Literary Lunch & Learn – American Literature (CLEP Prep)

Combining elements of a teen book club with those of a college prep literature class, students will learn and apply literary analysis techniques, including dialectical journaling, essay writing, and Socratic discussion, to classic novels and short stories.

This survey of American Literature covers the major literary periods as reflected by major American writers. This literature / composition course includes extensive reading and writing. Students should expect to read and respond to about 100 pages per week. If students complete the assigned work, as well as extra-credit work, they should be prepared to take the CLEP American Literature exam for college credit.*

Text: The Elegant Essay.
Recommended Text for CLEP Prep: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Test-Preparation-American-Literature/dp/073860559X

FALL SEMESTER: 1607-1776 : Colonial Period	Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God Cotton Mather, Transcript from Salem Witch Trials (excerpt) The Crucible, Arthur Miller (available at The Homeschool House)
1765-1790 : The Revolutionary Age	Excerpts from The Autobiography of Ben Franklin and Poor Richard’s Almanac (available at The Homeschool House)
1775-1828 : The Early National Period	Washington Irving – Legend of Sleepy Hollow online
1828-1865 : The Romantic Period   gothic   The Age of Transcendentalism)	Whitman, O Captain My Captain * Dickinson, selected poems * Hawthorne, The Minister’s Black Veil and Young Goodman Brown* Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street * Poe, The Tell-Tale Heart, Annabelle Lee, The Raven* Thoreau – excerpt from Walden Emerson – excerpt from Self Reliance
1865-1900 : The Realistic Period	Twain – Notorious Jumping Frog and The Private History of a Campaign that Failed* Bierce - An Occurrence at Owl creek* Chopin – A Pair of Silk Stockings* and Story of an Hour Spirituals and excerpt from Frederick Douglass Gettysburg Address
1900-1914 : The Naturalistic Period	Crane, Open Boat and The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky* London, To Build a Fire* and Call of the Wild Dreiser: The Lost Phoebe*
SPRING SEMESTER: 1914-1945 : American Modernist Period 1920s : Jazz Age, Harlem Renaissance 1920s, 1930s : The "Lost Generation"	Robert Frost, TS Elliot (Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats), Ezra Pound, selected poems Fitzgerald – Bernice Bobs her Hair* Langston Hughes – selected poems to be determined* Hemingway – The Killers*
1945-present : The Contemporary Period 1950s : Beat Writers Counterculture dystopia/utopian literature	Rand, Anthem (Free copies of this book have been provided to us by the Rand Foundation.) Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird Bradbury, Farenheit 451 Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie McCarthy, The Road Angelou, Plath, Kerouac – selected poems Vonnegut, O’Connor, Salinger, Jackson, O’Henry - selected short stories available online

*found in the anthologies listed at the top of the page

Some of these selections are available for free online; if the title is underlined, then you can click to go to read it online. You can download free Nook or Kindle e-books even without an e-book reader. Just download the free app to read it on your PC or phone.

Interested in taking the CLEP American Literature exam for college credit? Consider the optional texts Norton Anthology of American Literature (look for a used copy) and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to American Literature (out of print, but available as an e-book)

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Language Arts 1, 2 Reading List (all can be purchased at The Homeschool House)

 The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (fall)

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (fall)

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis (spring)

Young Travelers Gift, Andy Andrews (spring)