This college-preparatory course asks students to consider and question both traditional and contemporary assumptions behind the terms, "American" and "literature." Students will be required to read, analyze, and discuss all literary genres (with an emphasis on the novel). Study of the literature will routinely involve the history, culture, and diversity of American voices. Reflective, argumentative, and analytical essays will be required. Typewritten work will also be required.

Texts

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , by Frederick Douglass

A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Hunger, by Lan Samantha Chang

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

Various essays, articles, short stories, and poems

*Other texts may be added to the course content as needed, and as time allows. Various thematically-related short stories, poems, essays and articles will also be read.