Course Overview:
English III American Literature is designed to support students in developing proficiency in key reading, writing, and language skills. The instruction supports students’ mastery of the Common Core ELA Standards and prepares students for success in future course, college, and the workplace.
This course emphasizes skills and strategies for independent close reading, analysis, and writing about a wide range of American literature texts. The course begins with an overview of effective reading and writing techniques that are applicable to all course materials and exercises. The characteristics of American literature – and why they are uniquely American - are discussed. The evolution of American literature is explained via an overview of the periods of American Literature.
As the course progresses, this first semester delves deeply into Native American literature, the Colonial Period, the Revolutionary Period, and Romanticism. Instruction in each standards-based unit of study integrates reading, writing, and language study while highlighting how literature reflects social, political, and moral issues during each period in the U.S.
Students have multiple opportunities to showcase what they learn throughout the course as they are encouraged to articulate their own ideas as well as to question, interpret, analyze, extend, and evaluate the ideas of others. The goal of instruction is to support students in acquiring critical knowledge while learning to become independent, strategic, and critical readers, effective writers, and skilled communicators.
Note: This course is not designed for ELL (English Language Learners) students. ELL students may enroll in this course ONLY if they have adequate mentor support at their home school and are able to fulfill all course requirements.
Prerequisites:
Syllabus:
Section 1 - Introduction and the Beginnings of American Literature
In this section, you will learn about the following objectives:
- Cite evidence from a text to support analysis.
- Determine theme and analyze its development over the course of the text.
- Write an objective summary.
- Cite resources.
- Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
- Plan, revise, edit, and rewrite as needed to convey a specific purpose for a specific audience.
- Establish a problem, situation, or observation and its significance with one or multiple point(s) of view, introduce a narrator and/or characters; create a smooth progression of experiences or events.
- Use various narrative techniques.
- Use precise words and phrases, telling details, and sensory language.
- Sequence events.
Lessons:
- How to Be Successful in this Course
- Introduction to American Literature
- Native American Literature
- Writer’s Tools and Storytelling Techniques
- The First American Bestseller
Section 2 - Colonial Period American Literature
In this section, you will learn about the following objectives:
- Consider how an author structures a text and how that impacts meaning.
- Vary sentence structure (syntax) for effect.
- Analyze nuances in the meaning of words with similar denotations.
- Use context clues to determine the meaning of a word or phrase.
- Consult reference materials to find the pronunciation of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning, part of speech, etymology, or standard usage.
- Interpret figures of speech.
- Understanding that usage is a matter of convention, can change over time, and is sometimes contested.
- Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary.
- Use a formal style and objective tone.
- Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to manage a complex topic.
- Develop the topic thoroughly with significant and relevant facts, extended definitions, details, quotations, and examples.
- Write arguments to support claims and develop claims and counterclaims fairly.
- Make strategic use of digital media.
Lessons:
- Colonial Literature
- Exploring Informational Texts via the Salem Witch Trials
- Comparing Texts
- Ben Franklin/Poor Richard’s Almanac
Section 3 - Revolutionary Period American Literature
In this section, you will learn about the following objectives:
- Analyze a case in which grasping a point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant.
- Analyze seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century foundational U.S. documents of historical and literary significance.
- Apply grades 11-12 Reading standards to literary nonfiction.
- Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question or solve a problem.
- Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately.
- Determine an author's point of view or purpose where the rhetoric is particularly effective.
- Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
- Write routinely over extended time frames.
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events.
Lessons:
- Introduction to Revolutionary Literature
- An Analysis of “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!”
- Introduction to Slavery in America
- Slavery in Historical Context
- Confronting Slavery in America
Section 4 - Romantic Period Literature
In this section, you will learn about the following objectives:
- Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts.
- Read and comprehend literature in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band.
- Introduce a topic; organize complex ideas, concepts, and information so that each new element builds on that which precedes it.
- Use formatting, graphics, and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
- Provide a concluding statement or section that follows from and supports the information or explanation presented.
- Demonstrate knowledge of eighteenth-, nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century foundational works of American literature.
- Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem.
- Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
- Use various narrative techniques to develop a story.
Lessons:
- Introduction to Romanticism
- Father of the American Short Story – Washington Irving
- Poe’s Literature
- Shakespeare’s Influence on Romantic Literature
- Civil War Literature (1861-1865)
