Course Description
Students read and analyze literature that includes poetry, novels, folklore, and myth, using what they learn to enhance their own writing. The course begins with the steps of the writing process, which includes identifying parts of speech and using them correctly and effectively. A study of writing style focuses on slang, sentence variety, and transitions. Students learn how characters, setting, and plot contribute to literary fiction as they identify and explain these components and use them creatively in their own narrative essays. Reading poetry allows students to focus on figurative and descriptive language, which they apply to write descriptive essays. Students also learn about the themes and characteristics of myth and folklore. A study of nonfiction focuses on research and organization as students produce objective informational essays. Students learn active reading and research skills that enable them to recognize bias and the techniques of persuasion in different genres, including biographical writing. They then write persuasive essays based on their own beliefs or opinions.
Course Breakdown
“Rikki-tikki-tavi” by Rudyard Kipling
“A Boy and a Man” by James Ramsey Ullman
“A Day’s Wait” by Ernest Hemingway
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
“Broken Chain” by Gary Soto
“All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury
“Zoo” by Edward D. Hoch
“Coyote Kills a Giant” by an anonymous author
“The Ambitious Guest” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The Third Level” by Jack Finney
“The Old Demon” by Pearl S. Buck
“Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
“King of the Birds” by an anonymous author
“The Chief Who Was No Fool” by an anonymous author
“Master Maid” by Aaron Shepard The Call of the Wild by Jack London
“The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes
“The Stolen Child” by W. B. Yeats
“Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out” by Shel Silverstein
“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Magnificent Bull” by an anonymous author
“Fog” by Carl Sandburg
“Loo-Wit” by Wendy Rose
“The Bat” by Theodore Roethke
“The Pasture” by Robert Frost
“Dove” by Court Smith
“Fishing” by Court Smith
“Owl” by Court Smith
“Salmon” by Court Smith
“Sailboat” by Court Smith
Various haiku by Matsuo Bashō
“Washed in Silver” by James Stephens
“Feelings about Words” by Mary O’Neill
“in Just” by e. e. cummings
“To You” by Langston Hughes
“My November Guest” by Robert Frost
“Dewdrops Dancing Down Daisies” by Paul McCann
“Dancing Dolphins” by Paul McCann
“Cipher Connected” by Paul McCann
“Winter Animals” by Henry David Thoreau
“Father William” by Lewis Carroll
“Limericks” by Carolyn Wells
“Buying Gloves in Gibraltar” by Mark Twain
“The Fox and the Grapes” by Aesop
“The Lion and the Mouse” by Aesop
“The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey” by Aesop
“A Little Fable” by Franz Kafka
“An Enlightening Tale” by Fernando Sorrentino
“The Wooden Tablet” by an anonymous author
“The Trickster Tricked” by an anonymous author
“The Coyote and the Turtle” by Elizabeth Willis DeHuff
“Emelyan the Fool” by an anonymous author
“Sister Fox and Brother Wolf” by an anonymous author
“Theseus” by an anonymous author
“The Myth of Daedalus and Icarus” by an anonymous author
“Phaeton and the Chariot of the Sun” by an anonymous author
“The Feeling of Power” by Isaac Asmiov
Course Goals
Read and analyze poetry and short stories to examine characters, writing styles, and genres.
Read and analyze The Call of the Wild.
Write a narrative essay. Read a variety of poems and analyze poetic elements.
Read and analyze a variety of fables, folktales, and myths.
Write a descriptive essay.