American Literature: Romanticism final exam assignment Sample Final Exams 2013

Meryl Bazaman

Organizational Lessons for a Prospective Educator

When I made the decision to reenter graduate school in 2010, I did so with the goal of obtaining the necessary degree that would allow me to work as an educator in higher education. However, now that I have met my objectives and am on the precipice of receiving said degree, I have found myself facing yet another complication – how do I organize an American Literature class if I am fortunate enough to be selected to teach an American Literature course? Based on Dr. White’s Seminar in American Literature (Romanticism Course), I have discovered that a course can be organized based on style, a method versatile enough to allow for rigid categorization but also flexible enough for me to demonstrate interconnections and stylistic enmeshment. Furthermore, I believe this combination of categorized knowledge and interconnections allows access to base and advanced tiers of knowledge based on Bloom’s taxonomy.  

            Yet, what were my immediate impressions as a student? Initially, as one unfamiliar with romanticism, I appreciated how style was categorized in terms of standard themes found in romanticism. Understanding romanticism most likely dealt with the following stylistic themes, “gestures, elements, and meanings of individualism, sentimental love of nature, feeling or emotion more important than logic or experience, nostalgia, utopian thought, escapism, and the quest for something greater…” (White) allowed me not only to define romanticism but use that definition to frame and organize my own textual readings. As I read works ranging from Emerson, Irving, Thoreau, to Cooper, not only was I able to find examples of romanticism; I was able to challenge those definitions based on my own analysis. Knowing how effective a definition can be for understanding and application as a student, I hope to provide this stylistic compartmentalization and categorization as an instructor.   

     Furthermore, I appreciated how categorizations of romanticism were taught as not only distinctively visible but also as intermingling with other styles such as realism and modernism. When discussing works such as Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, I found it particularly helpful to see how romanticism and realism could be derived from the same local color work. That despite Faulkner’s use of nostalgia, a concept often relevant for defining romanticism; Faulkner could also delve into realist themes of industrialization and urbanization in the same work. This allowed me to synthesize information that moved beyond basic understanding and comprehension. By learning about interconnections as a student, I was able to form deeper connections to the material that incorporated more terminology and forced me to employ more creative synthesis of the works. As an instructor, I would like to facilitate this form of teaching interconnections as a means of showing how defined relationships can be expanded upon in logical ways and also how these interconnections can be facilitated across course content.

            Stylistic organization provides me, a prospective educator, with a tentative framework for organizing a course. By employing style as something that can be both categorized and interconnected, the course organization offers  what I believe to be a great deal of structure and malleability. It offers possibilities for not only obtaining surface knowledge but that moves beyond the bottom levels of Bloom’s taxonomy and into higher levels such as synthesis and analysis.