American Literature Full Year ELA Curriculum for High School English | Secondary

Looking for a full-year American Literature curriculum that will engage your most reluctant learners while still challenging your most advanced students?

Spanning American literature from Puritans to young authors writing today, this truly diverse curriculum has differentiated plans for honors and standard level classes.

From the Puritan worldview to YOLO culture, from love and lies to the Iraq war, and from the everyday pains of growing up to the unique experience of the contemporary immigrant, there is so much to explore when you teach American literature with these units.

The variety of materials, real-life connections, and innovative approaches to the information will keep students engaged and excited about learning. Additionally, the concrete text-based questions and unique sources discourage cheating and encourage students to answer for themselves.

The extensive plans included in this resource are more than enough for 180 days of rigorous common-core aligned reading, analyzing, discussing, and writing as well as plenty of fun activities to keep students on their toes and trying new things.

Now included: two differentiated pacing guides with daily schedules for standard level and honors level including classwork, homework, and assessments. Check out the preview to see a sample of these schedules.

When you teach with the innovative units in this giant bundle, you will:

• Establish calming routines when you begin class with the daily bellringer freewrite prompts.

• Easily plan out your year with the day-by-day pacing guides including assessments, writing assignments, and daily lesson plans and activities for honors and standard level classes.

• Teach some classic texts including a full unit on The Crucible and on The Great Gatsby.

• Revive your curriculum when you introduce your students to powerful contemporary writers such as Brian Turner, Danez Smith, Louise Erdrich, Layli Long Soldier, and Bharati Mukherje.

• Give even your most reluctant learners the scaffolding and support they need to engage with challenging texts when you utilize the no-prep handouts and extensive answer keys for every text in the bundle.

• Never get bored of teaching the same text year after year when you choose from 30 different poetry units and 12 different short story units.

• Empower your students to complete a close reading of a challenging text when they practice with structured handouts and focused passages and then build towards independent analysis.

• Differentiate for your students’ needs with the varied choices and suggestions for activities, extension, and daily processes.

• Engage multiple learning styles with the interactive notebook extension activities involving everything from a dynamic jigsaw to researching biblical allusions to drawing comics to reading articles from the Onion.

• Get your classes connecting classic literature with contemporary and historical ideas and issues such as the climate change, bullying and hate crimes, and the social media echo chamber, when you teach with the fascinating TED Talks and contemporary news articles included in these units.

• Create a classroom atmosphere that encourages experimentation, play, and fun when you complete the multiple creative writing questions and interactive activities together with your students.

• Teach powerful and effective writing units focusing on common core requirements for narrative and argument writing when you utilize the proven mini lessons, activities, handouts, assignments, and rubrics.

• Give assessments that you will actually enjoy reading when you choose from the multiple options for each unit including an ironic how-to, an original short story, a original poem, a poetry anthology, a literary analysis paper, and a graded discussion.

• Explore the varied themes of American Literature together with your students as you challenge them to consider multiple viewpoints and perspectives and grow their empathy and compassion for people whose lives are very different from their own.

There are no lectures or power points here—students will do the work themselves, with guidance from you. Rather than telling them what the texts mean, you will be empowering them with the confidence and skills to tackle literature on their own.

This bundle includes questions on the following poems, stories, and essays (though not all of the texts are included because of copyright):

“To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet

“Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 18th, 1666” by Anne Bradstreet

“The Author’s Defense” by Cotton Mather

“The Trial of Martha Carrier” by Cotton Mather

“Speech to the Osages” by Tecumseh

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

“Much Madness is Divinest Sense” by Emily Dickinson

“This is My Letter to the World” by Emily Dickinson

“When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer” by Walt Whitman

"I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman

“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald

"Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes

"This is How it Feels to be Colored Me" by Zora Neale Hurston

"The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" by Langston Hughes

"I Too Sing America” by Langston Hughes

“Let America Be America Again” by Langston Hughes

"If We Must Die" by Claude Mckay

"Harlem" (also known as "Dreams" or "A Dream Deferred") by Langston Hughes

“Sonnet to a Negro in Harlem” by Helene Johnson

"We Were the Mask" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

“If and When Dreams Come True” by W.S. Mark

“Richard Cory” by Edwin Arlington Robinson

“The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

“Sonnet: The Ladies Home Journal” by Sandra Gilbert

“The Tropics of New York” by Claude McKay

“John Redding Goes To Sea” by Zora Neale Hurston

“Sweat” by Zora Neale Hurston

“Harlem Gang Leader,” a photo essay by Gordon Park’s published in Life magazine in 1948

