Welcome to

Viewpoints on Modern America

11th Grade interdisciplinary course.

The history and literature of America.

 

Mr. Rosin & Mr. Wright

 

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Reading List    Textbooks    Film/Video List    Course Expectations    Outside Reading

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Reading List (Tentative)

American literature plays a central role in this course. The following list includes the novels, plays, stories, poems, memoirs, criticism, journalistic non-fiction, and general non-fiction that will make up your reading for the year. We may not read all of this; then again, we may read more than this.

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Chabon; A Lesson Before Dying, Gaines [Summer Reading]
• One of four memoirs from the approved list [Summer Reading]
• "Western Star", by Benet; fiction from Yezierska and Wolfe; non-fiction from MacLeish and Gammons 
• Packet of articles on the political process in America: summer and fall 2008
• "Song of Myself" and other poems, by Whitman
• "What Work Is" and "The New World", by Levine 
• "The Yellow Wallpaper", by Gilman
• Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston
• Poetry of -- and leading up to -- the Harlem Renaissance (Dunbar, Hughes, McKay, and many others)
• The Sun Also Rises and stories, Hemingway
• The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald
• Poetry by T.S. Eliot
• Carter Beats the Devil, Gold {Real or fiction?}
  • Is the poster at right from the book -- an invention of author Glen David Gold -- or is it an artifact of the real world and the real Charles Carter? For the short answer, check out this or this website. For the longer and more relevant answer, think carefully about the fiction you read in this course, especially the historical fiction. Ask yourself, as we will, not only How is fiction-writing like magic? but also What is the relationship between the individual and the world-historical? Historical fiction helps us address this essential and fascinating question.
• Death of a Salesman, Miller
• War poetry by E.E. Cummings, Randall Jarrell, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others
• "The Devil and Tom Walker", "The Devil and Daniel Webster" stories 
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain
• Literary criticism on Huck, Sun Also Rises, etc.
• Poetry of the civil rights movement, including (but not limited to) works by Lucille Clifton, Dudley Randall, and Melvin Tolson
• This Boy's Life, Wolff
• The Crucible, Miller
• stories by Carver, O'Connor, Ortiz, Updike, and Walker, among others
• non-fiction from Emerson, Thoreau; poems by the Beats, including Ginsberg and Corso
• The Things They Carried, O'Brien

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Textbooks

You will be issued the following books for all or part of the year:

• The American Pageant, Bailey
• The Norton Anthology of American Literature, ed. Baym, volumes C, D, and E
• A People's History of the United States, Zinn

Reading will also include many handouts culled from magazines and newspapers.

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Films/Videos (Tentative)

Film is a uniquely American genre, intertwined with culture, history, and literature. We will watch and consider -- very seriously -- a variety of cinematic pieces that range from drama to television shows to documentary.

• The Godfather [Summer Viewing] 
• Matewan
• Iron Jawed Angels
• Wall Street
• Harlem Renaissance: PBS's I'll Make Me A World (vol. 2)
• Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
• Glory
• The Red Scare: The Manchurian Candidate, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" (Twilight Zone), Red Nightmare
• Thirteen Days
• "Mark Twain Tonight" and/or Born to Trouble
• The American Experience: "The Great Crash"
• Propaganda: Triumph of the Will (Riefenstahl), Why We Fight (Capra)

Other films may be required for independent research paper in the spring

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Course Expectations

 

In this course, you will be expected to think broadly, creatively, and critically, and demonstrate your ability to think, write, and speak.

 

CURRENT EVENTS: Approximately once a week -- often on Monday -- we will cover a topic in the news. You are expected to read a newspaper and/or news magazine and keep up with American current events. We will look at politics, social issues, even sports; we will consider news, op-ed, even political cartoons. You should feel free to invite your teachers to have dinner with your family to talk about current events at the table. Mr. Rosin likes grilled asparagus and Mr. Wright is a big fan of anything that can be dipped into a large bowl of melted cheese. (Just checking to see if you're still reading.)

 

POLITICAL CARTOONS: Due Mondays, but not every week. These assignments -- opportunities for you to analyze the ongoing national debate and interpret visual texts -- will help us guide our Current Events discussions.

 

OUTSIDE READING: Each quarter, you will be expected to read a book in addition to the ones on the curriculum. Your teachers love to read for pleasure and hope you do too; you will have a wide range of options from which to select a book that suits you. For the first quarter, for instance, you will be welcome to read any American author you want (a novel). Wright and Rosin are always thrilled to offer suggestions. This Outside Reading file download lists our current DRAFT of quarter-by-quarter expectations and reading lists/suggestions; this document may be updated with new suggestions as the year goes on, so you may want to check back occasionally.

 

PREPARATION FOR AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE EXAM: It is not an explicit requirement of the course, but much of our text study and language study correlates well with the AP English Language & Composition curriculum, which we are leveraging as much as we can. This class will prepare you to take that AP exam.

 

ASSESSMENTS include (but may not be limited to):

• Discussion, including the relatively formal "Socratic Seminar"
• Analysis of political cartoons
• In-class essays
• Development of a "Bias Calculator" (media analysis tool)
• Poetry analysis
• Text analysis
• DBQ (document-based questions) analysis
• Independent projects (for midterm and final exams)
• Research paper: 11th grade required assessment
• Creative writing
• Quizzes
• Performance (simulations, plays)
• Presentation
• and probably Creation Of Wikis and/or Contribution To Blogs