American Literature / Unit 18 AML 1746 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Placing a Contemporary Work by Its Concerns
The idea
The board rarely gives you a date for a contemporary passage, so place it by its concerns instead. If the subject is the legacy of slavery reaching into a present household, with the supernatural treated as ordinary, look to Morrison first. If two generations argue across a language the older one still thinks in, look to the immigrant writers, Kingston and Tan for Chinese America, Lahiri for Bengali America, Li-Young Lee in verse. If the land carries a ritual the plot is built on, and the loss named is a traditional life based in nature, look to Momaday, Silko or Erdrich. If a border is both a place and a legal status, look to Mora, Cisneros or Anaya. If a war is being remembered rather than fought, look to O'Brien in prose and Komunyakaa in verse. If a system is larger than anyone in it and nobody can see its whole shape, look to DeLillo.
In practice
Six concerns, six shelves to reach for.
Where people slip
These are starting points, not identifications. Several writers work more than one of these concerns, and a passage can belong to none of the six.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it