ENGLISH 11, PART 1
Price: $125 | Credits: One Semester | Dept: English | Course ID# 211-1
This course is the equivalent of the first semester of English 11, and its focus is American literature. We start with a fictionalized autobiography called The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, then travel back in time to check out some foundational documents written at the time of America’s creation, then move on to some famous short stories and the novel The Scarlett Letter; and conclude with some great speeches. English 11 is approved by the University of California A-G as English (category B).
Upon completion of this course, the student is awarded 5 credits. Each credit corresponds to 15 hours of study. Of course, some students work more quickly than others, and some can devote more hours to study, so some students are able to complete the course in an accelerated rate.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
In this course, students will:
- Examine the factors that shape our identities. We will consider how art helps the individual deal with adversity and create an identity. We will discuss whether it is possible to be yourself and part of a group—even if you don’t identify with parts of that group, and what are the expectations placed on us by our communities.
- Examine three of the greatest argumentative documents in American history: the Declaration of Independence, the Declaration of Sentiments, and Martin Luther King’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail.” The focus will be on both the history and politics of these documents and on their language and structure. We will consider the language and evidence as it relates to author purpose, and also learn about the different types of claims authors employ, differentiating between facts, values, and policies.
- Learn about stories that are distinctly American in nature, reflecting their society’s priorities and values, and come to understand the difference between the literary movements known as Romanticism, Dark Romanticism or Gothic, Realism, Naturalism, and Modernism.
- Practice developing a literary analysis in response to text, supporting that analysis with textual evidence, and explaining and connecting textual evidence back to a claim.
- Analyze famous speeches for historical and literary significance for their themes, purposes, and rhetorical features.
TOPICS COVERED
This course covers the following topics:
- The power of images
- Point of view
- Bildungsroman
- The necessity of conflict
- Motifs, symbols, and theme
- Language history
- Claims of policy
- Purpose and evidence
- Diction and audience
- Allusion
- American literary movements – romanticism, gothic, realism, naturalism, and modernism
- Analyzing literature
- Supporting claims with textual evidence
- The three appeals and rhetorical questions
- Epistrophe, Asyndeton, and Polysyndeton
- Aliteration and antithesis
- Assigned books: Sherman Alexie- “The Absolutely Tru Diary of a Part-Time Indian”; Nathaniel Hawthorne- “The Scarlet Letter”
