This document provides an overview of an American literature class covering the period between 1914-1945. It includes the agenda, which discusses adding the class, the syllabus, green sheet, website, and an introduction to American literature during this period. It outlines historical events from this era like women's suffrage and the Great Migration. It also discusses aspects of literary modernism like the conflict between tradition and innovation in literary works. The class will require keeping up with readings, posts to the class website, exams and essays.

1. Week 1 Class 1

2. Agenda
Adding the Class
Syllabus
Green sheet
Kaizena
Website
Introduction to American Literature
1914-1945
QHQ

3. Adding the Class
• If you are on the waiting list, you can stay. I won’t
hand out add codes until at least Monday of next
week, and then, only if there is room.
• As we go over the syllabus, consider whether
you will stay in the class. If you want out, please
let me know, so I can offer your seat to another
student.
• If you are not on the waiting list, it is very unlikely
you will get into the class unless we have a mass
exodus after the syllabus!

4. The Green Sheet
• What you will find here
– Course Requirements
• Assignments and values
• Participation
– Required Materials
– Class Policies
• Plagiarism
• Conduct and Courtesy
– The Class Website
• How to sign up for an
account
• How to post your
homework.
– How to use Kaizena to
submit your Paper

5. Texts and Required Materials:
Available at the De Anza Bookstore
• Baym, et al., The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed.,
Vol. D—"Between the Wars 1914-1945."
• Baym, et al., The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed.,
Vol. E—"Literature since 1945."
Available online and from local booksellers
• Critical Theory Today by Lois Tyson (The book is available
electronically).
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (There is a link to the full
text novel on the website).
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Buy it, Borrow it, or Beg for it).
Other Required Materials
• A Gmail account that you will be willing to share via Wordpress, Kaizena,
and Google Drive
• Large Bluebooks for exams

6. Requirements:
• Active participation in class discussions and
regular attendance. You will earn real points for
your participation in activities.
• Keeping up-to-date on the assignments and
reading.
• Formal writing: Two short formal essays
• Two exams: A midterm and a final
• A series of posts to the class website
• Reading quizzes, and in-class assignments.

7. Grading

8. Class Policies

9. Writing Submissions
• Essay Submission:
• All out of class essays are to be submitted to me
electronically before the class period in which they are
due.
1. Before you submit your essay, please save your file as your
last name and the assignment: Smith 1.
2. Submit your essay through Kaizena at
https://kaizena.com/palmoreessaysubmissiongmail. Or
simply use the link on our class website home page.
3. Sign in to your Google Account and allow Kaizena access
to your Google Drive. You may want a dedicated Gmail
account for this class.
4. You can follow the directions from this point to join a
group or submit your essay. If you have trouble, please see
the appropriate presentation on our website under “Create
Accounts.”
All out of class essays are to be submitted to me electronically
before the due date.

10. Attendance:
Success in this course depends on regular attendance
and active participation. Participation points will be
part of our daily activities. If you are not in class, you
cannot earn these points. You should save absences
for emergencies, work conflicts, weddings, jury duty,
or any other issues that might arise in your life.
It is your responsibility to talk to me your absences or
other conflicts. Work done in class cannot be made
up. Also, please arrive on time, as you will not be able
to make up work completed before you arrive,
including quizzes.
 A Gmail account that you will be willing to
share via Wordpress, Kaizena, and Google
Drive
 Large Bluebooks for exams

11. Exams:
– We will have two exams during the quarter. They will likely
be identification, short answer, and essay style. Make-ups
are rare and require documentation.
Late Work
– I do not accept late work. I do, however, extend an
opportunity to revise essay #1 for a better grade. If you
miss the due date, you may submit that work when the
revisions are due on the last day of the term.

12. Conduct, Courtesy, and Electronic Devices:
• In this class, we will regularly engage in the discussion of
topics that may stir passionate debates. Please speak
freely and candidly; however, while your thoughts and
ideas are important to me and to the dynamics of the
class, you must also respect others and their opinions.
Courtesy will allow each person to have the opportunity
to express his or her ideas in a comfortable environment.
• Courtesy includes but is not limited to politely listening
to others when they contribute to class discussions, not
slamming the classroom door if you do arrive late, and
maintaining a positive learning environment for your
fellow classmates. To help maintain a positive learning
environment, please focus on the work assigned, put
away your cell phones and iPods before class, and do not
text-message in class. If your behavior becomes
disruptive to the learning environment of the class, you
may be asked to leave and/or be marked absent.

