Andrew Holyfield

Ages 13+

In Person

Andrew Holyfield

30 weeks, 4 units

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Prerequisites:  Students must know how to write a 5 paragraph essay prior to taking this class. 

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Homework:  Please plan to spend at least 3 hours / week on reading and writing for this class.  This class includes assignments to be completed in August to ensure we have enough time to meet our goals.
 

Course Overview:

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American Literature is a 4-unit course, broken into three trimesters, analyzing groundbreaking foundational documents of the American Dream,  the American Voice, and the American Experience as it has adapted from the inception of a 13-colony free-state to becoming the idyllic, often misrepresented, image of freedom. This course will deploy close reading skills—reading text for layered meaning, such as thematic constructs, symbolism, and figurative language, which apply to concepts inside and outside the text—so that students can comprehend the universal human experience within the text and how it applies to life then and now. 

 

This class, as with most of my classes, centers around discourse to ensure students understand the valuable lessons these works provide and for students to offer their own insight about the readings. There will weekly assignments, in-class writing, and larger projects, in the form of book reports, research-driven essays, and presentations. I ensure the workload pace is manageable. Students are expected to participate and keep up with the work.

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Note that students will need to start their reading for this class over the summer months to ensure they have assignments ready in September.

 

FALL (plus summer assignment):

Unit 1: Early American Ideas.

Focus on:  The Informative Essay

Students will read seminal documents and literature from a variety of cultural perspectives.

Students will read American Revolutionary documents and understand the philosophical ideas

presented by the Founding Fathers. Through primary sources, narratives, literature,

and dramatic selections, students will apply close reading strategies and critical analysis to

examine rhetoric, theme, and purpose. Students will engage in research and discussions to

produce an informative essay that synthesizes their research and understanding of early American ideas.

Literature will include:

• The Declaration of Independence

• Abigail Adams Letter to husband John Adams - “Remember the Ladies”

• The Federalist Papers: No. 10

• Other papers based on student interest

 

Unit 2: Authors Throughout American History 

Focus On:  Literary Analysis culminating in Student Presentations

Students will will read and analyze poems, stories, and dramas, analyzing figurative language,

characters, tone and theme. Our assignments will include literary theme analysis, compare and contrast essays and speeches as we learn to identify narrative arc, vivid language, archetypes,

dynamic characters, and the impact of setting on a story. Students will analyze multiple

interpretations of a story, drama, or poem, evaluating how each version interprets the text.

In this unit we will be reading and analyzing selected poems by Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost & Langston Hughes.   We will look at the ideals in the “American Dream” as we read “A Raisin in the Sun” and contrast this to the slow and painful demise of Willy Loman “Death of a Salesman”.  Our final project will include an analysis of all of the American authors we have read in this unit.

Literature will include:

• A Raisin in the Sun

• Death of a Salesman

• Various poems

WINTER:

Unit 3: The Research Project on The American Experience

In this unit, students will conduct research and learn to evaluate sources for credibility and validity. We will study rhetorical devices used by many different authors and decide which devices are the most persuasive.  In this Research Project, we will be synthesizing multiple sources and following MLA citations.  This research focus will give us an opportunity to use a variety of research tools including the Educational Research Information Center (ERIC), Google Scholar, ResearchGate, and online MLA Handbook and the Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue.  Students will be required to justify how they have determined their sources to be valid and understand the rhetorical devices they have learned about as part of their evaluation of arguments.  Our main assignment in this unit will be a research paper that is presented to the class through a speech based on a topic of personal interest.  Students will develop a thesis (an arguable position within the topic), and research multiple sources to expand their knowledge of the full range of perspectives and positions on the topic.  Integrating valid and credible sources, effective rhetorical devices, and collaborative discussions, students will write a research paper. The paper will include a well- developed thesis statement that addresses the arguable position they identified, evidence to support their claim, refuted counterclaims, proper citations, and a properly formatted works cited page. 

 

SPRING:

Unit 4: Struggles or Hardships

Focus:  Literary Analysis & The Personal Narrative

The spring will cover Unit 4. This unit will dissect the American Experience—what it is, what it costs, and its duality. The two texts we will read are Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years A Slave. Our close reading will prioritize the levels of oppression, from both outside and inside the borders, and the value of freedom of choice. This will bookend our fall semester, revealing the bleak reality for many Americans in the subsequent centuries and just what those ideals for independence cost.

Literature Choices will include:

● Twelve Years a Slave 

● The Things They Carried

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