This past Memorial Day weekend, I had the pleasure of participating in the Society for Contemporary Literature Teaching Roundtable at the American Literature Association conference in Washington, D.C. The presentations given by my four co-panelists were simply fantastic, and we were lucky enough to be joined by a room full of people who offered up some great questions and conversation. (I’d guess there were at least 30 people in the room, which meant that some folks were standing in the back because there simply weren’t enough seats.) I’ve already received a few e-mails asking for digital copies of my handout, so I wanted to go ahead and post some documents on the site here for anyone else interested.
Here’s a .PDF version of the PPT presentation I used on Friday:
And here’s a .PDF version of my handout: SCL Presentation Handout & Booklist
Finally, I’m including my full course syllabus and three assignment sheets (.PDF) that might be of interest to anyone thinking about teaching a similar course in the future:
- Introduction to Literature Course Syllabus
- Cultural Impact Presentation (CIP) Assignment Sheet
- Close-Reading Analysis (CRA) Essay Assignment Sheet
- Research-Based Argument (RBA) Essay Assignment Sheet
After seeing the positive response to this weekend’s roundtable, I’m excited about the potential for expanded offerings of contemporary literature courses at institutions across the country. And as always, I’m happy to answer questions about my own experiences working with texts published in the 2010s. Just let me know.
tom jesse 