13. Academic Dishonesty:
Plagiarism includes quoting or
paraphrasing material without
documentation and copying from
other students or professionals.
Intentional plagiarism is a grave
offense; the resulting response will
be distasteful. Depending upon the
severity, instances of plagiarism may
result in a failing grade for the paper
or the course and possible
administrative action. All
assignments will be scanned and
scrutinized for academic dishonesty.
Please refer to your handbook for
more information regarding
plagiarism.

14. The
Syllabus

15. Syllabus
• The syllabus is a tentative schedule.
• It may be revised during the quarter.
• Use it to determine how to prepare for class.
Week, Dates, and Days
 
What we will
do 
in class

Homework due
before the next
class  

16. Website:
• Our class website is http:/palmoreelit48C2x.wordpress.com.
In order to do the homework, you must establish an account.
To make your own FREE Word Press account, go to
wordpress.com. The system will walk you through the steps
to signup for a username or to set up your own user-friendly
Word Press blog. Alternatively, you can sign into our website
through Facebook. There are also detailed directions
available on the website under “Create Account.”
• If you prefer not to use your own name, you may use a
pseudonym. Please email me your username if it is
significantly different from your real name.
• If you cannot establish your website and username, please
come to my office hours as soon as possible, and I will help
you with the process. Much of our work will take place
online, so establishing this connection is mandatory.

17. • Writing Assignments
• Reading Assignments
• The Green Sheet
• The Syllabus (The Daily Plan)
• Writing Tips
• Helpful Links
• Your Daily Homework Assignment
(which is where you post your
homework.)

18. Posting Homework
• On the front page of the website, you will find the
homework post after each class.
• Below that post on the right, are the words “Leave a
comment.”
• Copy and paste your homework into the box.
• Click there and a comment box will open. Post your
homework in the comment box and click “Post
Comment.”

19. Homework
There is writing homework almost
everyday in this class. This is both
to help you think about your
reading and to help you produce
ideas for your essays.
In order to earn an A on your
homework, you must do the
following:
• Complete all of the posts.
• Post them on time.
• Be thoughtful in your responses.

20. Is this
class too
hard?
Is this class
History 10?
Will I be the
teacher’s favorite?

21. American Literature
1914–1945
An Introduction

22. HISTORICAL EVENTS
THAT TOOK PLACE
BETWEEN THE WARS

23. • The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1920)
– American women’s efforts to win the right to vote were “given a final push
by women’s work as nurses and ambulance drivers during the war”
(NAAL 4).
• The Immigration Act of 1924
– “prohibited all Asian immigration and set quotas for other countries on
the basis of their existing U.S. immigrant populations, intending thereby
to control the ethnic makeup of the United States” (NAAL 4).
• The Great Migration (c. 1910–1930)
– the American landscape was transformed by the internal migration of
two million African Americans from the rural South to urban centers in the
Northeast, West, and Midwest
The Two Wars as Historical Markers
During the period of literary history that falls between 1914 (the
beginning of World War I) and 1945 (the end of World War II), the
United States grew and changed in radical ways.

24. The Two Wars as Historical Markers
• The first Red scare (1919–1920)
– Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the birth of the Soviet Union,
American leftists looked to socialism and communism as models for the
labor movement in the United States. Many Americans were intensely
suspicious of European-style socialism, and the first Red scare of the
twentieth century took place during this time, a generation earlier than the
McCarthyism that took hold following World War II.
• The stock market crash (1929)
– The stock market crash of 1929 and the decade-long Great Depression
that followed it were also events both international and domestic in scope
• The Great Depression (c. 1929–1939)
– Unemployment in the United States reached a high of twenty-five percent
during the Depression years, international trade dropped off by fifty
percent.

