English 11A — Founding Arguments and the American Self is the first semester of a two-semester, college-preparatory Grade 11 course in American literature and rhetoric, aligned to the California Common Core State Standards (Grades 11-12) and built to UC A-G Subject Area B expectations.
Four units: The Argument for a Nation (Paine, Winthrop, Abigail Adams, Wheatley, The Federalist), The Scarlet Letter (sin, law and community, with Edwards and Bradstreet), Whose Declaration? (Red Jacket, the Cherokee Memorial, Jackson, Walker, Stewart, Douglass and Dred Scott), and The Self and Its Critics (Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Whitman and Melville’s ‘Bartleby’).
Full-length works: Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter (1850); Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776), read complete. Credits: all readings are public domain (published before 1931); composition instruction adapted from Writing for Success (BCcampus OpenEd, CC BY 4.0).
Curriculum
- 4 Sections
- 20 Lessons
- Lifetime
- Unit 1: The Argument for a Nation — Paine, the Founders and Those They Left Out5
- 1.1Common Sense — Reading the Argument That Made a Nation50 mins
- 1.2Language Lab — Usage Is a Convention: Reading Adams and Wheatley45 mins
- 1.3Seminar — Faction and the Large Republic: Federalist 10 and 5150 mins
- 1.4Writing Workshop — Delineating Reasoning: Claims, Premises and Counterclaims50 mins
- 1.5Key Assignment — Rhetorical Analysis of a Founding Argument200 mins
- Unit 2: Sin, Law and Community — The Scarlet Letter5
- 2.1The Three Scaffold Scenes — How The Scarlet Letter Is Built50 mins
- 2.2Language Lab — Hawthorne’s Sentences: Syntax, Hedging and Nuance45 mins
- 2.3Seminar — Hawthorne’s Puritans and the Puritans’ Own Words50 mins
- 2.4Writing Workshop — Two Themes, One Argument50 mins
- 2.5Key Assignment — Literary Analysis of The Scarlet Letter200 mins
- Unit 3: Whose Declaration? Rights, Removal and the Nation’s Promise5
- 3.1Using the Audience’s Values — Red Jacket and Douglass50 mins
- 3.2Language Lab — Irony, Hyperbole, Paradox and Euphemism45 mins
- 3.3Listening Lab — Removal Argued: Jackson and the Cherokee Memorial50 mins
- 3.4Writing Workshop — Legal Reasoning and Fair Counterclaims: Dred Scott50 mins
- 3.5Key Assignment — Argument Essay: The Promise and Its Critics200 mins
- Unit 4: The Self and Its Critics — Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Whitman and ‘Bartleby’5
- 4.1Where I Lived — Emerson’s Scholar and Thoreau’s Experiment50 mins
- 4.2Language Lab — Whitman’s Catalogs and Fuller’s Claims: Hyphens, Dashes and Syntax45 mins
- 4.3Seminar — ‘I Would Prefer Not To’: Bartleby and the Limits of the Self50 mins
- 4.4Writing Workshop — Reflective Narrative: Scene, Pacing and Reflection50 mins
- 4.5Key Assignment — Reflective Essay in the American Tradition200 mins
Instructor
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