While this course is typically taught to grade 11 or 12, all high school students who are prepared to read adult literature and write analytical essays are welcome. If students would like to take the College Board's AP English Literature exam in May,  I will review the specific exam structure and strategies needed to succeed on the test. All the literature assigned in this course will help students with a variety of advanced literature courses commonly taught in public and private school, including the College Board's AP program and IB (International Baccalaureate), but at the same time applicable to literature as it lives in the world outside of academic spaces. What's different in my approach is that I do not teach from a strict formalist perspective, instead introducing students to multiple ways in which any text can be read.   

This course will consist of 4 unit: Modern and Contemporary Short Story; Ancient and Medieval World Literature; American and Chinese Poetry;  and Drama. Throughout the entire course, students will complete writing assignments, practicing both academic and non-academic writing in a way that suits their style. The readings will be broad in scope, including literature from different genres, time periods, and places around the world. In their readings, students will learn the elements of fiction used to construct fiction, understanding how to analyze, criticize, and write about fiction. In our live session, I will model analysi and interpretations of the works, giving students ideas that can elaborated upon in their writing. I will ask open-ended questions to provoke thinking about the literature. 

For their writing assignments, I will work one-on-one with students out of classtime. For each work or unit, I will post a study guide containing both what to focus on while reading and possible discussion and writing prompts. Students will  have the option of sharing their work to a electronic literary journal to be a collective collection of my students' writing and multi-media projects.  

Unit 1 - Short Stories - (weeks 1-3): Students will read a selection of short stories from western authors and examine point of view, plot, characterization, setting, symbolism, theme, style, tone, irony, and understanding the difference between reliable and unreliable narrative perspective. Students will understand how to think like a literary critic, understand the different types of criticism  and defend their own interpretations. Students will write one essay comparing two short stories. 

Unit 2 - World Literature - (weeks 4-6): Students will compare two examples of world literature, pre-1600, choosing from: The Odyssey (Classical Greece), The Tale of Genji (Medieval Japan), Sundiata (Medieval Africa), and other pre-modern world classics, understanding how we learn about diverse cultural traditions through their literature. These selections as a whole also open up the differences and, more importantly, the similarities, between literary traditions and ways of life around the world. Students will work on a shared document with short answer questions and visual art related to the texts. 

Unit 3 - Poetry - (weeks 7-9): Students will read a selection of poems in the traditions of the East, specifically poetry of China during the Tang Dynasty, and the West, understanding the cultural values reflected in the works and the formal elements of word order (syntax), images, patterns of rhyme, and the differences between free and structured verse. Students will have a choice of either composing an original poem in the genre of their choice or writing of analysis of any two poems of their choice. 

Unit 4 - Drama - (week 10-12): Students will study a full play from either the early modern (Shakespeare) or modern era (Ibsen). Unlike in most fiction, drama generally does not have a narrator. That means we much interpret the literature without the guiding voice that narrators sometimes provide. However, in drama we also have to consider elements such as the setting of the theatre, the costumes, the sets, and other visual elements that add meanings to the written texts, with those elements always open to interpretation by different artists.  

It will be expected that students will have done the assigned readings before coming to class, prepared to engage in class discussions. I will assign critical thinking questions that will prepare students for the topics to be discussed in class and to guide their readings.  

Fall '21 Reading List (anything not in the Bedford text will be provided from open access sources)

Week 1 - Introduction:
Introduction to understanding context, themes, and elements of fiction
Read aloud and analyze Ms. Carta's short story, The Important Man

Week 2 - Short Stories:
Joyce Carol Oates - Three Girls
David Updike - Summer

Week 3 - Short Stories: 
Ralph Ellison - Battle Royal
Anton Chekhov - The Lady with the Pet Dog

Week 4 - World Literature
The Epic of Gilgamesh   

Week 5 - World Literature
The Tale of Genji 

Week 6 - World Literature
The theme of Exile in Gilgamesh and The Tale of Genji 

Week 7 - Poetry 
The Tang (China) poets and a study of the couplet form

Week 8 - Poetry
Post-colonial poets:
William Butler Yeats 
Chinua Achebe 
Koleka Putuma
 
Week 9 - Poetry
Renaissance and Early Modern Sonnets  

Week 10-12
(Students will decide on either Shakespeare play in the text, A Midsummer Night's Dream or Hamlet, or Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House.)