Unit Materials for 11th Grade English

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Living Deliberately: Transcendentalism Then and Now

Core Texts

Essay: “Excerpts from "Self-Reliance"” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essay: “Excerpts from Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essay: “Excerpts from Walden” by Henry David Thoreau
Essay: “Excerpts from "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"” by Henry David Thoreau

Supporting Texts

Book: The Book of Delights by Ross Gay (Essays: "Hummingbird," "The Irrepressibles: The Gratitudes," "Fireflies")
Book: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Klimmerer (Milkweed Editions; Illustrated edition, 2020)
Poem: “Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson”
Poem: “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman
Poem: “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
Poem: “The Swan” by Mary Oliver
Poem: “Transcendentalism Socratic Seminar Poems”
Video: “Walden (the Walden Woods Project)”
Video: “Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?” (TED Talk)
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

Book: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner, 2004)

Supporting Texts

Video: “F. Scott Fitzgerald: Great American Writer” (History Channel)
Video: “The top 1%: Should wealth have its limits?” (CBS Sunday Morning)
Article: “The American Dream is Alive and Well” (New York Times)
Article: “Is The American Dream Over?” (Forbes)
Excerpt: Between the World and Me 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

Book: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (Amistad) — 890L

Supporting Texts

Video: “The Story of Reconstruction” (CBS Sunday Morning)
Article: “Jim Crow Laws” (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
Article: “Jim Crow Laws” (History.com)
Video: “The Great Migration” (History Brief)
Video: “Claiming a Space” (PBS Documentary)
Video: “Accent Expert Gives a Tour of U.S. Accents” (YouTube)
Video: “AAVE Explained: A dialect that Transcends Internet Culture” (Babel Explains)
Article: “African-American Dialect the Heart of Penumbra's 'Speak” (MPR News)
Essay: “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston
Poem: “Women” by May Swenson (The Poetry Foundation)
Poem: “WOMAN” by Nikki Giovanni (Hello Poetry)
Audiobook: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Resource: Recommended Texts for Independent Reading

A Streetcar Named Desire

Core Texts

Play: A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Movie: A Streetcar Named Desire (Directed by Elia Kazan)

Supporting Texts

Article: “The Southern Lady and Belle: The Companion to Southern Literature by Joseph Flora and Lucinda MacKethan” (Facing History)
Article: “Women and Work After World War II”
Article: “New Orleans Multicultural Stew” (National Geographic)
Article: “Tennessee Williams Family Letters”
Website: French Quarter Life
Video: “Tennessee Williams: No Refuge but Writing” (The Morgan Library & Museum)
Video: “Gone with the Wind clip”
Video: “Jazz & Spectacle: New Orleans in the 1940s”
Video: “Southern Gothic Literature in 60 Seconds”
Poem: “After the Loss of a Limb” by Elena Wilkinson
Poem: “We Wear the Mask” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Article: “What was Hollywood’s Hays Code: A Comprehensive Guide”
Resource: Recommended Texts for Independent Reading

There There

Core Texts

The Glass Menagerie

Core Texts

Play: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (New Directions Books, 1999)

Supporting Texts

Poem: “Ballad of the Ladies of Yore” by François Villon
Excerpt: The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Things Fall Apart

Core Texts

Book: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Penguin Books, 2017)

Supporting Texts

Excerpt: Igbo Culture and History by Don C. Ohadike
Book: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Book: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Algonquin Books, 2012)
Poem: “Mango Seedling” by Chinua Achebe
Poem: “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats
Article: “Chinua Achebe, African Literary Titan, Dies at 82” by Jonathan Kandell (New York Times, 2013)
Article: “How to Write about Africa” by Binyavanga Wainaina (Granta, 2006)
Speech: “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness'” by Chinua Achebe

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Core Texts

Book: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (Penguin Random House LLC, Berkley Premium Edition, 2016)

Supporting Texts

Movie: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Article: “Kitty Dukakis: Electroshock Therapy Has Given Me a New Lease on Life” (National Public Radio)
Article: “Mental Health Medications” (National Institute of National Health)
Article: “Helen” (GreekMythology.com)
Short Story: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Book: The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women, by Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff (Bancroft Press, 2016)
Speech: “Andrew Jackson’s Speech to Congress on 'Indian Removal'” by President Andrew Jackson (CommonLit.org)

Short Fiction: A Study of Genre

Core Texts

Book: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Short Story: “The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses” by Bessie Head (from The Bedford Introduction to Literature)
Play: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (Dover Publications, Inc., 2006) (from The Theban Plays)
Short Story: “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Gárcia Márquez (from Leaf Storm and Other Stories)

Supporting Texts

Video: “The Metamorphosis - Scenes with English Subtitles” (Сайт Евгения Миронова, 2012)
Article: “Oedipus” (Greekmythology.com)
Article: “Franz Kafka” (Biography.com)
Article: “Absurdist Fiction” (Wikipedia)
Article: “The Myth of Sisyphus” (Wikipedia)

Dreaming in Cuban

Core Texts

Book: Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia (Ballantine Books, 1993)

Supporting Texts

Article: “Cold War Rivals: Cuba and the United States” by Mike Kubic (CommonLit.org)
Article: “Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at 90” by Anthony de Palma (New York Times, 2016)
Article: “The Rise and Fall of Karl Marx” by Mike Kubic (CommonLit.org)
Article: “Castro announces Mariel Boatlift” by History.com Editors (A&E Television Networks)

Waiting

Core Texts

Book: Waiting by Ha Jin (Vintage, 2000)

Supporting Texts

Short Story: “The Lady with the Pet Dog” by Anton Chekhov
Article: “The Peculiar History of Foot Binding in China” by Matt Schiavenza (The Atlantic, 2013)
Article: “The Long March” (History.com, 2009)
Article: “China’s Cultural Revolution, Explained” by Austin Ramzy (he New York Times, 2016)
Video: “Confucian Teaching: Reciprocity and the Five Human Relationships”
Article: “The Analects of Confucius”
Video: “The Cultural Revolution in China” by Yohuru Williams (History.com)
Essay: “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Revolution” (Peking Review, Volume 9, 1966)
Poem: “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman (The Walt Whitman Archive)
Article: “Chinese Heroism Effort Is Met with Cynicism” by Andrew Jacobs (The New York Times, 2012)

The Scarlet Letter

Core Texts

Book: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne — 1280L

Supporting Texts

Article: “Nathaniel Hawthorne” by Biography.com Editors (Biography.com, 2017)
Article: “Puritan Life” (Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia, 2008-2017)
Radio Segment: “Online ‘Shaming’ a New Level of Cyberbullying for Girls” (NPR.org)
Radio Segment: “Inside The Hole: What Happens To The Mind In Isolation?” (NPR.org)

Unit Materials for 11th Grade English

Need to purchase texts for this course?

Living Deliberately: Transcendentalism Then and Now

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

The Dream that Recedes Before Us: The Past and The American Dream in The Great Gatsby

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

To the Horizon and Back: Janie's Search for Identity in Their Eyes Were Watching God

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

A Streetcar Named Desire

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

There There

Core Texts

The Glass Menagerie

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

Things Fall Apart

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

Short Fiction: A Study of Genre

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

Dreaming in Cuban

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

Waiting

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

The Scarlet Letter

Core Texts

Supporting Texts

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