Unit Materials for 11th Grade English
Explore the texts and supporting materials used in each unit of 11th Grade English.
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You can request a current spreadsheet with all unit texts needed to teach Fishtank ELA for the 2025-26 school year by emailing [email protected].
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Living Deliberately: Transcendentalism Then and Now
Core Texts
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Excerpt: Excerpts from "Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Excerpt: Chapter 1 from Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Excerpt: Excerpts from Walden by Henry David Thoreau
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Excerpt: Excerpts from "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau
Supporting Texts
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Excerpt: Excerpts from The Book of Delights from The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
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Excerpt: “Epiphany in the Beans” from Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
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Excerpt: Excerpts from "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman
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Poem: “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
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Poem: “The Swan” by Mary Oliver
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Video: “Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?” (TED Talk)
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Video: “Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Beauty of the Everyday” (TED Ed)
- Resource: Recommended Texts for Independent Reading
The Dream that Recedes Before Us: The Past and The American Dream in The Great Gatsby
Core Texts
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Book: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner, 2004)
Supporting Texts
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Video: “F. Scott Fitzgerald: Great American Writer” (History Channel)
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Video: “The top 1%: Should wealth have its limits?” (CBS Sunday Morning)
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Article: “The American Dream Is Alive and Well” by Samuel J. Abrams (The New York Times)
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Article: “Is The American Dream Over?” by Jack Kelly (Forbes)
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Excerpt: Excerpt from "Letter to My Son" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Resource: Recommended Texts for Independent Reading
To the Horizon and Back: Janie's Search for Identity in Their Eyes Were Watching God
Core Texts
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Book: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Amistad) — 890L
Supporting Texts
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Video: “The Story of Reconstruction” (CBS Sunday Morning)
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Article: “Jim Crow Laws” (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
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Article: “Jim Crow Laws” (History.com)
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Video: “The Great Migration” (History Brief)
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Video: “Claiming a Space” (PBS Documentary)
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Video: “Accent Expert Gives a Tour of U.S. Accents” (YouTube)
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Video: “AAVE Explained: A dialect that Transcends Internet Culture” (Babel Explains)
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Article: “African-American Dialect the Heart of Penumbra's 'Speak” (MPR News)
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Essay: “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston
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Poem: “Women” by May Swenson (The Poetry Foundation)
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Poem: “WOMAN” by Nikki Giovanni (Hello Poetry)
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Audiobook: Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Resource: Recommended Texts for Independent Reading
Illuminating Illusions: Truth and Fantasy in A Streetcar Named Desire
Core Texts
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Play: A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
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Movie: A Streetcar Named Desire (Directed by Elia Kazan)
Supporting Texts
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Article: “The Southern Lady and Belle: The Companion to Southern Literature by Joseph Flora and Lucinda MacKethan” by Joseph Flora and Lucinda MacKethan (Facing History)
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Article: “Women and Work After World War II” (PBS)
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Article: “New Orleans Multicultural Stew” by Stuart Thornton (National Geographic)
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Article: “Tennessee Williams Family Letters” by Margit Longbrake (The Historic New Orleans Collection)
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Website: French Quarter Life
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Video: “Tennessee Williams: No Refuge but Writing” (The Morgan Library & Museum)
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Video: “Gone with the Wind Clip” by Movieclips (YouTube)
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Video: “Jazz & Spectacle: New Orleans in the 1940s” (YouTube)
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Video: “Southern Gothic Literature in 60 Seconds” by Shelly Swearingen (YouTube)
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Poem: “After the Loss of a Limb” by Elena Wilkinson
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Poem: “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
- Resource: Recommended Texts for Independent Reading
Weaving a Counternarrative: The Urban Native Identity in There There
Core Texts
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Book: There There by Tommy Orange
Supporting Texts
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Poem: “Sure You Can Ask Me A Personal Question” by Diane Burns
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Article: “Bureau of Indian Affairs Records: Termination” (National Archives)
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Video: “The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 | American Experience” (PBS Learning Media)
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Photo: Family in Waukegan (National Archives)
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Photo: Chicagoland Indians Get Good Jobs (National Archives)
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Article: “Five myths about American Indians” (The Washington Post)
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Video: “Not Your Mascot: Native Americans and Team Mascots” (Twin Cities PBS)
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Video: “'Writing out of a loneliness,' novelist explores the range of native experiences” (PBS NewsHour)
- Resource: Recommended Texts for Independent Reading
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