Text: The Harper Single Volume American Literature. Third Edition.
Course Web site: http://www.domfranco.com/amdreams
Email: dom@domfranco.com

Goals of literature and culture courses
To understand the concepts of literature and of culture, including interacting cultures in a given time and place
To develop the ability to recognize and analyze the forces that shape both the creation and experience of literary works (religion, technology, morality, politics, gender, etc.)
To develop the ability to compare literary expressions across cultures
In this course we will study representative works of American literature and their relations to the culture in which they were produced. We will consider questions such as these:
How have America and its inhabitants been represented in literature?
How has the American identity been represented in literature?
How has the American dream been represented? Who has been included and who excluded from this dream?

Policies
Attendance--You are expected to be in class and participating. It will not be possible for you to do well on the exams and in the course unless you come to class, take notes, and review for the exams. In addition, there will be several exercises and unannounced quizzes that can only be turned in during specific class sessions.

Grading—Final grades will be calculated approximately as follows: 70% for the tests, 20% for quizzes and exercises, and 10% for the research paper.

Final letter grades will be calculated approximately as follows:

Office hours--I will give you my office hours in class. If you need to contact me, phone the main switchboard (398-5411)and ask to be connected to my office or call 398-5899 and connect to extension 5840. You can leave a voice-mail message if I am not there. My home phone is (319) 351-8029 (Iowa City). My PCS phone is (319) 621-6649 You can contact me by email at dom@domfranco.com 

Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional presentation of another person's ideas, work or words as your own. Sources must be properly cited. Please familiarize yourselves with the college policies regarding plagiarism, which states "Kirkwood students are responsible for authenticating
any work submitted to an instructor." Plagiarism will result in failure on that assignment and will be reported to the Dean of Student Affairs, who may take disciplinary action. Failure of a major assignment may result in a final grade of F.