Victorian Age & Twentieth Century

From

03/26/2012

To

04/01/2012

Content

-Prevailing ideas of the Victorian Age: Colonialism, class attitudes, advances in technology and communications, manners and morals, Realism, Naturalism;
-Creative and expository essays;
-Vocabulary from work book and the literature;
-Prevailing ideas of the Twentieth Century: the effects of two world wars, the breakdown of the class system, advances in technology, the changing nature of the British Empire, disillusionment, Modernism.

Skills

-Close reading for comprehension;
-Understanding the literature in its historical context;
-Recognizing recurring themes and motifs in literature;
-Writing critical and creative essays with increasing sophistication;
-Building vocabulary for life (and the SAT exam)

Resources

-Selected Poems, Alfred, Lord Tennyson
-My Last Duchess, Robert Browning
-Sonnets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning
-Hope, Emily Bronte
-Silent Noon, Dante Gabriel Rossetti
-Sonnet, Christina Rossetti
-A Mad Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
-Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold
-Selected Poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins
-Selected Poems, Thomas Hardy
-Selected Poems, A.E. Housman
-The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
-Selected Poems, William Butler Yeats
-Preludes, The Hollow Men, T.S. Eliot
-World War I poems, Sassoon, Brooke, Owen
-Selected Poems, W.H. Auden
-Selected Poems, Dylan Thomas
-Araby, James Joyce
-Goose Fair, D.H. Lawrence
-The New Dress, Virginia Woolf
-A Shocking Accident, Graham Greene
-The Train from Rhodesia, Nadine Gordimer
-The Dumb Waiter, Harold Pinter
-Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop, Level F
-Videotape: The Importance of Being Earnest (Edith Evans, Michael Redgrave)

Instructional Strategies

-Discussion (small groups and whole class)
-Lecture
-Oral Reading
-Two drafts of written work
-In-class, timed writing
-Word Games
-Dramatic Reading of The Dumb Waiter

Assessment

-Weekly vocabulary quizzes
-Daily study questions for homework
-2 two-draft compositions
-2 historical background multiple choice quizzes
-1 comprehensive unit test (Victorian Age) with identifications, short paragraph answers, and essay on previously unseen material
-2 timed, in-class essays
-Final Examination on material covered in the second semester

Outcomes

Students will:
-Be able to identify and discuss key ideas in the Victorian Age and the Twentieth Century
-Have a clear picture of the development of British Literature from the Fourteenth Century to the present
-Be able to write clear expository and creative essays using varied syntax and diction from the 600+ words they will have added to their working vocabulary
-Be able to read, understand and write about previously unseen poems and prose passages
-Be ready for Junior Honors English