AAS 267, African American Literature, is a survey course that explores the early days of enslavement to the present. The course includes readings, analysis, and discussion of literary texts written by African Americans, paying particular attention to the political, historical, and social context that informs these texts.

American Literature I (1650–1860) examines significant literary works of early American and Puritan literature, the Enlightenment, American Romanticism, and pre-Civil War era. The course includes primary texts (many accompanied by video/audio options), historical background, literary criticism and interpretation, and instruction on writing about literature.

This course was developed by Anne Eidenmuller from Columbia Basin College with contributing work from Lumen Learning.

This is a resource designed to accompany a course on American Literature II. It has been found to be appropriate for California Community College courses with the following C-ID: ENGL 135

The University of North Georgia Press and Affordable Learning Georgia bring you Becoming America: An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution. Featuring sixty-nine authors and full texts of their works, the selections in this open anthology represent the diverse voices in early American literature. This completely-open anthology will connect students to the conversation of literature that is embedded in American history and has helped shaped its culture.

The outpouring of creative expression known as the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s spawned a burgeoning number of black-owned cultural outlets, including publishing houses, performance spaces, and galleries. Central to the movement were its poets, who in concert with editors, visual artists, critics, and fellow writers published a wide range of black verse and advanced new theories and critical approaches for understanding African American literary art.

During the early days of quarantine, many teachers turned to poetry to process their experiences. Teacher-Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance: An Oral History of COVID-19 preserves this poetry and teachers' experiences as they navigated a new reality in education.

A Handbook to Understanding College Composition, SP22 edition. Curated and/or composed by the English Faculty at Howard Community College.

The Digital American Literature Anthology is a free, online textbook that surveys American literature from its beginnings to the early twentieth century. It is available in multiple digital formats, though specifically designed for tablets, laptops, and e-readers. The textbook has links to unit introductions, and multiple supplemental online resources.

These resources will allow you to investigate the key themes of Dickens's novels alongside original source material from the British Library. Literary manuscripts, newspapers, letters, workhouse menus and other collection items will help students open up the social, cultural, and political context in which Dickens was writing. This website includes performances by Simon Callow and discussions by Professor of English, John Mullan, filmed at the Charles Dickens Museum, London.

 The syllabus and reading lists for ENG 241: Survey of American Literature, taught at Virginia Western Community College by Dr. Jenifer Kurtz.

In this lecture, Professor Paul Fry examines trends in African-American criticism through the lens of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Toni Morrison. A brief history of African-American literature and criticism is undertaken, and the relationship of both to feminist theory is explicated. The problems in cultural and identity studies of essentialism, “the identity queue,” expropriation, and biology are surveyed, with particular attention paid to the work of Michael Cooke and Morrison’s reading of Huckleberry Finn. At the lecture’s conclusion, the tense relationship between African-American studies and New Critical assumptions are explored with reference to Robert Penn Warren’s poem, “Pondy Woods.”

From the Ground Up is a collection of undergraduate writings on the interplay between health, the environment and community. The chapters range from engaging pieces on life during the Covid Lockdowns of 2020 to the environmental artist and food justice activist Ron Finley who is merging community, art and food security in South Central, Los Angeles. This work also includes an exceptional analysis of the haunting legacy of contaminated waterways in Brazil. The methods of analysis found within the collection include PhotoVoice and visual analysis—methods which have long been utilized within sociology, history, cultural studies, anthropology and community-based participatory research to achieve theories of resilience (via an analysis of community voices and community art forms) that literally emerge from the ground up.

Paul Tyndall, English instructor at KPU, introduces the critical commentary surrounding Marilynne Robinson's award winning novel Housekeeping, considered one of the most brilliant debut novel's in contemporary fiction.

This course is designed to introduce students to the study, analysis, and interpretation of literature across multiple genres. Key topics include literary genres and conventions; how to read and write about literature; literary analysis; and readings and responses in the genres of poetry, drama, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Primary literary works and critical responses are included, as well as a collection of writing assignments aligned with course content and learning outcomes.

This course was developed by faculty at Ivy Tech Community College, using original materials, as well as materials from NDLA.

Adapted from Introduction to World Literature Anthology by Christian Beck under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution license.

This text has an anthology style format that includes fiction, poetry, and drama with an emphasis on non-fiction essays and articles. Each text included is either in the public domain or has a creative commons license that allows for free use.

Literature in the Humanities is an introduction to the study of the characteristics, conventions, and socio-historical contexts of the major literary forms, including the analysis and interpretation of literary elements and devices, and the application of literary theory and criticism. This course is designed to encourage a deep appreciation of literature, hone critical thinking skills, and to illustrate the importance of literature as an expression of the human cultural experience.

This anthology is divided into five major sections, starting with the Colonial period and ending with the publication of Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl on the eve of the Civil War. Each section includes an overview and framework for approaching the readings, as well as overarching questions to help students think about the connections between the texts. There is also a brief introduction to each of the authors featured in these sections, followed by discussion questions based on the texts. The textual introductions do not include a great deal of biographical material; instead, I have used them to provide a frame (typically connected to the larger section introduction) that I hope will help students to navigate from. The discussion questions could also easily be used as open-ended exam questions or as essay prompts. Some of the discussion questions are also invitations for students to make intertextual connections, or to consider how the literary landscape changes from its “beginnings” to the Civil War.

This textbook takes a distinctly socio-historical approach to introducing Early American literature. The anthology will allow students to engage with literature in exciting and dynamic ways. The table of contents has been drafted, and we are currently looking for introduction authors and help securing public domain texts.