Reading Assignments

 Week Two Freedom and Responsibility

The Mayflower Compact

The Limits of Freedom, Roger Williams

Declaration of Independence

Four Freedoms, Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving

 Week Three Immigration and Assimilation

My Dead Brother Comes to America, Alexander Godin

Letters from Irish Immigrants

Alien and Sedition Acts

Week Four Family and Home

Everyday Use, Alice Walker

Separating, John Updike

Week Five Democracy and Justice

Preamble to U.S. Constitution

The Bill of Rights

Thomas Jefferson's 1st Inaugural Address

John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address

Democracy, E.B. White

A Jury of Her Peers, Susan Glaspell

Week Six Equality and Opportunity

Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Chapter 1

How It Feels to Be Colored Me, Zora Neale Hurston

Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln

Incident, Countee Cullen

I Too, Langston Hughes

I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King

Week Seven Ambition and Success

Standard of Living, Dorothy Parker

Richard Cory, Edwin Arlington Robinson

Buffalo Bill's, e.e. cummings

                                    
Week Eight Courage and Patriotism

Common Sense, Thomas Paine

The Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln

Editha, William Dean Howells

The Body of an American, John Dos Passos

My Sweet Old Etcetera, e.e. cummings

                                     
Week Nine Land and Progress

Neighbor Rosicky, Willa Cather

The Gift Outright, Robert Frost

Frontier Thesis (excerpt), Frederick Jackson Turner

                                     
Week Ten Liberation and Sexuality

May I Feel ?, e.e.cummings

I Too Beneath Your Moon, Edna St. Vincent Millay

Letters from the Earth (excerpt), Mark Twain

The Storm, Kate Chopin

Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx

                                     
Week Eleven Mobility, Rebellion and Independence

I Sing of Olaf, e.e. cummings