Students dive into the novel A Doll's House, exploring this social critique of middle-class Victorian society including issues of gender roles, freedom, and appearance versus reality. Students also investigate the genre of dramatic realism.
The 11th grade learning experience consists of 7 mostly month-long units aligned to the Common Core State Standards, with available course material for teachers and students easily accessible online. Over the course of the year there is a steady progression in text complexity levels, sophistication of writing tasks, speaking and listening activities, and increased opportunities for independent and collaborative work. Rubrics and student models accompany many writing assignments.Throughout the 11th grade year, in addition to the Common Read texts that the whole class reads together, students each select an Independent Reading book and engage with peers in group Book Talks. Students move from learning the class rituals and routines and genre features of argument writing in Unit 11.1 to learning about narrative and informational genres in Unit 11.2: The American Short Story. Teacher resources provide additional materials to support each unit.
In this unit, students will explore great works of American literature and consider how writers reflect the time period in which they write. They will write two literary analysis papers and also work in groups to research and develop anthologies of excellent American stories.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Students read and analyze stories from several 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century American authors. After researching a time period, they select stories from that period to create an anthology. The readings enhance their understanding of the short story, increase their exposure to well-known American authors, and allow them to examine the influence of social, cultural, and political context.
Students examine elements of short stories and have an opportunity for close reading of several American short stories. During these close readings, they examine the ways that short story writers attempt to explore the greater truths of the American experience through their literature.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
These questions are a guide to stimulate thinking, discussion, and writing on the themes and ideas in the unit. For complete and thoughtful answers and for meaningful discussions, students must use evidence based on careful reading of the texts.
If you were to write a short story about this decade, what issues might you focus on?
What defines a short story? Just length?
To what extent do these stories reflect the era or decade in which they were written?
To what extent are the themes they address universal?
CLASSROOM FILMS
History.com has short videos on the Vietnam War (“Vietnam” and “A Soldier's Story”).
In this lesson, students will examine Cheever's use of symbol and motif in his story. They will also expand their ideas through writing and share their understanding of the story.
In this lesson, students will revisit the American Dream in Unit 1. In pairs, they will find images and slogans to use as the basis for a collage that represents their view of the American Dream.
In this lesson, students will begin the short story “The Swimmer.” As an introduction to the story, they will also read the myth “Echo and Narcissus,” considering Narcissus as a way to view the protagonist of “The Swimmer.”
Students investigate the complex, nonlinear style of The God of Small Things and its themes of history, colonialism and love, focusing on the novel's literary devices, plot structure, and language.
Students read The Great Gatsby, evaluating Fitzgerald's critique of the American 1920s, as well as considering issues of social class and the impact of history and memory on individuals.
Students trace an unnamed African American narrator's "Hero's Journey" from innocence to self-discovery in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, examining the novel's harsh critique of American society.
Students study the institutional processes and popular beliefs surrounding mental health in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as they discuss and debate the themes of power, order, and authority.
Students read the renowned novel The Scarlet Letter, exploring and analyzing the themes of sin, compassion, and hypocrisy as they played out in seventeenth-century Puritan New England.
In a spin-off to studying about angular momentum, students use basic methods of comparative mythology to consider why spinning and weaving are common motifs in creation of myths and folktales. Note: The literacy activities for the Mechanics unit are based on physical themes that have broad application to our experience in the world â concepts of rhythm, balance, spin, gravity, levity, inertia, momentum, friction, stress and tension.
Students discover the novel Waiting, examining such topics as the Cultural Revolution and Confucian values as well as tensions between old and new, rural and urban, and communism and capitalism.