British Literature

Welcome to 12th Grade British Literature and Composition.

Spring 2021, 3rd and 4th blocks, room E-733

British Literature provides students with an overview of historical English and British Literary work. This course engages students to become skilled readers of prose written during a variety of British periods. Students will deepen their understanding of the ways in which English writers use a changing language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. The class reading assignments will include different pieces of fiction and nonfiction to include poetry, essays, novel excerpts, short stories, and plays. Students will learn the grammar and prewriting skills necessary for writing essays throughout the semester, building toward a research paper reflecting their literary understanding. Modern Language Association [MLA] formatting will be taught and is required for all formal papers.

Students will be held responsible for all work assigned on each class day. Google Classroom will be the primary mode of instruction and assignments in the event of virtual learning.

Unit 1: History and Literature: Anglo-Saxon period, to include poetry and Beowulf

Composition: informal writing activities, narrative essay, literary analysis

Unit 2: Informational unit focus.

Literature: Canterbury Tales Prologue, Pardoner's Tale, Wife of Bath's Tale

Nonfiction: Articles about the Middle Ages; Satire: Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal."

Unit 3: Shakespearean Drama, blended with research paper.

Selections: Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing

Unit 4: Romantic Poetry and Frankenstein with literary analysis

Unit 5: Modern British short stories.