Humanities for American Literature

Bring multi-cultural experiences and literature into your language arts class with this lesson. Here, young readers explore the points of view of first and second-generation Asian immigrants with a list of various fiction and nonfiction...

Ninth graders explore contemporary Korea, as well as pre-war Korea. They do this by reading One Thousand Chestnut Trees. After reading, they participate in classroom discussions about excerpts from the novel. They also research...

Introduce your class to the writing of the indigenous Americans and, even more well known, their story telling. An engaging presentation describes what kinds of texts would be included in the oral stories performed and some common themes...

The four major trends of the 18th century (The Enlightenment, the Great Awakening, British global ambitions, and economic disagreements) are the focus of a PowerPoint that places in context such influences as deism, mercantilism,...

What do Roger Chillingworth, Dr. Heidegger, and Ethan Brand have in common? They are all American literature poster boys for Romanticism, advertising the dangers of valuing reason over feeling and intuition. Introduce your class to...

Explore the history of the American novel in the contexts of literature and US history. How does a novel or piece of writing from a particular time showcase the mood during that historical period? After conducting research and discussing...

Students investigate Native American culture reading and writing about early Native American authors. They listen to an expert to extend their understanding of the culture.

In this online interactive reading comprehension activity, students respond to 13 multiple choice questions about Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. Students may submit their answers to be scored.

There is more to literature of the American South than Civil War battles and Scarlett O'Hara. A short video introduces viewers to the works of Flannery O'Connor and her world of unique characters that causes readers to consider the dark...

Scary stuff! Whether approached as the first horror story or a "serious imaginative exploration of the human condition," Frankenstein continues to engage readers. Here's a packet of activities that uses Mary Shelley's gothic novel to...