“The Whites Invade Harlem,” a satirical essay by Levi C. Hubert

"Barn Burning" by William Faulkner

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

“A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsberg

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula Le Guin

“Elena” by Pat Mora

“La Migra” by Pat Mora

“Postcard from Kashmir” by Agha Shahid Ali

“My Uncle’s Favorite Coffee Shop” by Naomi Shihab Nye

“The Island Within” by Richard Blanco

“The Shawl” by Cynthia Ozick

“Prospective Immigrants Please Note” by Adrienne Rich

“The Birthday of the World” by Marge Piercy

“The Victims” by Sharon Olds

"Half-Hanged Mary" by Margaret Atwood

"Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

"2000 lbs." by Brian Turner

"Hurt Locker" by Brian Turner

"Eulogy" by Brian Turner

“Undocumented and Unafraid” a speech by Gustavo Madrigal-Piña

“Two Ways To Belong in America,” an essay by Bharati Mukherje

"not an elegy for Mike Brown" by Danez Smith

"alternate heaven for black boys” a poem by Danez Smith

“Busted Boy” a poem by Simon Ortiz

“38” a poem by Layli Long Soldier

“Language and Literature from a Pueblo Indian Perspective” a speech by by Leslie Marmon Silko

“Love You Some Indians”a poem by Rowie Sheila

“New Trees, New Medicines, New Wars: The Chickasaw Removal” by Linda Hogan

I'm continuously updating this unit, so make sure to download any new versions after you buy! For now, you will get the following resources, all deeply discounted when you buy them together:

Longer Units

*The Crucible Unit Plan | Salem Witch Trials | American Literature Unit (normally priced at $51.97). Students today can learn so much from The Crucible—how to stand up for what they believe and speak out against the majority, how Puritan ideas have influenced American society, how powerful teen girls are kept down and what they can do to stop that oppression. In all, there is enough here for over one month month of rigorous but accessible reading, analysis, discussion, and writing; this unit includes 125 questions on the individual acts, 50 bellringer writing prompts, 5 different writing assignments, 4 quizzes, 1 test, 5 paired non-fiction and poetry texts with questions, and a guide to close reading with 7 passages for close reading. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

*The Great Gatsby Unit Plan | Great Gatsby Pre-reading Activities to Unit Test (normally priced at $65.49). This complete unit includes close reading and discussion questions for every chapter, innovative activities for each chapter, as well as reading check quizzes on all of the chapters, 136 bellringer writing prompts, 5 different writing assignments, 2 tests, and 12 supplementary non-fiction and poetry texts with question. This giant unit is so much fun to teach and will be a highlight of your year for sure. You can view this resource by clicking here.

Thematic Units

Immigration Unit: Nonfiction Texts, Poetry Writing, Close Reading Lessons (normally priced at $12.97). Even though they might know that opening the “golden door” for those “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” is a foundational value of this country, many students don’t have first-hand experience with immigration. This unit won’t change government policy or organize a protest at the border, but the contemporary real-life stories, struggles, and triumphs will inspire students who will soon be out in the world on their own and voting for the ideas that matter most to them. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

American Literature Unit: Film Studies, Poetry Analysis, & Essay Writing (normally priced at $9.97). This diverse unit on the American dream will engage your students with the powerful poems, fascinating contemporary non-fiction, and one of the greatest documentaries ever made. It includes four different lessons, a graded discussion, and a timed essay in which students will bring together everything they have learned from the unit. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

*Journalism: Social Media Literacy | Advertising | Critical Thinking | Propaganda (normally priced at $17.97). Included in this common core aligned resource is everything your students need to know about fake news and the new media literacy as well as the cognitive biases that cause us to fall for manipulative media and propaganda. These multi-day lesson plans will take students through the process of identifying what they know, understanding the impact of fake news, looking at the way that quality journalism is constructed, and learning what they need to know to be responsible consumers of media. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

