Honors American Literature is a one year course designed to meet tenth and eleventh grade English graduation requirements, while preparing students to continue the study of the language arts in their senior year and on into their adult lives. The course of study will explore selections by contemporary as well as traditional American authors from diverse cultural and ethnic origins. Different points of view and the ways in which the prevalent philosophical, political, ethical and social influences of the times affected those views will be explored through a historical look at literature. Particular focus will be upon the Common Core Standards as they apply to reading, writing, listening and speaking skills, as well as the writer’s craft.

Students will engage in intellectual dialogue, reflection, formal and informal writing including - but not exclusively - analysis, persuasion, narrative, exposition, compare-and-contrast and process. Class work, including homework, will consist of a variety of college-level academic endeavors including crafted analysis and research-based essays, in-class essays, reading response, Socratic seminars, debates, presentations, vocabulary development and self-directed reading. By the end of the course of study, students will be prepared  to advance to the most rigorous course of study as a senior.