American Literature will strengthen the skills of reading, writing, viewing, speaking, and listening while promoting students to think of the American identity through a variety of literary lenses. Some of the essential questions are: What does it mean to be an American? How have Americans developed identities through literature? How and why do writers communicate?

Units of Study

Unit 1: Encounters and Foundations to 1800

Unit 2: Imagination and the Individual: American Romanticism 1800-1860

Unit 3: The Civil War and its Aftermath (1850-1890)

Unit 4: The Age of Realism (1860-1915)

Unit 5: The Moderns and the American Dream

Unit 6: The Contemporary Period

**Bold text = current unit of study**