English III Syllabus
Kathleen Kreycik, BA, MFA
(818) 222-7177 x 52324
2024-2025 school year
Support available by appointment
Course Details: English III.
Course Description: This course provides a survey of American literature, which examines each unique period of literature in its historical context, beginning with the Native American/Puritan period, culminating in the Contemporary/Post Modern era, and will include The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Kindred by Octavia Butler, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Writing instruction includes expository, narrative, and argumentative writing, as well as research methods and strategies, and digital information and media literacy. Vocabulary development includes high frequency SAT vocabulary in semesters one and two and Academic vocabulary review from previous years. Outside reading will focus on diversity, equity and inclusion selections from the CHS library, a non-fictional work in semester one and a fictional work in semester two.
Attendance: After the first three days of class, attendance will be taken by seating chart. For this reason, you
need to be in your assigned seat (not any seat at your group table, and not anywhere else). If you come tardy,
which is by the time you need to be in class, not by the bell (which is frequently inaccurate) you need to write you name in on the tardy sheet or you will remain marked absent. Students come and go continually during the period; it is not my job to watch for stragglers when I'm in the middle of instruction or to try and recall the names of the five students who came tardy and record it when there is a break in active instruction. If you want to be marked present, add your name to the tardy list when tardy and be in your assigned seat when class is supposed to begin.
Objectives: as a result of this course you will be able to:
Locate and Identify appropriate academic research sources.
Evaluate the credibility of sources.
Integrate academic sources into a cohesive argument.
Complete sustained research projects, including a two-semester examination of an argumentative topic.
Effectively format a variety of writing including expository, narrative, and argumentative essays.
Effectively craft a logical thesis and series of supporting arguments.
Smoothly Integrate sources, both quoted and paraphrased, into your writing.
Develop claims and counterclaims fairly and logically.
Utilize transitions effectively to link areas of text.
Establish appropriate style and tone for audience and purpose.
Write conclusions that articulate implications and significance.
Use a disciplinary style guide (MLA).
Understand the historical concerns of each area of American literature.
Determine theme and central ideas of texts.
Analyze complex characters, their development, and their advancement of theme.
Compare and contrast works in different mediums.
Distinguish authors and works of the various periods studied.
Use analytical techniques to analyze literature and discover meaning.
Recognize in reading and use in writing a wider vocabulary.
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English.
Required Texts and Resources presented in order of use/by unit:
Native American and Puritan
Braiding Sweetgrass (excerpts) by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
"Death in Salem: the Private Lives Behind the 1692 Witch Hunts" by Diane E. Foulds (Study Sync)
"I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem" by Maryse Conde (Study Sync)
"Verses Upon the Burning of Our House" by Anne Bradstreet (Study Sync)
"Constitution of the Iroquois Nations" (Study Sync)
Age of Reason
"Literary Focus: Early America" (Study Sync)
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Notes on the State of Virginia (excerpts) by Thomas Jefferson
"We the People" (Study Sync Blast)
"The North Star: Our Paper and Our Prospects" by Frederick Douglass (Study Sync)
"Learning to Read" by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Study Sync)
Journal of William Still (excerpts) (Study Sync)
"The Underground Railroad" by William Still (Study Sync)
Romantic (early)
from Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Study Sync)
"Self-Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Study Sync)
"Resistance to Civil Government"/"On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau (Study Sync)
Walden (excerpts) by Henry David Thoreau (Study Sync)
Romantic (late/dark)
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Moby Dick Study Sync TV
"Ligeia" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe (Study Sync)
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (Study Sync)
"The Loneliness of Lost Love in Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven'" by Ursula Villarreal-Moura
"Rappaccini's Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Realism
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Study Sync)
The Great Gatsby Study Sync TV
Selected poems by Emily Dickinson:
"Tell the Truth but Tell it Slant"
"Success is Counted Sweetest"
"Because I Could not Stop for Death"
"Much Madness is Divinest Sense"
"This is My Letter to the World"
Open Me Carefully by Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith (excerpts)
Selected poems by Walt Whitman:
"Song of Myself"
"Oh Captain, My Captain"
"The Lowest Animal" by Mark Twain
The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain
