Teaching Help - Research Topics for Early American Lit

[OutdoorsEd]

Reaching out here -

I was asked to teach an Early American Lit mini course a week ago and it started yesterday. I haven't studied or read any Early American since my undergrad days 15 years ago. I'm a comp instructor now, so this has been a challenging week of planning for sure.

We've read the following:

The Iroquois Creation Story

Hajiinei (Navajo)

Christopher Columbus “Letter of Discovery”

John Smith from The General History of Virginia

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

Benjamin Franklin, “The Way to Wealth”

Thomas Paine, Common Sense

Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher"

Hawthorne's "Sleepy Hollow" and “Young Goodman Brown”

Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener”

 

I'm really struggling to come up with good research topics. This experience hasn't been bad, but I've been lucky as I'm certainly no expert on the material.

 

Any suggestions?

 

[CulturalCriminal]

Wow, y'all managed to not read any of the women or Black writers...

That it's self might be an interesting way of spinning a topic though? "Find an Early American text from this period that I have failed to include and convince me why it should be included in future courses"

Why did you select these specific works (or did you select them)? It seems like you have some clear divisions here (i.e. creation myths, European contact, early settler colonies, founders, American Renaissance/Dark-Romantics) that you can have them analyze or compare/contrast. At the end of the day though, I imagine who ever charged you with teaching this class is the ultimate resource here.

That aside, if you teach this course in the future you should really consider fitting in the likes of Cabeza de Vaca, Rowlandson, Wheatley, Bradstreet, etc

[rising_star]

Honestly, one of the things students should be learning is how to come up with their own research topics. It shouldn't be on you to provide all of these to them...