Mrs. Mills Room 233

American Literature Syllabus

2017-2018 School Year

Mrs. Mills Room 233

Contact email:

Text book: Pearson Common Core Literature Georgia: The American Experience. Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

2015. Print.

Assigned Novels include, but are not limited to, the following (may be subject to change):

Hawthorn, The Scarlet Letter Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Assigned Dramas include, but are not limited to, the following:

Miller, The Crucible Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

Materials provided by the student:

A hard-cover, three-ring binder/4 dividers (sections: notes, vocabulary, grammar, and writing)/Loose-leaf paper/Pens (All assignments must be done in pen unless I give you permission to use pencil)/composition notebook/flash drive

Course Description

The purpose of this course is to provide a strong academic background for 10th grade students who are reading and writing on or above grade level. The course centers on a chronological study of American Literature and student response to this literature. Literary selections include: folk tales, poetry, drama, nonfiction, the short story, and the novel, with emphasis on analysis and comparison. Vocabulary study is mandatory. This course provides 10th grade students a preview of the rigor expected in next year’s AP course.

Writing assignments will focus on the rhetorical strategies of tone, diction, syntax, analysis, narration, compare and contrast, argument, and persuasion. All typed assignments are required to follow MLA format. Students will write in-class essays throughout the year. Students will also write a short story and a five-page research paper. Grammar exercises on advanced grammatical skills including phrases and clauses, misplaced and dangling modifiers; fragmented, fused, comma-spliced sentences; parallel structure; proper mechanics; revision and editing skills; correct comma usage; subject/verb agreement; pronoun reference; idioms; correct use of pronouns; incorrect use of “you,” “I,” and “it”; verb tense; passive voice, etc., will continue throughout the year.

Course Outline

(For the first three weeks, students will discuss and be assessed on the summer reading)

Literature: Early America, Folk Tales & the Oral Tradition
Historical Introduction/Overview
Native American Literature – “The Osage Creation Account”/ “The Navajo Creation Myth”/ “Coyote and the Earth Monster” The Iroquois Constitution (Informative essay on Native American Literature/Culture)
Cabeza de Vaca “A Journey Through Texas”
Excerpts from The General History of Virginia and William Bradford -- from Plymouth Plantation
Anne Bradstreet –“To My Dear and Loving Husband”/“Upon the Burning of Our House”
Edward Taylor – “Huswifery”
Jonathan Edwards – Excerpts from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (Short Constructed Response)
Arthur Miller – The Crucible (Research & Creative Project) (2 Analysis Essays)
Grammar Friday – quotation marks, prepositions, appositives, clauses, antecedents
Vocabulary Development: Words are selected from the readings. There are at least two vocabulary assessments every nine weeks.
Revision Assistant Essay & Major Narrative: An original myth or trickster tale
Poetry responses due every Wednesday. Journal every Tuesday & Thursday to include response to literature, academic prompts, reflection, creative writing, etc.
Literature: Reason and Revolution
Historical Introduction/Overview
(Author Study) Phillis Wheatley – “On Being Brought from Africa to America”/ “To S.M. a Young Painter on Seeing His Works” / “To His Excellency, General Washington” (Short Constructed Response & Poetry Response)
Benjamin Franklin – Excerpts from Poor Richard's Almanack & The Autobiography
Patrick Henry -- Speech in the Virginia Convention (Short Constructed Response); Thomas Jefferson -- Declaration of Independence
Abraham Lincoln – “The Gettysburg Address”
Thomas Paine – Common Sense & The Crisis, No.1
Franklin Roosevelt – “A Date Which Will Live in Infamy”
Arnold Schwarzenegger – 2004 Republican National Convention Address & Barack Obama – “A More Perfect Union” (Compare & Contrast Essay)
Susan B. Anthony – “Woman’s Right to Suffrage”; Sojourner Truth – “Keeping the Thing Going While Things Are Stirring” & “Ain’t I a Woman?”; Elizabeth Stanton – “The Destructive Male”
From The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
Grammar Friday – run-one sentences, subject/verb agreement, sentence combining, active & passive voice
Revision Assistant Essay & 2 Speeches
Composition: Focus on Propaganda (including advertising/Political ads), Rhetoric, Ethos, Logos, and Pathos, Argument & Persuasion/ Journal Writing/Poetry Responses
Literature: Poetry Out Loud; American Romanticism, Gothic Literature & Transcendentalism
Historical Introduction/Overview
Washington Irving – “Rip Van Winkle” & “The Devil and Tom Walker”
Edgar Allan Poe -- Author Unit including, “The Bells”/ “Annabel Lee”/ “Alone”/ “The Raven”/ (Short Constructed Reponse)
“The Masque of the Red Death”/ “The Fall of the House of Usher”/ “The Cask of Amontillado”/ “The Philosophy of Composition”
Nathanial Hawthorne – The Scarlet Letter (2 Analysis Essays)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – “The Wreck of the Hesperus”/ “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls”/ “A Psalm of Life”
William Cullen Bryant -- “Thanatopsis”; Oliver Wendell Holmes – “Old Ironsides”; James Russell Lowell – “Stanzas on Freedom”
John Greenleaf Whitter – “Snow-Bound”
Walt Whitman – “Song of Myself”/“I Hear America Singing”/“Oh Captain, My Captain”
Emily Dickinson – “Heart! We Will Forget Him”/ “Much Madness is Divinest Sense”/“Apparently With No Surprise”/“Because I Could Not Stop For Death”/“I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died” (Short Constructed Response)
Ralph Waldo Emerson – “Nature”/“Self-Reliance”/ “The Rhodora”/ “Concord Hymn”
Henry David Thoreau – “Walden”/ “Civil Disobedience”
Revision Assistant Essay & Major Narrative: An original Gothic or Romantic tale.
Composition: Response to Literature/Poems/Short Story/Academic Prompts
Literature: The Rise of Realism
Robert E. Lee – Letter to His Son
Spirituals -- Go Down Moses and Follow the Drinking Gourd
Mary Chestnut -- Excerpts from A Wartime Journal
Ambrose Bierce – “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Mark Twain – excerpt from Life On The Mississippi, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”
Jack London – “To Build a Fire”
Charlotte Perkins Gilman “The Yellow Wallpaper”
Kate Chopin – “The Story of an Hour”/“A Pair of Silk Stockings”
Edward Arlington Robinson – “Luke Havergal” / “ Richard Cory”
Literature: Modernism, Harlem Renaissance, Southern Renaissance
Historical Introduction/Overview
F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Great Gatsby
Ernest Hemingway – “In Another Country”
T.S. Eliot – “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
John Steinbeck – “The Chrysanthemums”
James Hurst – “The Scarlet Ibis”
Willa Cather – “A Wagner Matinee”
Katherine Anne Porter – “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall”
William Faulkner – “A Rose for Emily”
Tennessee Williams – “Portrait of a Girl in Glass”
Shirley Jackson – “The Lottery”
Poetry Selections from – Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Weldon Johnson
Composition: Five-Page Research Paper with a focus on MLA format
Literature: PostModern/Contemporary
Historical Introduction
Lorraine Hansberry – A Raisin In The Sun
Randall Jarrell – “The Death of a Ball Turret Gunner”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez – “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World”
Martin Luther King Jr. – “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
Gish Jen – “An Ethnic Trump”
Sandra Cisneros – “Straw into Gold”
Elizabeth Bishop – “The Fish”
Maxine Hong Kingston -- Excerpt from The Woman Warrior
Alice Walker – Excerpt from In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens
Amy Tan – “Mother Tongue”
Sylvia Plath – “Mirror”
Poetry Selections from –Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dudley Randall, Alice Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Simon Ortiz, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Diana Chang
Grammar Friday – Who/Whom, Hyphens, Parenthesis, Ellipses; Other Punctuation
EOC Prep
Composition: Literary & Dramatic Analysis Essays

