Middle College High School

Course Syllabus - Junior English

2007-08

Mrs. Jennifer Fraser

 

Office: Bldg. 11, Room 60

Office Hours : Daily 8:00-11:00, 2:00-3:00, and by arrangement

Office Phone (voice mail too): (650) 574-6537

e-mail: fraserjen@aol.com

 

JUNIOR ENGLISH AMERICAN LITERATURE  

The junior year English program has three foci:

•Literature of the United States centered on The American Character: The Myth and the Reality. This theme deals with the images people have of American and how the literature has shaped those images.

 
FALL SEMESTER
The American’s Portrayal of Nature and Man’s Role in Nature: students will  examine the vestiges of these foundations in ads today: the appeal to the “Rugged Individual," the “Marlboro Man," the ecology “movement," the All-Terrain Sports Vehicle.

Readings from
    The Bible: Genesis
    The Puritan Perspective
        William Bradford’s “Of Plymouth Plantation”
        Jonathan Edwards, “ Sinners  in the Hands of an Angry God”
    The Native American Perspective:
        Dekadiweh, The Iroquois Constitution
        N . Scott Momaday, The Names
        Canassatego, An Offer of Help
    The Transcendentalists:
        Thoreau’s Walden
        Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self Reliance    
    Thoreau’s Legacy: Into the Wild
    “The Iron Horse and the Buffalo” – Manifest Destiny meets Native American culture
    Tracks or Almanac of the Dead

The American Dream: Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of Happiness Vs. the Slavery Issue
What are the conflicting images in America’s past: “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” vs. the Slavery Issue.

    Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
    Satires by Mark Twain
    William Pennington narrative
    Excerpts from Frederick Douglas, Narrative of a Slave; Louise Allen’s  Life of a Slave    

The American as Social Darwinist vs. the Muckraker: Putting the brakes on Industrialism
    “The pen is mightier than the sword” : Muckraker journalism
    Excerpts from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
    Comparison to modern day muckraking: 60 Minutes/Frontline

 

SPRING SEMESTER
    
AMERICANS AS MATERIALISTS:
The American Dream: Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of Happiness
What is the Dream and is it realizable? How do we define success?

     The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
    “Winter Dreams” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
    “A Flapper’s Appeal” - Ladies Home Journal, 1920
    Activities: Project: Class will create a magazine  of the Gatsby Age, using the  Internet as a research tool and  examining the music, clothing, culture of the era.

AMERICAN POETS
Poetry: Edna St. Vincent Millay, Langston Hughes, T.S. Eliot ETC
Students will select a classic American poet and examine the following questions:
    What makes him/her uniquely American?
    What is his/her vision of America?
    Why does one become a poet?

AMERICANS AS MULTICULTURALISTS: what does the American Dream mean for immigrants? For those of varying ethnicities and races? Is this truly a nation with equal opportunities for all?
Readings from Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Native Son – Richard Wright
Ellis Island short stories – Mark Helprin

War, War, War: THE AMERICAN AS A MILITARIST : Voices of Dissent: Warmongers or Draft dodgers?
Poetry: WWI poets: Brits vs Americans: Wilfred Owens, Siegfried Sassoon, Randall Jarrell
The Things  They Carried- Tim O’Brien-selected short stories The Good War - Studs Terkel/selected chapters

Activities:
1. Students contrast films  and novels of WWII with those of Vietnam.
2. Recreation of Studs Terkel’s approach to portraying WWII (The Good War) through the eyes of the common American. Students will do the same with The Vietnam War, interviewing a wide variety of people’s experiences with this war. Students will assemble photos, use voice -overs, articles  from the period, and  music to create a perspective of the war from the common man’s experience.