High School American Literature

Conventional Track

$549.00 for LIVE

$249.00 for Self-Paced

This concise survey of American literature begins with folk-tales from the indigenous people of North America. We read poetry from the colonial period, as well as some writings by the founding fathers. We’ll cover some of the earliest American writers -- Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne -- works by Dickinson, Whitman, Melville, and Twain, a sampling of 20th century writers like Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Hemingway, and ending with two works by black American authors and an early 21st century novel.

This class meets on Wednesdays at 2 pm, Eastern Standard Time.

Note: Space is limited. Be sure to enroll early to secure your spot.

  • STUDENT EXPECTATIONS

    • Attend a one-hour, weekly, live course session

    • Complete each week’s assigned reading

    • Take a short, online, comprehension quiz

    • Answer a weekly, online, discussion question each week

    • Submit two literary analysis papers and one creative project

  • • Students have access to recorded lectures from their course and can choose which books to read and in what order.

    • Students will have access to weekly reading pacing guides and auto-grade quizzes.

    • This class does not include live class sessions or teacher support.

    • All recordings will be available from September 2 through the end of the following August.

  • There are many options for acquiring these books. You can order them from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or another online retailer. If you want to save money, you can check them out of the library. For most of them, you can get e-book versions or access them online and read them on your computer screen. (For any required reading not on the list, we will provide online versions.)

    The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

    Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

    The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Go Down, Moses, by William Faulkner

    The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway

    The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin

    Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

    Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger