American Literature II (Civil War to the Present)

Course Description

AML2020 – American Literature II is a 3-credit lecture-discussion course that surveys representative writings of American literature from the Civil War (~1865) through the modernist, postwar, and contemporary periods. Students read and analyze fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography, and essay across the realist, naturalist, modernist, Harlem Renaissance, postmodern, multicultural, and contemporary movements, situating each work within its historical, political, social, and cultural context.

The course sits within the Florida Statewide Course Numbering System (SCNS) under English > Literature > American Literature and is offered at approximately 29 Florida public institutions. It is a companion to AML2010 – American Literature I (colonial period through the Civil War), and the two courses together provide the standard American literary survey sequence.

AML2020 satisfies multiple Florida college requirements: it counts toward general education humanities, fulfills the Florida State Board of Education Rule 6A-10.030 ("Gordon Rule") writing requirement of 6,000 words, and articulates as a foundational course for English majors throughout the State University System. A grade of C or higher is required for the course to satisfy these requirements.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

Upon successful completion of AML2020, students will be able to:

• Read and interpret representative works of American literature from the post-Civil War era through the present.
• Identify and describe the defining characteristics, conventions, and themes of the major literary movements of the period: realism, naturalism, modernism, the Harlem Renaissance, postwar realism and confessional poetry, postmodernism, and contemporary multicultural writing.
• Analyze how American literary works engage with defining historical pressures of the era — Reconstruction, immigration, urbanization, industrialization, two World Wars, the Great Migration, the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the Vietnam War, the post-1965 immigration wave, and the digital age.
• Apply literary terminology (genre, voice, tone, image, metaphor, symbol, narrative, point of view, free indirect discourse, stream of consciousness) accurately in analytical writing.
• Distinguish among major genres and forms of the period — the realist and modernist novel, the modernist long poem, the short story, drama, the personal essay, the postmodern fragment.
• Compose analytical essays with clear theses, textual evidence, MLA documentation, and standard academic English — totaling at least 6,000 words across the term.
• Engage with secondary criticism at an introductory level.
• Participate in class discussion with informed, evidence-based contributions.

Optional Outcomes

Depending on instructor specialty and institutional emphasis, students may also:

• Engage in depth with African American literature across the period — from Charles Chesnutt and Paul Laurence Dunbar through the Harlem Renaissance, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and contemporary writers.
• Investigate Latino/a, Asian American, and Native American literatures, including writers such as Sandra Cisneros, Junot Díaz, Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, Louise Erdrich, and N. Scott Momaday.
• Examine regional literatures, particularly the literature of the American South (Faulkner, Welty, O'Connor, Walker) and the West.
• Apply specific literary-critical frameworks (formalism, historicism, feminist criticism, postcolonial criticism, queer theory).
• Investigate Florida and Southern literature specifically, including Zora Neale Hurston (Eatonville), Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (Cross Creek), and contemporary Florida-set fiction.
• Conduct independent literary research using library databases.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Realism and Regionalism (1865–1900): Mark Twain, Henry James, William Dean Howells, Sarah Orne Jewett, Kate Chopin, Charles Chesnutt; the rise of the American novel; local-color writing.
• Naturalism and the Turn of the Century (1890–1914): Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, Theodore Dreiser, Edith Wharton, Jack London; Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois.
• Modernism (1914–1945): The poetry of Robert Frost, T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams; modernist fiction (Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Cather, Steinbeck); modernist drama (O'Neill).
• The Harlem Renaissance (1918–1937): Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Countée Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen.
• Postwar and Mid-Century Literature (1945–1970): Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller; the confessional poets (Lowell, Plath, Sexton); the Beat Generation (Kerouac, Ginsberg).
• Late 20th and Early 21st Century (1970–present): Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, Louise Erdrich, Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Díaz, Cormac McCarthy, contemporary poets.
• Literary Form and Genre Across the Period: The short story; the novel (realist, modernist, postmodern); the lyric and the long poem; the personal essay; American drama.
• Critical Reading and Writing: Close reading; thesis development; argumentative essay structure; integrating textual evidence; MLA citation; revision.

