Teaching English LIterature

By Valerie Hockert, PhD

Use this book as a lesson planner, whether you are teaching in an institution or a home school. There are 12 lessons, containing study guides, discussion questions and more.

Learn more about the development of English literature from the nation's founding to the Nineteenth Century.

This book is a great teaching textbook and tool to help instruct your students how to write, as they are learning more about English literature. They will also learn how to relate these pieces of famous literature to their own personal lives. As they are writing and learning about these different pieces and their authors, they will learn to appreciate them.

Valerie Hockert has taught English Literature at a college level for many years, and has a PhD in Literary Studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justice Gray
• Release date: Dec 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310030321

Valerie Hockert, PhD

Valerie Hockert, was born in the Midwest where she has lived all her adult life. She has had much life experience through her various entrepreneurial life. She has a Master's Degree in Liberal Studies, and a PhD in Literary Studies. Dr. Hockert has been teaching at a college level for many years. She was the first publisher of the Writers' Journal and Today's Family, two national publications. She is also a certified personal trainer, great chef, and the Publisher of an e-magazine: www.realitytodayforum.com.

Book preview

Teaching English Literature

A Twelve-Week Lesson Plan

By Valerie Hockert

Valerie Hockert

[e-mail]

Smashwords edition copyright: 2012 by Valerie Hockert.

All rights reserved

No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of author.

About the Author

Valerie Hockert has had numerous books published, over 100 articles, and has worked as a publisher and editor. She is also an English College Professor.

Introduction

Tracing the development of English literature from the nation’s founding to the Nineteenth Century, different authors are highlighted in each week, and readings are within various literary contexts.

With using this book, you will have a better understanding of the selections through the discussion/essay questions listed. With the help of this book, you also can learn or teach your students:

•To analytically read selections from various periods.

•Learn to relate the literature to personal lives.

•Appreciate the different literatures from different regions.

•Compare and contrast literary works.

List of Authors

Increase Mather

Cotton Mather

Richard Crashaw

Anne Bradstreet

Lady Mary Wroth

Phillis Wheatley

Thomas Traherne

Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Jefferson

Edward Young

William Blake

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Edgar Allen Poe

Walt Whitman

Emily Dickenson

Percy Bysshe Shelley

John Keats

Table of Contents

Week 1 Exploration in English Literature

Week 2: 17th Century Literature

Week 3: More on17th Century Colonial Literature

Week 4: Early Feminism

Week 5:17th Century Devotional Messages in Literature

Week 6: Liberty and Revolution and the Sublime

Week 7: The Gloom and Doom of London

Week 8: The Gloom and Doom of London (continued)

Week 9: Nature in Poetry

Week 10: Peer Reviews

Week 11: Evidence of Learning

Week 12: Final Project Feedback

Week 1 Exploration in English Literature

Week 1 Objectives:

Besides analytically reading selections from various periods, you will:

•learn to relate the literature to your own personal lives

•be able to appreciate the different literatures from different regions.

•know how to compare and contrast some well-known literary works.

Week 1 Description:

Knowing how to analytically read a piece of literature requires knowing some literary terms.

Literary Terms

Below is a list of a few literary terms commonly used when reading literature. It will be of great help to familiarize yourself with these terms as you go through the readings and write the required essays.

•allegory—a story in which persons, places, and things form a system of clearly labeled equivalents

•antagonist—the most significant character or force that opposes the protagonist in a narrative or drama

•antihero—a protagonist conspicuously lacking in one or more of the usual attributes of a traditional hero (bravery, skill, idealism, sense of purpose

•climax—the moment of greatest tension at which the outcome is to be decided

•cognitive analysis—a purpose in response-based writing to examine how and why you process a given text the way you do

•complication—a new conflict is introduced

•conventions—usual devices and features of a literary work

•crisis—a moment of high tension

•cultural analysis—an exercise in response-based writing to examine how and why your ideology and that of the text interact the way they do

