Literary Analysis and Composition

The first in a sequence of college-preparatory English courses, Literary Analysis and Composition is designed to improve students’ written and oral communication skills, and to strengthen their ability to understand and analyze literature.

Composition

Students write a variety of compositions in genres they will encounter throughout their academic careers, such as literary analyses, descriptive essays, and persuasive speeches. In order to understand the writer’s craft and techniques, students examine model essays by both student writers and published authors. In writing their own essays, students go through a process of planning, organizing, and revising, paying attention to ideas, structure, organization, and style. Throughout the course, students write in response to prompts similar to those they will encounter on standardized tests.

Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics

The Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics program offers practice in sentence analysis, sentence structure, and proper punctuation. The course offers practice in new skills as well as regular reinforcement of skills already studied. The course also provides practice in answering the kinds of grammatical questions students will encounter on standardized tests.

Vocabulary

The Vocabulary program builds knowledge of Greek and Latin words that form the roots of many English words, especially the polysyllabic terms that sometimes cause students to stumble. Students define and use words with Greek and Latin roots, and use word origins and derivations to determine the meaning of new words, as they increase their own vocabularies and develop valuable test-taking skills.

Literature

Students read short stories, poetry, drama, novels, autobiographies, essays, and famous speeches. The course guides students in close reading and critical analysis of classic works of literature, and helps them appreciate both the texts and the context in which they were written.

Readings include:

• Novels: Students choose four out of seven offered titles, including: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Animal Farm by George Orwell, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
• Drama: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Antigone by Sophocles
• Short stories by Langston Hughes, Shirley Jackson, Jack London, Guy de Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, James Thurber, and more
• Poetry by W. H. Auden, Gwendolyn Brooks, E. E. Cummings, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Gerard Manley Hopkins, James Weldon Johnson, John Keats, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, William Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas, William Butler Yeats, and more
• Autobiography: selections by Mark Twain, Ernesto Galarza, and Maya Angelou; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass or Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
  

Standard Curriculum Items

• Classics for Young Readers, Vol. 8
• Classics for Young Readers, Vol. 8: An Audio Companion
• BK English Language Handbook, Level 1, Barrett Kendall Publishing
• Vocabulary from Classical Roots, Book C, Educators’ Publishing Service
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
• Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (Peter Holland, editor)

Total lessons: 180

Lesson time: 60 minutes MWF; 80 minutes TTh

You might choose to split the lessons into smaller segments and provide breaks for your student as needed. The K¹² online lesson tracking system allows you to pick up wherever you left off in any given lesson.