Pacific Lutheran High School

Mr. Steffens

2011-2012

Course Summary:

British literature is very much a literature of the people entertaining with action, adventure, and humor; teaching with allegories; and communicating the deep feelings and ideas of its writers. Beginning with some 20th Century short stories to see where British Literature is – or has been recently – we will return to a chronological survey of British literature from Old English literature to Middle English to modern English with the Renaissance, the 17th and 18th centuries, and the Romantics.

Class Materials Needed:

Textbook - Prentice Hall: Literature: The British Tradition

Notebook or section in notebook - college rule paper for taking notes

Folder or binder for class handouts and homework

Pens – at least one in blue or black ink – and a pencil.

Longer works: “Heart of Darkness,” Beowulf, Hamlet, and Pride and Prejudice.

Assessment:

The final grade for this course will be based on points accumulated from:

	Quizzes
	Homework
	Journals and writing assignments
	Group and individual presentations
	Major projects
	Unit and literature tests
	Semester exams (worth 20% of your semester grade)
	Extra credit will be offered periodically throughout each semester

Course Sequence:

	Week 1-2	Introduction
		Modern Short Stories Lessing, Orwell, Sillitoe, Lawrence, Bowen
	Week 3-4	Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”

	Week 5-6	The Anglo-Saxon Period
		Introduction and time line “The Wanderer,” Bede, “Maldon”
	Week 6-8	Beowulf
		The Changing English Language Review and test
	Week 9	The Medieval Period
		Introduction and time line Folk Ballads, “Green Knight”
	Week 10-12	Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
		Sir Thomas Malory: Morte d’Arthur Morality plays: “Everyman” The Changing English Language
	Week 12	Review and test

	Week 13-15	The English Renaissance
		Introduction and time line Sidney, Spencer, Marlow, etc.
	Week 15	Dickens’ “Christmas Carol”

	Week 16-17	Thoreau and Walden

	Week 16-17	Shakespeare: sonnets
		KJV
	Week 18	Review and midyear examination

	Week 19-20	Review examination
		Bacon The Changing English Language
	Week 21-26	Shakespeare’s Hamlet
		Review and test
	Week 26-28	The Seventeenth Century
		Introduction and time line Donne, Herbert, Marvell, Jonson, Herrick, Milton The Changing English Language Test
	Week 29-31	Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

	Week 32-34	The Restoration and the Eighteenth Century
		Introduction and time line Bunyan, Pepys, Defoe, Swift, Johnson, Boswell, Burns, Blake The Changing English Language Test
	Week 34-35	The Romantic Age
		Introduction and time line Wordsworth (and Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats if time)
	Week 36	Review and test

White Board Formula:

Each class period students will be given at least one educational objective (what skill is being taught during the class), an activity to reinforce this educational objective (what students will be engaged in to achieve the objective), and an assessment for the activity. Educational objectives are taken from California Content Standards or other standards appropriate for the course.

ELSR Integration:

In accord with Pacific Lutheran High School’s Expected School-wide Learning Results, students in American Literature will:

P - Put Christ first by noting and discussing the Christian beliefs of many of the authors and the Christian themes and topics in many of the works they cover; they will treat each other with Christian respect.
L - Learn academics and improve critical thinking skills
H - Hone life skills as they develop skills necessary to be successful in a diverse classroom working and communicating with each other;
S - Serve school, church, and community by using their education in acts of service.