In brief, eleventh grade English at Brunswick is a chronological study of American literature, focusing on some of the major works and movements that helped shape American literary history. Beginning with a collection of speeches from some of America’s most prominent figures, such as Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, and continuing with various nineteenth and twentieth-century works, the course examines a variety of literary topics, from the romantic vision of the “American Dream,” to the more realistic struggles of the human condition; from the celebration of the “Self” in New England Transcendentalism, to the dark, grotesque characters of the American Gothic. In addition, students explore works that reflect the changing role of women in American society, the African-American “experience,” and the impact of war on the individual. Readings include: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, as well as selections from Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, Eliot, and Hemingway.
Summer Reading
Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Semester I
Selections from Henry David Thoreau & Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Complete Collection of Stories, Ernest Hemingway
Semester II
As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner
A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien