British Literature

Description:

Beginning with ballads and legends, British Literature explores the development of drama, poetry, essays, short stories, and novels.  Each week students usually will have 40-70 pages of reading and a written assignment.  Written assignments will include creative writing as well as analytical writing in response to the literature.  Evaluations will be based on written assignments, oral presentations, quizzes, and unit tests. 

The textbook surveys the following six periods of British literature and provides general background on historical events and the culture:

            Unit 1:  The Old English and Medieval Periods (A.D. 449-1485)
            Unit 2:  The English Renaissance Period (1485-1625)
            Unit 3:  The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1625-1798)
            Unit 4:  The Romantic Period (1798-1832)
            Unit 5:  The Victorian Period (1833-1901)
            Unit 6:  The Modern and Postmodern Period (1901-Present)

In the second semester, each student will choose a well-known novel by a British author and give a presentation to the class on the novel.  As a class, we will study George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Library copies of the novels are fine for our purposes.

Textbooks:

Prentice-Hall Literature: The British Tradition.  Penguin Edition, 2007. 
ISBN: 0-13-131720-2.

Animal Farm. George Orwell. Any edition. Library copies are fine for our purposes.

Prerequisite: Junior or Senior.

Tutor: Marsha MacLeod