Optional Topics

• Multicultural and Ethnic American Literatures: Sustained focus on African American, Latino/a, Asian American, or Native American writing.
• Southern Literature: Faulkner, O'Connor, Welty, Walker, Hurston, contemporary Southern writing.
• The Postmodern Novel: Pynchon, DeLillo, Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, the experimental tradition.
• Florida Writers Specifically: Zora Neale Hurston, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Carl Hiaasen, contemporary Floridian fiction.
• Major Author Study: A unit devoted to a single canonical author (Faulkner, Hemingway, Morrison, Hurston, etc.).
• Drama in American Literature: O'Neill, Williams, Miller, Hansberry, August Wilson.
• Contemporary Poetry: Recent and emerging poets, often including poets laureate.

Resources & Tools

• Most-adopted textbook: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volumes C, D, and E (W. W. Norton) — the dominant textbook across Florida institutions.
• Alternatives: The Heath Anthology of American Literature — known for broader inclusion of women writers and writers of color; The Bedford Anthology of American Literature; OpenStax-aligned open-access course packs increasingly common at Florida community colleges as zero-textbook-cost options.
• Style and writing references: The MLA Handbook (current edition); The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms; A Writer's Reference by Diana Hacker.
• Library and research tools: MLA International Bibliography, JSTOR, Project MUSE, the Oxford English Dictionary online — all available through Florida college library subscriptions.
• Open digital resources: The Modernist Journals Project; the Whitman Archive; the Faulkner Foundation digital resources; Poetry Foundation; the Academy of American Poets (poets.org); the Library of America publications.
• Florida regional collections: The Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities (Eatonville); the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park (Cross Creek); UF's George A. Smathers Libraries Special Collections.
• Writing support: Institution writing centers (typically free, walk-in or appointment); Purdue OWL for MLA documentation guidance.

Career Pathways

While AML2020 is a single survey course rather than a vocational program, its analytical, writing, and interpretive skills support these career pathways relevant to Florida's economy:

• K–12 English Teacher — pathway through Florida English Education BS degrees with subsequent state certification.
• Editor and Writer — Florida's publishing, journalism, communications, and corporate-content sectors.
• Lawyer — humanities preparation for law school.
• Librarian / Information Professional — pathway through MLIS programs (FSU, USF, UF).
• Communications and Public Relations Specialist — broad demand across Florida industries.
• Technical Writer — Florida's aerospace, healthcare, and software industries hire writers with strong analytical training.
• Higher Education and Research — pathway through MA and PhD programs.

Special Information

The Gordon Rule and Writing Requirements

AML2020 is designated under Florida State Board of Education Rule 6A-10.030 as a course requiring 6,000 words of writing for credit toward the writing requirement. A grade of C or higher is required for the course to count toward Gordon Rule satisfaction; a C-minus is not sufficient.

Articulation and Transfer

AML2020 articulates to all Florida SUS institutions and satisfies a 3-credit humanities general education requirement and the writing component of the AA degree. It is required or strongly recommended for the English major at most SUS English departments.

Period Boundary Variation

Florida institutions divide American literature differently between AML2010 and AML2020. The most common split is at the Civil War (~1865), but a few institutions extend AML2010 to "the late nineteenth century" or "to 1900," meaning realism's beginnings (Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, the early Henry James) may appear in AML2010 at one institution and AML2020 at another. Both courses can be taken in either order; AML2010 is not a prerequisite for AML2020.

Prerequisites

The standard prerequisite is ENC1101 (Composition I) with a minimum grade of C or test-score equivalent. Some institutions also recommend (but do not require) ENC1102. AML2010 is not required as a prerequisite.

Course Format and Workload

AML2020 is typically a lecture-discussion course meeting three hours per week. Expect 100–200 pages of reading per week, 4–6 analytical essays, possibly midterm and final exams, and active class participation. Modernist and postmodern works are particularly dense and reward careful re-reading.

Course Code Variations

Florida institutions title this course variously: "American Literature II," "American Literature: 1865 to the Present," "American Literature 1900–Present," and "Late American Literature: The Civil War to the Present" all refer to the same SCNS course.