*Harlem Renaissance Unit Plan: Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston (normally priced at $19.97). This rigorous, well-researched unit explores the historical roots of the movement, the artistic traditions that fed the art, and the important issues and debates of the time. Tackling big questions around race, identity, and art, this unit will not offer easy answers or oversimplified explanations. Instead, it will get your classes thinking deep, reading and analyzing great literature, and enjoying amazing works of art together. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

Individual Poetry Resources

*Langston Hughes “I, Too” and Walt Whitman Paired Texts Poetry Lesson (normally priced at $1.97). A lesson focusing on two classic poems, these poems will get students questioning and thinking about the greatness of America. You can view the individual resource by clicking here.

Gender Roles Poetry Close Reading Lesson | Consumerism 1950s | Poetry Analysis (normally priced at $2.99). These two poems in many ways epitomize the struggles of mid-20th-century America; dealing with themes of class, gender, and consumerism, this lesson will get students analyzing challenging poetry and thinking about how the structure of a poem helps create meaning. You can view the individual resource by clicking here.

Contemporary Poems: Iraq War Veteran Brian Turner (normally priced at $2.99) Brian Turner is a contemporary American poet and a veteran of the Iraq War. This engaging lesson explores the experience of listening to a poet read and explain his own poetry. The discussions here will engage students to think about different ways to experience poetry. You can view the full priced version of this resource by clicking here.

*Marge Piercy Poem Lesson | Rosh Hashanah | Activities | Close Reading (normally priced at $1.97). Marge Piercy’s poem “The Birthday of the World” is a great poem to get your students thinking about how they can spark a change in their own worlds. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

*Black Lives Matter Unit: Poetry Analysis, Literary Allusion, & Anti-Racism (normally priced at $2.97). In this mini unit, students will learn about the history of the Black Lives Matter movement and the way that the word “boy” has been problematic for African American males. They'll also explore both the written version and performance of the wonderful poem “not an elegy for Mike Brown” by Danez Smith, a masterful, award-winning contemporary poet and performer. Rounding out the unit are an opinion piece and an inspiring TED Talk.

Trail of Tears Unit | Native American Literature | Indian Removal Unit (normally priced at $3.97). This innovative unit will take your students beyond a general understanding of the events of the 1830s to a more comprehensive understanding of why history matters. Students will start out by exploring two engaging videos: one on the history of the Trail of Tears and one on why treaties still matter today. Then, they’ll move on to a creative exploration of some first-hand accounts and historical documents from the period. After that, they’ll work to analyze Linda Hogan’s prose writing on the removal as well as Hogan’s poem “The Trail of Tears: Our Removal.”

Individual Short Story Resources

Zora Neale Hurston "Sweat" | Harlem Renaissance Short Story Unit Plan (normally priced at $4.97) This widely-anthologized story of a hardworking washerwoman and her abusive husband is a deceptively simple tale of good and evil, suffering and redemption, and reaping what you sow. However, when read in the context of the many biblical allusions in the story as well as the African American Spiritual, the seemingly-straightforward story becomes much more nuanced and complex. This fascinating mini unit will take your students through recordings of Zora Neale Hurston singing songs she learned through her anthropological research during the Great Depression, a brief exploration of African American spirituals, close reading of the short story, analysis of the masterful figurative language, an analysis of biblical allusions in the text, and dynamic discussions on the bigger questions and themes of the story. You can view the full-priced version of this unit by clicking here.