25. ASPECTS OF LITERARY
MODERNISM

26. Literary modernism
– tradition vs. innovation:
• “One conflict centered on the uses of literary tradition. To some, a
work registering its allegiance to literary history—through allusion to
canonical works of the past or by using traditional poetic forms and
poetic language—seemed imitative and old-fashioned. To others, a
work failing to honor literary tradition was bad or incompetent writing”
(NAAL 6).
“The two wars . . . bracket a period during which the United
States became a fully modern nation” (NAAL 6).
The aspects of social and political modernity that are laid
out in the previous slides have their counterpart in literary modernism,
which is better defined as a series of conflicts rather than as a
homogeneous set of characteristics.

27. Literary modernism
– serious vs. popular literature:
• “A related conflict involved the place of popular culture in
serious literature. Throughout the era, popular culture gained
momentum and influence. Some writers regarded it as crucial
for the future of literature that popular forms, such as film
and jazz, be embraced; to others, serious literature by
definition had to reject what they saw as the cynical
commercialism of popular culture” (NAAL 6).
– politics vs. aesthetics
• “Another issue was the question of how far literature should
engage itself in political and social struggle. Should art be a
domain unto itself, exploring aesthetic questions and
enunciating transcendent truths, or should art participate in
the politics of the times?” (NAAL 6).

28. RADICAL SOCIAL
CHANGES THAT TOOK
PLACE DURING THE
INTERWAR PERIOD.

29. Changing Times: Thomas Hart Benton’s 1931 painting
City Activities with Subway reflects the radical social
changes that took place during the interwar period.

30. Changing Times: The Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution officially
gave women the right to vote. Unofficially, the amendment also opened up
new arenas for women to explore—politically, sexually, artistically, and socially.
Suffragists Audre Osborne and Mrs. James Stevens.

31. Changing Times: These two women illustrate the era's penchant for both fun
and recklessness by doing the Charleston on a rooftop ledge. Their playful
posturing also reflects the risks that women were taking in an era of greater
opportunity.
December 11, 1926, Chicago, Illinois.

32. Changing Times: The increasing mainstream popularity of African American
artists, writers, and performers in cities like Chicago and New York during the
interwar period is a complex phenomenon to account for, stemming from a
movement toward racial equality on the one hand and an escalation in racially
motivated violence that contributed to the Great Migration of two million
African Americans from the South on the other.
An audience at Harlem's Cotton Club, a popular nightclub, watches a
performance. April 18, 1934.

33. Changing Times: “Class inequality, as well as American racial divisions,
continued to generate intellectual and artistic debate in the interwar years.
The nineteenth-century United States had been host to many radical
movements—labor activism, utopianism, socialism, anarchism—inspired by
diverse sources. In the twentieth century, especially following the rise of the
Soviet Union, the American left increasingly drew its intellectual and political
program from the Marxist tradition” (NAAL 8).
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, The
Bement Miles Pond
Company. A general view
of the plant and some of
its workers.

34. Changing Times: The
Industrial Workers of the
World attracted working-
class men and women
frustrated with low wages
and long hours. It also
attracted writers, artists, and
intellectuals who were
sympathetic to socialist
movements across the
world.

35. Changing Times: Gastonia, North Carolina,
April 5, 1929.
This photo shows a group of female
textile strikers attempting to disarm a
National Guard trooper, who had
been ordered to the Loray Mills in an
effort to stop the serious rioting that
took place following the strike.
As evidenced in this photograph,
labor struggles often turned violent,
with strikebreakers (both military and
civilian) brought in to end labor
protests and return disgruntled
workers to their jobs.

36. Science and
Technology
“Technology played a vital,
although often invisible, role in
all these events, because it
linked places and spaces,
contributing to the shaping of
culture as a national
phenomenon rather than a
series of local manifestations . . .
The most powerful
technological innovation [was]
the automobile (NAAL 10).
Ford Adds to Your Pleasure. Poster
ca. 1920.

37. • Automobiles put Americans on the road, dramatically reshaped
the structure of American industry and occupations, and altered
the national topography as well. Along with work in automobile
factories themselves, millions of other jobs— in steel mills, parts
factories, highway construction and maintenance, gas stations,
machine shops, roadside restaurants, motels—depended on the
industry”
• The road itself became—and has remained—a key powerful
symbol of the United States and of modernity as well. Cities grew,
suburbs came into being, small towns died, new towns arose
according to the placement of highways, which rapidly
supplanted the railroad in shaping the patterns of twentieth-
century American urban expansion. The United States had
become a nation of migrants as much as or more than it was a
nation of immigrants” (NAAL 10).

38. The 1930s
Brokers line up to throw themselves out of the window
after the stock market crash of October 1929.
Contemporary American cartoon.
One of the defining features of
the interwar period is the stock
market crash of 1929 and the
resulting depression. “The
suicides of millionaire bankers
and stockbrokers”—parodied in
this cartoon—“made the
headlines, but more compelling
was the enormous toll among
ordinary people who lost homes,
jobs, farms, and life savings in the
stock market crash.
Conservatives advised waiting
until things got better; radicals
espoused immediate social
revolution” (NAAL 11).

39. The 1930s November 16, 1930,
Chicago. Notorious
gangster Al Capone
attempts to help
unemployed men with
his soup kitchen “Big
Al's Kitchen for the
Needy.” The kitchen
provides three meals a
day consisting of soup
with meat, bread,
coffee, and doughnuts,
feeding about 3,500
people daily at a cost of
$300 per day.

40. The 1930s
A man walks past
a farmhouse in a
dust storm at the
height of the Dust
Bowl. Ca. 1937.

41. The 1930s
Migrant family
walking on the
highway from
Idabel, Oklahoma
to Krebs,
Oklahoma. Photo
by Dorothea Lange,
1938.

42. THE QHQ
Thinking about writing

43. How do I know what I think until I see what I say?
--E.M. Forster
Each text we study will provide material for response writing called a
QHQ (Question-Hypothesis-Question). The QHQ requires students to
have second thoughts, that is, to think again about questions that
arise during their reading and to write about questions that are
meaningful to them.
Begin your QHQ by formulating some question you have about some
aspect of the reading. The first question in the QHQ may be one
sentence or longer, but its function is to frame your QHQ writing. A
student might start with a question like, “Why is the house in this
story haunted? Or, “Why do I suspect the murdered child has come
back to life?” A student might even write, “Why am I having so much
trouble understanding this story?”

44. After you pose your initial question, focus on a close reading of the
text in search of a hypothesis. This hypothesis section comprises the
body of your text. The student who asked about the haunted house
might refer to multiple passages about haunting in the text,
comparing and contrasting them to other instances of haunting with
which he or she is familiar. The student who asked about the dead
child might connect passages associated with the death to sections
about a new child who abruptly appears in the text. The student who
struggled to understand the text might explore those passages whose
meanings were obscure or difficult to understand, connecting them
to other novels and/or cultural texts.
After carefully exploring your initial question (200-300 words), put
forward another question, one that has sprung from your hypothesis.
This will be the final sentence of your QHQ and will provide a base
for further reflection into the text.

45. The QHQ is designed to help you formulate your response to the texts
we study into clearly defined questions and hypotheses that can be
used as a basis for both class discussion and longer papers. The QHQ
can be relatively informal but should demonstrate a thoughtful
approach to the material. While the papers need to be organized and
coherent, because you will sharing them in class, the ideas they
present may be preliminary and exploratory.
Remember, a QHQ is not a summary or a report—it is an original,
thoughtful response to what you have read. All QHQs should be
posted on the website the evening before the class for which they are
due. This will give both me and other students time to ponder your
ideas and think about appropriate responses. Moreover, this sharing
of material should provide plenty of fodder for essays. Even though
you have posted your QHQ, you should bring a copy of it to class in
order to share your thoughts and insights and to stimulate class
discussion.

46. Homework
• Establish your username and explore
the class webpage
• Buy Your books
• Read The Norton introduction: pp. 3-22
• Read “Modernist Manifestos” pp. 335-350
– (Both are available on the website)
• Post #1: QHQ from one of these writer’s
manifestos:
Marinetti Loy
Pound Cather
Williams Hughes