In this World Literature and Rhetoric Course, students explore varied experiences and universal themes through literature and rhetoric from around the globe. Students continue developing and defending original claims in multi-paragraph writing and support them with primary-source quotes and in-text citations. Grammar, mechanics, and style rules are reviewed and further incorporated in their writing. Students increase their contextual vocabulary skills and improve their close reading skills, expanding on their understanding of literary and rhetorical analysis. Readings will be drawn from the following genres, offered through a global lens: the epic, Shakespearean tragedy, allegory and satire, the 19th-century novel, memoir, historical fiction, poetry, short stories, and varied cultural readings. In addition to the required close reading assignments, outside readings may be assigned throughout the academic year. 

Students will:

• Read a diverse selection of short stories and poems from authors around the world to consider how literature reflects culture, identity, and universal human experiences. 

• Close read texts to analyze literary devices and themes

• Build annotation skills 

• Through comparative analysis and writing, students explore how different voices and forms of literature communicate meaning in unique ways. The unit culminates in an analytical essay or creative response in which students demonstrate their understanding of global literary perspectives.

Throughout the learning process, students will meet these learning targets by:

• Reading and analyzing Animal Farm as both a literary work and an allegory.

• Examining how Orwell uses characters, symbols, conflicts, and events to comment on power, leadership, social change, and human behavior.

• Analyzing how the author’s literary choices contribute to the allegory’s meaning, purpose, and effectiveness.

• Reading and analyzing mentor allegories to identify symbolic meanings and connections to real-world people, events, issues, or ideas.

• Exploring how authors transform social concerns and human experiences into fictional narratives.

• Developing an original message about society, power, or human behavior that can be communicated through allegory.

• Planning, drafting, revising, and editing an original allegory that uses purposeful characters, settings, conflicts, events, and symbols.

• Reflecting on and explaining how specific creative choices contribute to the allegory’s intended meaning and impact.

To meet these targets, students will:

• Read and analyze Macbeth, with a focus on the relationships among ambition, power, morality, and individual choice.

• Closely read, view, discuss, and at times perform important scenes to explore how Shakespeare’s language creates meaning.

• Examine how characters’ motivations and choices develop conflicts and contribute to the play’s tragic events.

• Analyze how Shakespeare uses characterization, themes, motifs, symbols, imagery, and other literary devices to develop the play’s meaning.

• Consider how relevant historical, cultural, and theatrical contexts contribute to an understanding of the play.

• Participate in whole-class, small-group, and collaborative activities that support interpretation and analysis.

• Develop defensible claims and support them with strong textual evidence and relevant, sufficient commentary.

• Plan, draft, revise, and edit an essay to explain how Shakespeare develops a central character or theme throughout the play.

Throughout the learning process, students will meet these learning targets by:

• Analyzing the genre's purpose across cultures through reading Night and selected chapters from Born a Crime.

• Practicing close-reading and annotation strategies to identify significant details, literary patterns, and thematic connections.

• Examining how memoirists use personal experiences to illuminate larger historical, cultural, and social issues.

• Analyzing how memory and perspective shape an author’s representation of people, experiences, and events.

• Exploring themes of identity, resilience, prejudice, survival, and the effects of injustice.

• Analyzing how authors use structure, characterization, imagery, reflection, and other literary techniques to develop meaning.

• Participating in whole-class, partner, and small-group discussions about the texts’ ideas, contexts, and contemporary relevance.

• Writing evidence-based analyses that develop defensible claims through strong textual evidence and relevant, sufficient commentary.

Throughout the learning process, students will meet these learning targets by:

• Exploring how oral history and storytelling preserve personal experiences and deepen an audience’s understanding of historical events and social issues.

• Listening to and analyzing effective audio stories to identify purposeful approaches to narrative structure, pacing, narration, sound, and audience engagement.

• Developing open-ended interview questions and practicing respectful, ethical interviewing techniques.

• Interviewing an individual who has experienced a significant historical event or meaningful life experience.

• Conducting background research to understand the historical, cultural, or social context surrounding the interviewee’s story.

• Selecting, organizing, and contextualizing interview material while preserving the speaker’s intended meaning and perspective.

• Writing a podcast script that integrates narration, research, and interview excerpts into a clear and compelling story.

• Recording, editing, revising, and producing an original podcast episode for an authentic audience.

• Reflecting on how creative, editorial, and production choices shape the way another person’s story is represented and understood.