Zora Neale Hurston, Harlem Renaissance Short Story Unit Plan (normally priced at $7.97). “John Redding Goes to Sea” was Hurston’s first published story. This lovely and tragic story of a man who longs to reach the horizon is a great story for discussing dreams and what keeps us from achieving them. It’s a wonderful choice for a focused close reading and a great story for teaching dialect, setting, and point of view. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson: Dystopian Short Story Unit Plan (normally priced at $3.97). By making connections among bullying, genocide, the Nuremberg trials, Stanley Milgrim’s obedience study, and a classic poem about the Holocaust, your students will be inspired to take their study of Jackson’s powerful story past the pages of the text. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

Short Story Unit Plan: "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin | Literary Analysis (normally priced at $2.97) This mini unit will get your students discussing big ideas and engaging in a close reading of this classic story of a woman’s failed search for autonomy in 19th century America. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

"The Masque of Red Death" Edgar Allan Poe | Allusion | Short Story Unit Plan (normally priced at $3.97) These lessons on the classic tale of the plague will push your students to dig deep, get creative, and fully appreciate Poe’s brilliant work. The innovative activities and extensive explanations will help you teach your classes to understand how symbolism and allusion work to create meaning in literature. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

"The Cask of Amontillado" Edgar Allan Poe Point of View Activities, Homework (normally priced at $3.97) Focusing on irony, point of view, and themes of murder and revenge, this story is lots of fun for students. The optional final assessment will task them with writing an ironic how-to essay—imagine if Poe wrote for The Onion. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

“Edgar Allan Poe Point of View | Edgar Allan Poe Activities | "The Black Cat” normally priced at $4.97). This classic tale of murder is a great choice for discussing remorse, guilt, and blame. The structured handouts included in the unit will give your classes the scaffolding they need to become more independent with their literary analysis. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

Writing Resources

No Prep Bellringer Creative Writing Prompts with Revision Checklist (normally priced at $1.99). With 100 daily prompts, 10 Questions for Analyzing Creative Writing, and 10 Fun Exercises for Playing with Creative Writing, this resource is a great way to get your students excited about writing and revising their work. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

Narrative Writing Ideas & Prompts: Lesson Plans for High School & College Essays (normally priced at $9.97). This practical guide will get students engaged in analyzing writing, discussing what makes good essays, and trying out different exercises themselves. This unit is both low-key and rigorous, and it has been honed over sixteen years of teaching. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

Historical Fiction Writing Project | Creative Research Project | Fun Assessment (normally priced at $1.97). This fun creative writing assignment will encourage students to sharpen their research skills and to deepen their understanding of the time and society portrayed in the text they are studying in class by writing historical fiction. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

Differentiated Writing Workshop Guide | Peer Editing Checklists | Mentor Texts (normally priced at $7.97). This writing workshop guide is designed as an all-purpose manual for teaching writing workshop with your classes. The 30 pages of how-to’s, handouts, and charts can be used for any kind of writing, from argument to poetry to personal narrative. These guides are a great choice if you want to end your short story unit with a literary analysis essay based on close reading of a text. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

Short Story Writing Workshop Guide: Activities, Prompts, Process, & Resources (normally priced at $7.97). This rigorous, practical guide has been honed over my years of trial and error, and it gives you all you need to bring your students’ writing to the next level. The guides and handouts included in this resource will work for nonfiction personal essays, fictional short stories, and even poetry writing. If you want to end your short story unit by assigning an original short story, this resource will be especially helpful. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

Argument Essay Unit | Argument Writing How-To | Argument Writing Questions (normally priced at $9.97) From thesis statements to counterclaims, from grabbers to research, from mentor texts to citation, this unit has focused lessons on everything you need to get your students writing effective essays based on research—including the research itself. Your students will start off by analyzing three comics and a photographic series. After that, they’ll do a close reading of three published opinion pieces on cell phones. More research will be done jigsaw style and in cooperative groups, and once students have started on a writing workshop with the student guide provided here, they will refine their writing through focused lessons with specific examples and practical exercises, all based on professional writing examples. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

Creative Writing Activities & Literary Analysis Exercises | Literary Devices (normally priced at $7.97) These ten creative exercises can be used over and over in your classroom. Students like them because they are low-pressure, different, and amusing. You will like them because they get students writing, thinking about literature, and learning to the appreciate the elements of writing from the inside out. You can view the full-priced version of this resource by clicking here.

*Units that have been updated for Google Classroom.

The American Experience is a big topic—there are no easy answers and no simple explanations. But when students explore a large variety of experiences, they will begin to understand the problems, variety, and greatness of this country.