

The speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?”, by Sojourner Truth

Books:

Annas, Pamela,J. & Rosen, Robert C. (Eds.). Literature and Society: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction.4th Ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2007.

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Some Selections for Book Club Activity: Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. NewYork: Little Brown, 2007.

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accent. New York: Plume, 1992.

Gains, Ernest J. A Gathering of Old Men. New York: Vintage, 1984.

Lopez Torregrosa, Luisita. The Noise of Infinite Longing: A Memoir of a Family and an Island. NY: Harper Collins, 2004.

Nguyen, Bich Minh. Stealing Buddha’s Dinner: A Memoir. New York: Penguin Books, 2007.

Tademy, Lolita. Cane River. New York: Warner, 2001.

Tan, Amy. The Kitchen God’s Wife. New York: Ivy Books, 1991.

Prepared by Dr. Rosa Vallejo and Dr. Tatiana Tagirova August, 2009. Revised March 2011 by R. Vallejo/ Revised February 2015 by R. Vallejo

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