Jan Zlotnik Schmidt, a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, who earned her BA from the University of Rochester in 1969, her MA from the University of Wisconsin in 1970, and her PhD from Syracuse University in 1977, teaches courses in composition, autobiography, creative writing, American literature, women's literature, and Holocaust studies. Her poetry has been published in many journals, including KANSAS QUARTERLY, CREAM CITY REVIEW, SYRACUSE SCHOLAR, ALASKA QUARTERLY REVIEW, HOME PLANET NEWS, and PHOEBE. She has published two volumes of poetry--WE SPEAK IN TONGUES (the Edwin Mellen Press, 1991) and SHE HAD THIS MEMORY (the Edwin Mellen Press, 2000)--and two collections of… autobiographical essays--WOMEN/WRITING/TEACHING (SUNY Press, 1998) and WISE WOMEN: REFLECTIONS OF TEACHERS AT MIDLIFE, co-authored with Dr. Phyllis R. Freeman (Routledge, 2000).
Part I: ACTS OF INTERPRETATION. 1. Critical Thinking and Critical Analysis of Literature. The Critical Thinking Process. The Critical Thinking?Critical Reading Connection. Critical Analysis of Literature: A Classroom Experience. 2. The Reading Process. Reader Response. The Reading / Writing Connection. Some Final Considerations About the Reading Process. 3. The Writing Process: Writing the Essay About Literature. Interrelated Stages of Writing. The Writing Process: An Example. Special Requirements for Writing About Literature. Forms of the Essay About Literature. Summary. Part II: THEMATIC ANTHOLOGY. 4. Initiation and Identity. Thematic Preview: Combing the Genres. Luisa Valenzuela, The… Verb to Kill. Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? Margaret Atwood, Game After Supper. William S. Kowinski, Kids in the Mall. FICTION. Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron. William Faulkner, Barn Burning. Liliana Heker, The Stolen Party. Barbara Kingsolver, Rose-Johnny. Flannery O''Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find. Raymond Carver, Cathedral. POETRY. Diane Wakoski, Wind Secrets. Countee Cullen, Incident. Lorna Dee Cervantes, Uncle''s First Rabbit. Walt Whitman, Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking. Robert Frost, Birches. Gary Soto, Black Hair. Oranges. Rita Dove, Adolescence I, II, III. Nikki Giovanni, Ego Tripping. Sandra Cisneros, My Name and The Monkey Garden from The House on Mango Street. Cathy Song, Lost Sister. Louise Erdrich, Indian Boarding School: The Runaways. Janice Mirikitani, Suicide Note. POEMS FOR FURTHER READING. John Milton, When I consider how my light is spent. Walt Whitman, There Was a Child Went Forth. Emily Dickinson, My Life Had Stood?. Dylan Thomas, Fern Hill. Greg Delanty, Leavetaking. DRAMA. William Shakespeare, Hamlet. NONFICTION. David Elkind, Our Hurried Children. Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail. Staci Ferris, Response to Greg Delanty''s Leavetaking. Joella Knapp, The Spiritual Evolution of Literary Characters. 5. Family. Thematic Preview: Combining the Genres. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Rappaccini''s Daughter. Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays. John Millington Synge, Riders to the Sea. Bell hooks, chapters 49, 50, and 51 from bone black. FICTION. Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing. Junot Diaz, Fiesta 1980. James Baldwin, Sonny''s Blues. Sherman Alexie, This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona. Amy Tan, "Scar" from The Joy Luck Club. POETRY. Ben Johnson, On My First Son. Amiri Baraka, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note. W.D. Snodgrass, Heart''s Needle. Martin Espada, The Sign in My Father''s Hands. Sylvia Plath, Daddy. Simon Ortiz, My Father''s Song. Li-Young Lee, Persimmons. Seamus Heaney, Digging. Audre Lorde, The House of Yemanja. Lyn Lifshin, My Mother and the Bed. Jamaica Kincaid, Girl. Anne Sexton, My Little Girl, My Stringbean, My Lovely Woman. Pat Mora, Elena. Maxine Kumin, Making the Jam Without You. Margaret Walker, Lineage. Etheridge Knight, The Idea of Ancestor. POEMS FOR FURTHER READING. Anonymous, Lord Randal. Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband. William Wordsworth, The Sailor''s Mother. Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, The Slave Mother. D.H. Lawrence, Piano. Harold A. Zlotnik, Odyssey. DRAMA. Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun. NONFICTION Gloria Steinem, Ruth''s Song. Edwidge Danticat, Krik? Krak! Melissa Del Castillo & Michelle Ing, Fathers and Sons. Anne Cilia, Sylvia Plath''s "Daddy" and an Analysis of Poetic Language. 6. Love. Thematic Preview: Combining the Genres. Leslie Marmon Silko, Yellow Woman. William Shakespeare, Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer''s Day? Wakako Yamauchi, And the Soul Shall Dance. Virginia Woolf, Professions for Women. FICTION. Anton Chekhov, Lady with Lapdog. Njabulo S. Ndebele, Death of a Son. Ernest Hemingway, Hills Like White Elephants. James Joyce, Eveline. Bobbie Ann Mason, Shiloh. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper. D.H. Lawrence, Tickets, Please. Octavio Paz, My Life with the Wave. Alberto Moravia, The Chase. Katherine