American Literature Teacher Resources

A six-week unit takes high schoolers through various works of African-American literature, including poems, plays, and short stories. The lesson plan format includes a week-by-week description of activities, goals, materials, and...

Celebrate and honor Native American culture with this set of graphic organizers that showcases literature like The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses and A Boy Called Slow as well as three other Native American literature books. Learners compare...

To begin this lesson, the instructor will present a PowerPoint detailing the genres of Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism. Learners will follow along with an instructional sheet that will aid in the identification of setting, tone,...

Practice grade-level reading comprehension with this lesson, in which middle schoolers read different examples of Native American literature. They discover different cultures while examining their own, and answer questions related to the...

Study the transformation of American literature starting from Colonial times up until the present. Each of the nine periods (Romanticism, Realism, Postmodernism, etc.) is introduced and important literary agents from that period are...

Introduce your class to American poets with this 8-day research project. After reading sample poems, learners choose a poet to research. In the computer lab, scholars complete guided online research that they put together into a final...

Analyze the depth and beauty of American Literature by reading Emily Dickinson's letters and poems. The class analyzes Dickinson's poetic style and discusses Thomas Wentworth Higginson's editorial relationship with Dickinson. They pay...

Betsy Ross - fact and myth. As an introduction to American Literature, class members become detectives and search web sites to find information about the flag, prominent places it has been displayed (on the moon, at ground zero, in...

The four major trends of the 18th century (The Enlightenment, the Great Awakening, British global ambitions, and economic disagreements) are the focus of a PowerPoint that places in context such influences as deism, mercantilism,...

Explore transcendentalism through American literature. Learners examine the setting of Henry David Thoreau's Walden through a series of excerpts and photographs. This lesson includes a review that discusses the pros and cons of its...

Students compare art and literature by examining a contemporary painting by Glenn Ligon and the essay by James Baldwin that inspired it. They write an essay about a personal experience that relates to the theme of being an "outsider."

As the title suggests, the text-heavy slides here are designed to accompany a background lecture for an American literature class. The life and works of Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper are examined as examples of the early...

To better understand early American literature, which was usually written by Puritans coming to the new world, learners pretend they have just landed on Mars. They compose a letter home describing their experiences, the new landscape,...

Carl Sandburg composed poetry that conveyed a time and place in American Literature and history. Learners identify the literary techniques he uses to describe the historical and cultural context of living in Chicago. They define the...

How did writers capture and express the distinct voices of their characters in nineteenth-century texts? Individuals explore regional dialect in American literature. They watch a video, engage in discussion, read author biographies,...

Students explore Native American literature. In this cultural diversity lesson, students read selected Native American books and analyze the themes of the books and familiarize themselves with the vocabulary used in the books.

Learners match American Literature authors with their short stories, poems, and books. In this American Literature lesson, students are given an overview of the authors and their main works. Then learners independently do a matching...

Read excerpts from Ralph Waldo Emerson's speech "American Scholar" to address and analyze passages from American literary works. Seniors will discuss three quotations from the text and read excerpts from the address. They then work in...

Here is a complex lesson plan that interweaves the history of the Jim Crow South and the Great Migration with the study of poetry, art, and blues music from the Harlem Renaissance. The plan helps young historians develop a deep...

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the best-known pieces of American literature. An eBook from the Library of Congress provides access to an early edition of the text. Original layout and illustrations are preserved within.

How do writers use words to protest injustice, challenge the status quo, and shape their own identities? Individuals watch and discuss a video, read author biographies, write poetry and journals, develop a slideshow, and complete a...

What characterizes modern literature? The first few slides of this 31-slide PowerPoint discuss what sparked the change to Modernism and discuss some of the key figures of the time (like Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud). The 20s and 30s are...