Duration
10 Months
Prerequisites
None
Requirements
None
Course Summary
English 12 connects British history with literature, covering works from the Anglo-Saxon period to the modern era. Students will improve reading, writing, and grammar skills while analyzing literary works and practicing various writing styles, including persuasive and analytical writing.
By the end of this course, you will be able to do the following:
Identify major periods in the development of the English language from Old English to Middle English to Modern English
Analyze the development of major literary works from the era of Old English (Beowulf)
Investigate the historical and cultural significance of British literature during the middle ages, including Arthurian legends and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Recognize the early development of theater in England during the middle ages
Evaluate the importance of the Reformation on the formation of the English Renaissance and its writers
Review the history and form of sonnets
Analyze the dramatic works of Shakespeare, both tragedy and comedy, in terms of the history of drama in England and the role of women, character development, plot, conflict, and themes
Investigate the transition from the Renaissance to the neoclassical period, including the role of metaphysical poetry; explore the significant political events that shaped Britain and their impact on neoclassical writers
Recognize ways in which John Milton was a major figure of neoclassicism, even though his work was often atypical of the era
Investigate the history and characteristics of the romantic period, especially the major poets of this era
Analyze how gothic literature developed some similar themes as romantic poetry but in the form of fiction, especially by reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Investigate the development of the novel from the romantic era to the Victorian and modern eras, including examples of realism (as a response to industrial development and class struggles) and modernism (stream of consciousness and the internalization of the narrative voice)
Recognize the poets and novelists of the Victorian era as well as the causes and effects leading to the end of that era
Evaluate the characteristics of Victorian drama, the importance of theater in Victorian society, and the works of famous Victorian playwright Oscar Wilde
Analyze social critiques in H. G. Wells' science fiction novel The Time Machine and in poetry produced during World Wars I and II
Evaluate the persuasive techniques of some of the most influential wartime speeches of the twentieth century
Analyze modernist poetry and novels, especially how changing times fostered experimentation and departure from earlier conventions in the twentieth-century novel