"Story of an Eyewitness: The San Francisco Earthquake" by Jack London
"To Build a Fire" by Jack London
"Richard Cory" by Edward Arlington Robinson
"Robinson on Richard Cory"
Modern
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot"
"The Red Wheelbarrow" by William Carlos Williams
"This is Just to Say"by William Carlos Williams
"somewhere i have never traveled gladly beyond" by e.e.cummings
"The Short Happy Life of Frances Macomber" by Ernest Hemingway
"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber
"Nothing Gold can Stay" by Robert Frost
"Mending Wall" by Robert Frost
"Tableau" by Countee Cullen
"Incident" by Countee Cullen
"Harlem" by Langston Hughes
"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes
"Sweat" by Zora Neale Hurston
Contemporary/Post-modern
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor
"Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler
"Good Hunting" by Ken Liu
"Kong Incognito"by William Trowbridge
"Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes" by Billy Collins
Late work: will be accepted one day late for 50% (essays are the exception--see below). For excused absences, when work is assigned before the absence, work is due the day student returns to class. For work assigned during the excused absence, students have the number of days absent plus one day to get the make-up work in. For late work submitted electronically, students must email me and let me know which assignment was turned in and for which period, otherwise the work will not be entered into the student’s grade, and that email must be sent the day the late work is submitted or no credit will be given. Work not turned in due to unexcused absences is not accepted. Please know that family trips, club sports tournaments or showcases, being stranded at an airport (or anywhere else), having car problems, etc. are NOT excused absences. Please view the district handout for the full list of what is and isn’t excused. I do not make the rules. I simply follow them. Exams missed must be taken the day the student returns to class, quizzes must be taken within a week of the original quiz at a support period, and it is the student's responsibility to ask for the exam or quiz, not the teacher's responsibility to remind the student. The exception is essays: essays will be accepted late with a one grade reduction for each day late, up until the F @ 59% -- if the essay submitted completes the requirements of the paper, the students may earn the 59% no matter how late the paper is, up until the last two weeks in the semester. If the essay submitted does not complete the requirements of the paper, no credit will be given.
Plagiarism/academic honesty: work that is plagiarized will not be accepted for credit, and the student will be given a zero on that assignment and a note will be submitted on the student's record. No make-up opportunities will be offered for plagiarized work or work on which cheating occurred. For assignments plagiarized from another student, both students will receive a zero on the assignment and a note on their record—for this reason, students should NEVER share/show their work to a fellow student to give them an “example.” If a student needs help and an example, the appropriate way is either to find an online example or to ask the teacher. In my 24 years+ experience, a student who asks a fellow student to see their paper ALWAYS plans to copy all or a portion of the paper. Students must protect themselves by politely refusing and suggesting other more appropriate resources.
Course Calendar:
August – September:
Native American and Puritan Period Literature
The Crucible
High Frequency SAT vocabulary
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
Narrative Essay
Outside reading book—DEI non-fiction selection
October
Essay on research topic—Expository (preparation for argumentative essay in semester 2)
Age of Reason
Kindred
High Frequency SAT Vocabulary
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
November
Romantic Era (early)
Moby Dick
High Frequency SAT Vocabulary
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
December
Romantic Era (late/dark)
Moby Dick
High Frequency SAT Vocabulary
Expository essay (literary analysis)
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
January
Realism literature
High Frequency SAT Vocabulary
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
February
Essay—researched, argumentative (extension of Expository essay in semester 1)
Modern Era literature
The Great Gatsby
High Frequency SAT vocabulary
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
Outside reading book—DEI fiction selection
March
Modern Era Literature
High Frequency SAT vocabulary
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
Essay—expository (literary analysis)
April
Contemporary Era/Post Modern Literature
High Frequency SAT vocabulary
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
May
Contemporary Literature/Post-Modern Literature
Academic Vocabulary Review
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
June
Final Exams
Media and Digital Literacy Instruction
Expectations:
Check class web page daily for work and instructions, even when absent. It is insufficient to check google classroom, as google classroom will only be used to submit electronically, and will not have information about reading assignments, video viewing assignments, or study sync assignments.