英文 3：美國文學與作文 B 學期

In this 16-week self-paced (asynchronous) class, students will do the second half of American Literature and Composition where we will learn how to analyze fiction and read novels, short stories, nonfiction, and plays, and write short stories, plays, and essays on related topics. If students are taking the class for an academic grade, they should plan on spending several hours a week on the class for the lessons, homework, projects, and reading. 

This class can be used as a core English/Literature/Language Arts/ELA course for 10th or 11th grade (US standards). For non US-students, please contact me and I can send you the standards to see if it will suit your high school/secondary school year 10, 11, or 12 student's needs.  

Students do NOT need to take Semester A to take Semester B.

There are NO live meetings for this course. Multiple posts will be made to the classroom each week which will include: video lessons on the text and language arts/grammar lessons, discussion questions related to the reading that week, homework post which will include the reading and worksheet/writing/creative project assignment, and question/answer posts regarding language arts, vocabulary, and grammar. 

The class will be broken up into units related to the main text read and lessons will relate to the text and/or English Language Arts concepts. Each week there will also be a vocabulary, grammar, and/or literary term lesson posted separately from the unit's lessons.

Unit 1 - The House on Mango Street 
Students will read the short novel THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET by Sandra Cisneros and watch the film REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES (2002). Students will learn about how to identify themes, literary devices such as symbolism and metaphors, storytelling structure, cultural identity, analyze characters and quotes, and compare and contrast two different texts with similar cultural stories. Students will learn/review MLA format for essays and write an essay as the final project. Students will also pick a fiction or creative nonfiction text (a list of possible titles will be provided) to read on their own throughout the course which will conclude with a creative and written final project by the end of the course. 

Unit 2 - The Joy Luck Club 
In this unit, students will read THE JOY LUCK CLUB by Amy Tan and watch the film adapted from the novel. Students will learn about how to identify themes, the importance of titles, Chinese beliefs and culture, multi-generational families, recurring imagery, symbols, myths, and examine a film adaptation from a book they read. Students will also be learning how to do professional and business writing which will include how to write messages and emails to professors or employers, edit poorly written emails and messages, write a resume, and write a cover letter. Students will give a recorded oral slideshow presentation on a topic related to the unit for the final project.

Unit 3 - Drama 
Students will read the plays THE CRUCIBLE by Arthur Miller and FENCES by August Wilson. Students will learn about the basics of plays, thesis statements, connecting history to contemporary times, identify tragic heroes, plot elements, setting, historical fiction, character analysis, and writing a scene. Students will watch the film adaptation of one of the plays. Students will practice their own creative skills by writing a short play for the final project.

Unit 4 - Informational Texts
Students will listen and read various nonfiction texts from American authors throughout history. Students will learn how to determine a central idea, how to identify what the text says explicitly and what it infers, determine how the order of events told allows the author to express their overall idea, examine the literal and connotative meanings of words in the text, examine how the author uses rhetoric to advance their point of view, learn about logical fallacies, and identifying propaganda in the media. Some of the authors or texts studied will be: "The Gettysburg Address" by Abraham Lincoln, "I Have a Dream" by Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Trevor Noah, excerpt from INTO THIN AIR by Jon Krakauer, excerpt from JUST MERCY, various technical documents, and student choice excerpt (recommendations include Stephen King, Trevor Noah, Malala Yousafzai, Tara Westover, Frank McCourt, and more). The unit will conclude with a short test.