Academics
Academic Program
English

English 11: American Literature

The aim of eleventh-grade English is to sharpen critical thinking, deepen analytical capacities, and connect to one’s individual role both in the classroom and in the long narrative of American literature. This course has multiple possibilities for construction - it has followed a chronological, geographical, or thematic sequencing in past years. Central questions driving American Lit are: what defines American literature? How are past themes repeated throughout the genre? How has the vastness and diversity of America’s geography influenced its literature, in style and content? How does Americanness emerge in texts syntactically, spatially, and thematically? Who gets to speak their story, and who is missing from this canon?

The course often moves through four distinct periods: Puritanism, Romanticism, Modernism, and Contemporary movements, not necessarily in that order.  For each period, students are introduced to the philosophical and historical underpinnings of the literature of the time period. Reading assignments are extended beyond prior expectations, up to 30 pages nightly, including thorough annotations. Students are tasked with identifying vocabulary and defining unknown words on their own. They are similarly tasked with developing critical questions and responding to them in precise analytical theses. These are sometimes used to generate class discussion. 

Texts used in American Lit have included a combination of novels, plays, short stories, and poetry. In recent years texts have been chosen from the following: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin, Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo, and Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare, O Pioneers by Willa Cather, Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines, and True West by Sam Shepard in addition to classic and contemporary stories and poems.
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