American Literature Course Overview

Unit 1: Beginnings
Two weeks for classes that meet 90-minutes daily; one month for classes that meet 50-minutes daily.

Lesson 1 - Introducing Origin Myths of Native American Literature, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 2 - Virtual Museum Indians by Susan Power, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 3 - Explorer's Logs, three 90-minute class periods or six 50-minute class periods

• From The Diario of Christopher Columbus's First Voyage to America
• From A Description of New England by John Smith

Lesson 4 - Cultural Comparison/Contrast with A Key into the Language of America and from The Bloody Tenet of Persecution by Roger Williams, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods.
 

Lesson 5 - Argumentation and Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God by Jonathan Edwards, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 6 - Unmasking Textual Analysis in The Minister's Black Veil by Nathaniel Hawthorne, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 7 - Pop Music and the Poetry of Anne Bradstreet, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Unit 2: The Crucible
Two weeks for classes that meet daily for 90-minutes; one month for classes that meet 50-minutes daily.

Lesson 1 - Overview, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 2- Act I, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

Lesson 3 - Act II, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

Lesson 4- Act III, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

Lesson 5- Act IV, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

Lesson 6 - "Reporting on the Crucible," ten 90-minute class or twenty 50-minute class periods (can be done during the reading of the text)

Unit 3: Revolution and Expansion
Two weeks for classes that meet daily for 90-minutes; one month for classes that meet 50-minutes daily.

Lesson 1 - Socratic Seminar with From Two Treatises on Government by John Locke; two 90-minute class periods or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 2- The Power of Propaganda, from Common Sense and The Crisis, No. 1 by Thomas Paine; three 90-minute class periods or six 50-minute class periods

Lesson 3 - Playing the Devil's Advocate with The Declaration of Independence, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 4 - Found Poetry with Phillis Wheatley and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; one 90-minute class period or one 50-minute class period.

Lesson 5 - Reader's Response to excerpts from The Journals of Lewis and Clark (online); one to two 90-minute class periods or two to three 50-minute class periods

Lesson 6 - Heading West by Miriam Davis Colt, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods.

Lesson 7 - Mixing Media with Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Unit 4: A Growing Nation
Four weeks for classes that meet 90-minutes a day; eight weeks for classes that meet 50-minutes a day.

Lesson 1 - Building Suspense with The Fall of the House of Usher and The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

Lesson 2 - Storyboarding An Episode of War by Stephen Crane, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 3 - Changing Point of View in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce; one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 4 - Thematic Connections in Transcendental Literature; five 90-minute class periods or ten 50-minute class periods

• From Nature and Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau
• "Song of Myself," "I Hear America Singing" and from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
• "Success is counted sweetest," "There's a certain Slant of light" "I heard a Fly buzz-when I died," and "Because I could not stop for Death" by Emily Dickinson
• "Psalm 123" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• "The Road Not Taken," "Birches," "Fire and Ice," "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost

Lesson 5 - The Transcendentalism Multi-Genre Project, ten 90-minute class periods, fifteen 50-minute class periods

Unit 5: The New Century
Four weeks for classes that meet 90-minutes a day; eight weeks for classes that meet 50-minutes daily.

Lesson 1 - Reflections on the Ellis Island Immigration Experience; one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 2 - Imagining the Rise of Cities; one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

• From Here is New York by E.B. White
• "Chicago" by Carl Sandburg

Lesson 3 - Argumentative Speeches and Women's Fight for Equality, three 90-minute class periods or six 50-minute class periods

• Speech to Woman's Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio by Sojourner Truth

Lesson 4 - Writing World War I Letters, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

• "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot
• "In Another Country" by Ernest Hemingway

Lesson 5 - Speaking Out Against No Fear and The Great Depression, two 90-minute class period or four 50-minute class periods

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Inaugural Address

Lesson 6 - The Elements of Modernist Poetry, two 90-minute class periods

• "In a Station of the Metro," and "The River Merchant's Wife" by Ezra Pound
• "anyone lived in a pretty how town" by e.e. cummings
• "The Red Wheelbarrow" and "This Is Just to Say" by William Carlos Williams
• others found by students

The Poetry Project, ten 90-minute class periods (if done during class) or 20 50-minute class periods
 

Unit 6: Post War America
Four weeks for for classes that meet 90-minutes a day, eight weeks for classes that meet for 50-minutes a day

Lesson 1: In Cold Blood By Truman Capote, The First Non-Fiction Novel, Introduction, one 90-minute class period or two 50-minute class periods

Lesson 2: Part I, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

Lesson 3: Part II, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

Lesson 4: Part III, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

Lesson 5: Part IV, two 90-minute class periods or four 50-minute class periods

Lesson 6: Introducing the Great American I-Search Paper, one 90-minute class or two 50-minute classes

(In Cold Blood and The Great American I-Search will overlap)

Final Project: The Great American I-Search Paper, two weeks for classes that meet for 90-minutes and up to a month for classes that meet for 50-minutes, depending on how much work is done in class