"Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does."

Today we reviewed the vocabulary definitions, we discussed the excerpt from 1491, "Coming of Age in the Dawnland," by Charles C. Mann (p. 23 of Collections), and we began reading an address by James Baldwin, titled, "In Search of a Majority."

Read and annotate in your commonplace books the ideas in Baldwin's speech, an argumentative essay from the early 1960s. Tomorrow we'll discuss Baldwin's ideas, as well as the way he structures the piece to present his ideas.

Tomorrow we'll write on your summer reading. You'll need to quote from the text, so you may want to arrange to have a copy.

Don't forget to try your hand at a thematic claim for Cullen's "From the Dark Tower." If you need more exposure to Cullen's life and work, check on his pages on the Poetry Foundation website.

"What you are, I am. You are a man, and so am I.": an escaped slave to his master

Few American writers bring the moral authority and rhetorical power of Frederick Douglass. Read a letter Douglass wrote, on the anniversary of his self-emancipation, to his former master.

Today in Hamlit we reviewed the highlights of the syllabus.

For homework, please finish processing discussion material--quotes, questions, and an attempt at a thematic subject--on Frost's "Mending Wall" in your commonplace books.

"I question America."

How Fannie Lou Hamer, a Mississippi sharecropper, changed American electoral politics, in the Freedom Summer of 1964.

Welcome

Welcome to the website for Mr. Springer's Honors American Literature class at Oregon City High School.

Along with each day's agenda, check in here for links relevant to our work in class, as well as news and trivia related to the always lively subject of the American literary tradition.