American Literature and History

Class Descriptions

These courses, taken together, are a beautiful meshing of an American History course with an American Literature ELA course. While studying the history of a country is as important as studying the literature of a country, both when studied together paint a more complete picture of the nation, the people, and the time. 

In our ELA class, we will read and discuss the daily lives of the people who were in the moment. We will compare the myths of native Americans and the diary entries and documentations of Europeans who settled. We will read novels spanning the past 200 years from a wide array of writers, as well as speeches, short stories, and works considered to be cannon. Class time will be discussion focused and provide opportunities for group work, debate, and lecture. We will touch upon all the foundations of a comprehensive high school Literature and Writing program. 

In our American History class, we will examine the current political landscape of an election year, we will discuss the political and worldwide response to the post-pandemic world, as well as the many international conflicts that are part of the current political landscape.  We will be balancing the current events, with an examination of how our nation was formed and the many parts of our history that have brought us to this moment in time.

Both classes will involve film clips from movies, documentaries, and even "Hamilton", watching debates and news clips, as well as traditional textbook reading, online textbook access, novel reading, discussion, debate, and most importantly dialogue. 

Homework will be reading intensive with comprehension questions, essays, and group projects. For many students coming into our program, workload modifications can be made to meet these students where they are at in regards to current skills and time management experience. Please plan on about 3 hours of homework per week on average.

For each course at the end of the year, a summary of the class as well as a personalized note and a final grade will be written up for each student.

Grading Scale: Test and Projects will be 60 % of the grade; Homework will be 30%; Class participation will be 10% 

Materials

Students will need to have access to google classroom

A note taking system (paper/pen; computer; etc)

*Remote students need to have a working camera and microphone/headset