Unit Materials for 11th Grade English

Essay: “Excerpts from "Self-Reliance"” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essay: “Excerpts from Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essay: “Excerpts from Walden” by Henry David Thoreau

Essay: “Excerpts from "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"” by Henry David Thoreau

Book: The Book of Delights by Ross Gay (Essays: "Hummingbird," "The Irrepressibles: The Gratitudes," "Fireflies")

Book: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Klimmerer (Milkweed Editions; Illustrated edition, 2020)

Poem: “Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson”

Poem: “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman

Poem: “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver

Poem: “The Swan” by Mary Oliver

Poem: “Transcendentalism Socratic Seminar Poems”

Video: “Walden (the Walden Woods Project)”

Video: “Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?” (TED Talk)

Video: “Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Beauty of the Everyday” (TED Ed)

Book: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Scribner, 2004)

Video: “F. Scott Fitzgerald: Great American Writer” (History Channel)

Video: “The top 1%: Should wealth have its limits?” (CBS Sunday Morning)

Article: “The American Dream is Alive and Well” (New York Times)

Article: “Is The American Dream Over?” (Forbes)

Excerpt: Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Play: The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (New Directions Books, 1999)

Poem: “Ballad of the Ladies of Yore” by François Villon

Excerpt: The Awakening by Kate Chopin

Book: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Penguin Books, 2017)

Excerpt: Igbo Culture and History by Don C. Ohadike

Book: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Book: Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Algonquin Books, 2012)

Poem: “Mango Seedling” by Chinua Achebe

Poem: “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats

Article: “Chinua Achebe, African Literary Titan, Dies at 82” by Jonathan Kandell (New York Times, 2013)

Article: “How to Write about Africa” by Binyavanga Wainaina (Granta, 2006)

Speech: “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s 'Heart of Darkness'” by Chinua Achebe

Book: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey (Penguin Random House LLC, Berkley Premium Edition, 2016)

Movie: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Article: “Kitty Dukakis: Electroshock Therapy Has Given Me a New Lease on Life” (National Public Radio)

Article: “Mental Health Medications” (National Institute of National Health)

Article: “Helen” (GreekMythology.com)

Short Story: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Book: The Missing Kennedy: Rosemary Kennedy and the Secret Bonds of Four Women, by Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff (Bancroft Press, 2016)

Speech: “Andrew Jackson’s Speech to Congress on 'Indian Removal'” by President Andrew Jackson (CommonLit.org)

Book: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Short Story: “The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses” by Bessie Head (from The Bedford Introduction to Literature)

Play: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles (Dover Publications, Inc., 2006) (from The Theban Plays)

Short Story: “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Gárcia Márquez (from Leaf Storm and Other Stories)

Video: “The Metamorphosis - Scenes with English Subtitles” (Сайт Евгения Миронова, 2012)

Article: “Oedipus” (Greekmythology.com)

Article: “Franz Kafka” (Biography.com)

Article: “Absurdist Fiction” (Wikipedia)

Article: “The Myth of Sisyphus” (Wikipedia)

Book: Dreaming in Cuban by Christina Garcia (Ballantine Books, 1993)

Article: “Cold War Rivals: Cuba and the United States” by Mike Kubic (CommonLit.org)

Article: “Fidel Castro, Cuban Revolutionary Who Defied U.S., Dies at 90” by Anthony de Palma (New York Times, 2016)

Article: “The Rise and Fall of Karl Marx” by Mike Kubic (CommonLit.org)

Article: “Castro announces Mariel Boatlift” by History.com Editors (A&E Television Networks)

Book: Waiting by Ha Jin (Vintage, 2000)

Short Story: “The Lady with the Pet Dog” by Anton Chekhov

Article: “The Peculiar History of Foot Binding in China” by Matt Schiavenza (The Atlantic, 2013)

Article: “The Long March” (History.com, 2009)

Article: “China’s Cultural Revolution, Explained” by Austin Ramzy (he New York Times, 2016)

Video: “Confucian Teaching: Reciprocity and the Five Human Relationships”

Article: “The Analects of Confucius”

Video: “The Cultural Revolution in China” by Yohuru Williams (History.com)

Essay: “Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Revolution” (Peking Review, Volume 9, 1966)

Poem: “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman (The Walt Whitman Archive)

Article: “Chinese Heroism Effort Is Met with Cynicism” by Andrew Jacobs (The New York Times, 2012)

Book: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne   —  1280L

Article: “Nathaniel Hawthorne” by Biography.com Editors (Biography.com, 2017)

Article: “Puritan Life” (Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia, 2008-2017)

Radio Segment: “Online ‘Shaming’ a New Level of Cyberbullying for Girls” (NPR.org)

Radio Segment: “Inside The Hole: What Happens To The Mind In Isolation?” (NPR.org)