ENG402: British and World Literature (Core)

Scope & Sequence : Scope & Sequence documents describe what is covered in a course (the scope) and also the order in which topics are covered (the sequence). These documents list instructional objectives and skills to be mastered. K¹² Scope & Sequence documents for each course include:

Course Overview

K¹² High School British and World Literature is a genre-based course in which students sharpen their reading comprehension skills and analyze important themes in classic and modern works of British and World literature, including short stories, poetry, drama, and novels. Students refine their skills of written expression by writing narrative essays, persuasive essays, research papers, workplace documentation, and more. They develop vocabulary skills and refresh their knowledge of grammar, usage, and mechanics in preparation for standardized tests.

LITERATURE: Students read short stories, poetry, drama, and novels, sharpening their reading comprehension skills and analyzing important themes.

LANGUAGE SKILLS: Students continue to work on their oral and written expression skills, writing a variety of essays including expository, persuasive, and research essays, and workplace documentation. Students plan, organize, and revise their essays in response to feedback.

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Course Length

Two Semesters

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Materials

Explorations: An Anthology of British and World Literature, Volume D

NOTE: List subject to change

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Prerequisites

Prerequisites: ENG302: American Literature, or equivalent

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Course Outline

I. LITERATURE

Readings include:

Works of Length

  • Students will choose between The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie and Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Drama

  • Romeo and Julietby William Shakespeare (an abbreviated text with modern translation for support)

Prose Fiction and Nonfiction

  • Works by Sir Thomas Malory, D.T. Niane, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing, George Orwell, and others.

Poetry

  • Works by William Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Burns, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coledridge, John Keats, and others

II. COMPOSITION

In this writing program, students practice writing essays in various genres. Many units use the literature lessons as a springboard and thereby reinforce the connection between reading for meaning and writing to communicate one's own ideas. Students learn the form and structure of a variety of essays they will encounter in their academic careers including expository essays, research papers, arguments, and speeches. In writing each essay, students go through a process of planning, organizing, and revising, and they learn to examine their own writing with a critical eye, paying attention to ideas, organization, structure, style, and correctness. Throughout the course, students write in response to prompts similar to those they will encounter on standardized tests.

III. CRITICAL SKILLS PRACTICE

The course provides students with the opportunity to practice critical reading and writing skills in a learning environment that is similar to standardized tests.

Partial List of Skills Taught:

  • Develop complex compositions using writing processes.
  • Select a focus, structure, and point of view relevant to the purpose, genre expectations, audience, length, and format requirements.
  • Establish a clear, distinctive, and coherent thesis or perspective and maintains a consistent tone and focus throughout.
  • Organize ideas in writing to ensure coherence, logical progression, and support.
  • Incorporate elements in writing to enhance meaning and for specific rhetorical and aesthetic purposes.
  • Use various forms of persuasion (factual or emotional) to support an opinion in speaking and writing.
  • Develop presentations by using clear research questions and creative and critical research strategies.
  • Use systematic strategies to organize and record information.
  • Integrate databases, graphics, and spreadsheets into word-processed documents.
  • Write persuasive pieces (e.g. speech, editorial, letter to the editor, public service announcement).
  • Write fictional, autobiographical, or biographical narratives.
  • Write historical investigation reports.
  • Write job applications and résumés.
  • Plan, organize, develop, produce and evaluate an effective multimedia presentation,  using tools such as charts, photographs, maps, tables, posters, transparencies, slides and electronic media
  • Deliver oral presentations,
  • Produce informal writings for various purposes.
  • Analyze the ways in which meaning is affected by structure and word choice in expository texts.
  • Evaluate the evidence used to support the author's perspective in expository texts.
  • Analyze expository texts.
  • Analyze how words, images, graphics, and sounds work together in various forms to impact meaning.  
  • Interpret and evaluate the various ways in which events are presented and information is communicated by visual image makers.
  • Analyze British and world literature from a variety of authors for style, audience appeal, cultural significance, and plot structure.
  • Analyze distinctive elements of a variety of literary forms and types.
  • Interpret a variety of texts by identifying and examining literary elements.
  • Analyze the use of figurative language in literary works.
  • Identify and analyze types of dramatic literature.
  • Identify and analyze the conventions and techniques used in different types of dramatic literature.
  • Identify and explain the use of poetic elements to enhance meaning and effect.
  • Trace etymologies of terms.
  • Use roots and affixes to infer word meaning.
  • Define and use new words by studying their relationship to other words.
  • Use references materials as needed to learn about words.
  • Apply techniques to extend vocabulary.

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