Makeup Work

Making arrangements for completing make-up work is the responsibility of the student. Arrangements to complete make-up work must be made by the student within five days of an absence. Students are expected to take missed quizzes and tests when they come back from an absence. If the assignment is not turned into the teacher, the student will receive a zero.

Late Work

Penalties for late work are as follows:

1 day late -11

2 days late -22

3 days late -33

4 days late -44

5 days late -55 and so on…

Weekend -20

Homework

Late homework is not accepted. Each week’s homework will total a 100 for one homework grade for that week. Each week will vary. Homework will be posted daily on the board and on my teacher class page on the school’s website.

2 HW assignments a week = 50 pts each/100

4 HW assignments a week = 25 pts each/100

Discipline Policy

The discipline policy of the Richmond County School System will be obeyed. The first violation will be recorded and the student will be advised on how to correct the situation. The second offense will be documented with detention, and a parent or guardian will be contacted. The third violation will be referred to the administration.

Plagiarism and/or cheating on tests, quizzes, essays, or homework will result in a grade of zero for each person involved (the person receiving the information and the person giving it).

Methods of Evaluation/Distribution of Grades

Students will have numerous opportunities to demonstrate the skills necessary to successfully master the objectives of the course. Assignments may include the following: daily classwork and homework, quizzes (oral and written), tests (oral and written), writing assignments, class discussions, independent work, projects (individual and group), oral presentations, and reports (oral and written). Maintaining a neat, well-organized notebook is a must. Class participation will be monitored daily and is also mandatory.

Homework 10%

Poetry Responses (Due Every Wednesday) 15%

Class work/Reading Guide Questions 15%

Vocabulary Tests/Reading Check Quizzes/Projects 30%

Writing – Essays, Journal, SCR, Major Narratives 30%

I have read this syllabus and I understand the content and requirements for the year. I understand that this syllabus is to be kept in the front of my notebook after it is signed by my parent/guardian. I understand that course expectations may change due to time constraints or other unavoidable circumstances.

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Signature of Student Signature of Parent or Guardian

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Date Date