Capital High School
English 3
Syllabus: 2016-2017
Mrs. Davis
What are the quintessential American beliefs expressed through American writing?
How does American Literature reflect the national identity of the United States?
Over the course of this year we will study American literature throughout history. Although the literature is broken down
into several units, we will be using the essential questions above as overarching ideas that all of the essential questions relate
back to.

Warm-up Unit Language
Reading Writing Listening Speaking
o Essential Question: What kind of knowledge changes our lives?
o Personal Reading Project
o Related Readings:
 “Epiphany” by Joanie Mackowski
 “The Last Spin” by Evan Hunter
o Significant Writing: Narrative Essay on an Epiphany

Unit 1 Coming to America
Native American Period/Puritan Era
o Essential Question: What makes American Literature American?
o Related Readings:
 The Earth on Turtle’s Back
Onondaga
 When Grizzlies Walked Upright
Modoc
 The Navajo Origin Legend
Navajo
 An Indian Father’s Plea by Robert Lake (Medicine Grizzlybear)
 Anchor Text: from Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford
 Close Read: from The General History of Virginia by John Smith
 The Iroquois Constitution
 Close Read: “Bonding over a Mascot” by Joe Lapointe
 Various articles on mascots
o Significant Writing: Argumentative Essay on Mascots
 “To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet
 “Huswifery” by Edward Taylor
 “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards
o Drama: The Crucible by Arthur Miller and film (1996)

Unit 2 Building a Democracy
Colonial Era/The Revolutionary Era/The Age of Reason
o Essential Question: How can people of widely diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and interests work together to
form one political union?
o Related Readings:
 Anchor Text: The Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson
 Anchor Text: The United States Constitution: Preamble and Bill of Rights
 Close Read: from The United States Constitution
o Significant Writing: Informative Essay on definition of what it means to be American

Unit 3 The Individual and Society
American Romanticism/Renaissance/Transcendentalism
o Essential Question: What is the effect of society on the individual?
o Related Readings:
 Anchor Text: from “Song of Myself” “I Hear Myself Singing” “A Noiseless Patient Spider” by Walt
Whitman
o Significant Writing: Poetry Writing
 Close Read: from “Nature” and “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
 “The Soul selects her own Society” “Because I could not stop for Death” “Much Madness is divinest
Sense” “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” by Emily Dickinson

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from “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau
“The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathanial Hawthorne
“The Raven” “The Fall of the House of Usher” “The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allen Poe

Unit 4 A New Birth of Freedom Civil War and Frontier
o Essential Question: How does literature reflect the history of a nation?
o Related Readings:
 “On Surrender at Bear Paw Mountain, 1877” by Chief Joseph
 “On Women’s Right to Vote” by Susan B. Anthony
 Anchor Text: “Second Inaugural Address” by Abraham Lincoln
 Close Read: “Emancipation Proclamation” by Abraham Lincoln
o Three ACT Prompt Argumentative Timed Writes with one revision to a final draft using Newsela.com articles

Unit 5 An Age of Realism
Realism/Naturalism
o Essential Question: How do authors express their views about society?
o Related Readings:
 Anchor Text: “To Build a Fire” by Jack London
 “An Episode of War” by Stephen Crane
 “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
 “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
o Literature Circles: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck or The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Unit 6 The Modern World
Modernism/Harlem Renaissance
o Essential Question: What is the American Dream?
o Related Readings:
 “The Red Wheelbarrow” “The Great Figure” by William Carlos Williams
 “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound
 “Out, Out” “The Road Not Taken” “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” “Neither Out Far
Nor In Deep” “Nothing Gold Can Stay” “Once by the Pacific” by Robert Frost
 “Old Man at the Bridge” “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” “In Another Country” by Ernest Hemingway
o Significant Writing: Narrative Essay inspired by a Hemingway Six-Word Story
o Novel: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and film (2013)
o Significant Writing: Informative Essay of Literary Analysis on The Great Gatsby
 “Harlem” “I, Too” “Dream Variations” by Langston Hughes
 “Caged Bird” “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou
 “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar
 “America” by Claude McKay
 Close Read: “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston
 Close Read: “The Weary Blues” by Langston Hughes
 “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid
o Novel: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and film (2005)

Act Preparation
o Reading, English, and Writing Test Prep
o Significant Writing: Three Practice Timed Write Argumentative Essays

Unit 7 Contemporary Period
Post-War Era/Postmodernism
o Essential Question: Do individuals have the power to change the society in which they live?
o Related Readings:
 Close Read: “Ambush” by Tim O’ Brien
o Novel: The Things They Carried by Tim O’ Brien

Final Project
o Multigenre research paper and project on future career or college plans