•dramatic situation—a person is involved in some conflict

•epiphany—some moment of insight, discovery, or revelation by which a character’s life, or view of life, is greatly altered

•Assignment—considering the story, and put a value on it

•exposition—the opening portion that sets the scene (if any), introduces the main characters, tells us what happened before the story opened, and provides any other background information that we need in order to understand and care about the events to follow

•flashback—a device useful to writers for filling in what happened earlier

•foreshadowing—an indication of events to come

•hero—especially brave or virtuous

•ideologies—systems of beliefs and values in the cultural environment

•ideology—the accumulated knowledge, beliefs, opinions, values, experiences, and memories (both conscious and unconscious) of a society or culture and its individual members

•in medias res—in the midst of things

•irony—meaning one thing but saying quite the opposite

•literary experience—includes the texts a reader has read previously; knowledge of particular text strategies previously encountered, reading strategies for a kind of text or a particular reading situation, and expectations for a particular reading interaction or specific text, based on similar interactions in the past

•literary repertoire—the set of practices available to a literary text, the text strategies it has available to use, or the beliefs about literary matters that exist in the cultural context in which a text is produced

•locale—where a story takes place

•motivation—sufficient reasons to behave as the characters do

•narrator—the speaker

•observer—a minor character standing a little to one side, watching a story unfold that mainly involves someone else

•omniscient narrator—all-knowing narrator

•point of view—the perspective from which a story is told

•protagonist—the central character in a literary work

•reading strategies—the methods by which a reader processes a text in his or her mind; the techniques of reading

•response statement—a kind of writing that records a reader’s initial reaction to a text and attempts to account for that response in terms of the literary and/or ideological interaction between text and reader

•sarcasm—a somewhat sour statement tinged with mockery

•scene—a vivid or dramatic moment described in enough detail to create the illusion that the reader is practically there

•setting—time and place

•stock characters—stereotyped characters

•stream of consciousness—the procession of thoughts passing through the mind

•suspense—the pleasurable anxiety we feel that heightens our attention to the story, inheres in our wondering how it will all turn out

•symbol—a thing that suggests more than its literal meaning

•theme—whatever general idea or insight the entire story reveals

When going through the readings, you may have a different response from your classmates. That is because your background, ideologies, perspectives and experiences might be different from your classmates. Don’t be afraid that your response is incorrect because it is different, but it will add some depth to the discussions and the workshops.

Using these response questions will help your students to better identify with the readings.

Ideologies--systems of beliefs and values in the cultural environment. The reader can be considered in relation to his or her background, both as a person in general and specifically as a reader, and to the variety of situations in which he or she reads. As an example: "What are your beliefs concerning nay of these topics: education, love, or work? Write three or four ideological statements on any one of these.

Now consider these statements and how they apply to your readings.

List the particular cultural categories that you belong to (i.e.: your race, your gender, your age group, and so forth). In what ways do any of these categories affect your readings?

Writing Your Response

Analyzing your interaction with a reading grows out of the three basic response statements questions which you should ask yourself:

Q. What is your response to the readings? (i.e.: I like, dislike, hate, love this text; I find it____________).

Q. What accounts for my response, in terms of the readings and myself? (How or in what ways does my life experience contribute to my response?)

Q. What does my response tell me about myself or my culture? (How does this take your still further toward your own self-consciousness?)

Analyzing Your Response

Q. What is my own ideology in relation to the issue or idea in the reading? Does the reading challenge my beliefs or values?

Q. From what perspective did I read? What was the effect? What harmonized or clashed with my own beliefs?

Q. How does your life experience interact with whatever reality is presented in the story? What do you know, think, or believe that helps or hinders your ability to believe in what the story presents?

Literary Experience

Q. Why are your responses different from your classmates or others? What accounts for the similarity or difference, in terms of the literary experience that readers bring to

Reviews for Teaching English LIterature

[Rajanapadot · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is very good