New Course Announcement
American Literature
The new Acellus® American Literature course explores the evolution of U.S. literature from early rhetoric to modernism, covering key literary movements, influential works, and essential writing skills.
Course Overview
The Acellus American Literature course offers a comprehensive exploration of the diverse literary landscape of the United States, from early foundations to modernist movements of the 20th century. Students will delve into rhetorical strategies in early American documents, analyzing works like Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” the Declaration of Independence, and Benjamin Franklin’s “Speech in the Convention.” They will study narrative and poetic elements in Romantic and Transcendentalist literature through influential works by Booker T. Washington, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau.
The course introduces Gothic literature and stream-of-consciousness writing with a focus on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” It also covers literature that spurred social reform, including speeches and writings by Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Langston Hughes.
Additionally, students explore regionalism and realism through works by Mark Twain, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Carl Sandburg, and the modernist movement through T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage,” Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” and stories by Kate Chopin and Ambrose Bierce.
This course explores important works of literature that have served to inspire americans throughout history.