American Literature
American Literature offers a historical approach to American Literature, from Puritan beginnings to contemporary authors. Students will polish their critical thinking skills and application of knowledge. Students will also work to become more sophisticated writers in terms of transition, sentence structure, diction, and punctuation.
Honors students will read an extra novel and write a critical analysis of that novel each quarter.
British Literature
Focusing on British Literature, English III students refine and expand their skills in language through structured study and independent reading of literary and informational works. Both inside and outside of class, they read and view a variety of informational texts as well as four major types of literary texts, fiction, literary nonfiction, poetry, and drama. The works will be selected from the standard literary canon of Major British Authors, including: Chaucer, Shakespeare, Blake, Shelley, Orwell, and Swift. Through literary texts, students study the author’s craft by making inferences, determining point of view, analyzing theme, and figurative language. In reading a variety of informational texts, students analyze an author’s development of a thesis and examine the ways that bias is revealed in texts. In addition, English III students continue to create a variety of responses to what they read and to develop and use in their reading, writing, oral communication, and a knowledge of vocabulary that includes roots, affixes, euphemisms, and idioms.
As these students increase the sophistication of their writing, they produce coherent and well-organized writing that includes a thesis and supporting evidence. In implementing the writing process, they create various types of written works, including informational (expository/persuasive/argumentative) pieces and narratives. They proofread and edit their work for the correct use of the conventions of written Standard American English, and they use revision strategies to improve such elements as voice, content and development, and organization.
In carrying out the research process, students identify a topic, collect information from primary and secondary sources, and present their findings and conclusions in oral, written, and visual formats. They must determine what particular type of information they need for a specific topic, and they must know how to locate that information efficiently. Students must also evaluate the validity of their sources. In addition, after incorporating their own ideas with ideas from other sources, they must distinguish their own ideas from those of others by providing accurate and complete documentation. In this English course, High School students assimilate and strengthen the reading, writing, communicating, and researching skills they have acquired in previous courses as solid preparation for entering college.
In Honors, English III students will read four separate full length works in addition to the program requirements and demonstrate their understanding through research and analytical papers. The Honors student is also expected to approach the class material with a level that is commiserate with their abilities as Honor students.
