www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/clep/ex_al.html : Description of the Exam: Covers the equivalent of a two-semester survey course or equivalent 100 questions to be answered in 90 minutes Optional essay section two questions 90 minutes Knowledge and Skills Required: Knowledge of the content of particular literary works - their characters, plots, setting, themes, etc. 46%-60% Ability to understand and interpret short poems or excerpts from long poems and prose works presented in the test 25%-40% Knowledge of the historical and social settings of specific works, their authors and influences on them, and their relations to other literary works and to literary traditions 10%-15% Understanding the critical theories of American writers and of critical terms, verse forms, and literary devices 5% Colonial Period (1620-1830) 10%-15% Romantic Period (1830-1870) 25% Period of Realism and Naturalism (1870-1910) 25% Modernist Period (1910-1945) 25% Contemporary Period (1945 to Present) 10%-15% Study Resources: They recommend that you read at least one anthology. They also recommend that you familiarize yourself with Willa Cather, Kate Chopin, Steven Crane, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mark Twain, and Edith Wharton. Also recommended are Ellison and Wright.
Amazon.com Reading List for CLEP American Literature www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=CLEP+American+Literature&x=15&y=18 Ace The CLEP, CLEP American Literature American Literature CLEP Study Guide Laurie E. Rozakis, Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature Jack Rudman, American Literature: Examination Section Questions and Answers (College Level Examination Series/CLEP) Jack Rudman, CLEP American Literature (College Leval Exam. Ser.: Clep-3) Francis E. Skipp, American Literature (Barron's Ez-101 Study Keys) Sheryl Spencer, American Literature CLEP Study Guide
And Now For The Whole Ed Catalog Reading List American Literature http://home.earthlink.net/~hwatts/book/save.html/save1.html Louisa May Alcott, Short Stories Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio Edward Bellamy, Looking Backward Ambrose Bierce, Civil War Stories, Devil's Dictionary, and Moonlit Road & Other Ghost & Horror Stories Willa Cather, My Antonia, O Pioneers!, and Paul's Case & Other Short Stories Kate Chopin, The Awakening and A Pair of Silk Stockings & Other Stories Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and The Secret Sharer & Other Stories Steven Crane, The Little Regiment & Other Civil War Stories, The Open Boat & Other Stories, The Red Badge of Courage, and War Is Kind & Other Poems Theodore Dreiser, Short Stories F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Diamond As Big As the Ritz & Other Stories and This Side of Paradise Ben Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Mary E. W. Freeman, The Revolt of Mother & Other Stories Charlotte Gilman, Herland and The Yellow Wallpaper & Other Stories Great American Novels (5 Volumes) (Dover Thrift Edition), which includes Steven Crane's Red Badge of Courage, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Henry James, The Turn of the Screw, Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome Bret Harte, The Luck of Roaring Camp & Other Short Stories Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter and Young Goodman Brown & Other Short Stories Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of Pointed Firs Ring Lardner, You Know Me, All A. Lincoln, Great Speeches Jack London, Call of the Wild, Five Great Short Stories, Three Complete Books, and White Fang Thomas Mann, Death in Venice Edgar L. Masters, Spoon River Analogy Herman Melville, Bartleby and Benito Cereno O. Henry, The Gift of the Magi & Other Short Stories Edgar Allen Poe, The Gold Bug & Other Tales and Tales of Terror & Detection Gertrude Stein, Three Lives: Stories of the Good Anna, Melanctha, and the Gentle Lena Henry David Thoreau, Selections from the Journals Mark Twain, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Diary of Adam & Eve, Humorous Stories & Sketches, Mysterious Stranger & Other Stories, Tom Sawyer Abroad, and Tom Sawyer, Detective Candace Ward, Great American Short Stories by Women, which includes Louisa May Alcott, Transcendental Wild Oats, Djuna Barnes, Smoke, Willa Cather, Paul's Case Kate Chopin, The Storm, Rebecca Harding Davis, Life in the Iron Mills, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, The Stones of the Village, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, A New England Nun, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wall-Paper, Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers, Zora Neale Hurston, Sweat, Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron, Nella Larsen, Sanctuary, and Edith Wharton, The Angel at the Grave Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence, Ethan Frome, and Short Stories
A Few Old CLEP American Literature Threads http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2092 http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6888 http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7313 http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=13781 http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15795 http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15890 http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=17332 http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24523