American Literature Teacher Resources

How does Gabriel Garcia Marquez make the magical elements in his novel One Hundred Years of Solitude seem real? That is the essential question for readers of his acclaimed novel to tackle in a three-lesson unit module. Scholars begin by...

F. Scott Fitzgerald's intent in The Great Gatsby, was "to state the American dream as dramatically, as passionately, as possible – and at the same time, to hold it up to moral judgment, to see what lies and terrors lay beneath its...

A three-lesson curriculum unit examines the history and conventions in the American literary humor of Mark Twain, George Washington Harris, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. In Lesson One, scholars read “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras...

Forsooth! Here’s a collection that has everything you ever wanted to know about the theater and drama—everyone from Aristotle to Chikamatsu, from Moliere to Shakespeare to Williams. From Banraku to Zaju, every type from comedy to...

F. Scott Fitzgerald's intent in The Great Gatsby was "to state the American dream as dramatically, as passionately, as possible – and at the same time, to hold it up to moral judgment, to see what lies and terrors lay beneath its...

Hemingway: BH, AH. Before Hemingway and after Hemingway. A collection of PBS lessons, authored by Julia E. Torres, uses clips from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s documentary to EXPLORE the influence events in Hemingway’s life had on his...

Four resources comprise a unit module designed for Octavia E. Butler's Kindred instructors to use in their classes. The first resource in the series, a packet designed for instructors, includes an overview of the unit, a day-to-day...

Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner's Southern Gothic novel, As I Lay Dying, is the anchor text in a six-lesson unit module that examines Faulkner's place in American literary history. Learners research one aspect of Faulkner's...

The three lessons in the “Letters and Poems of Emily Dickinson” unit module offer high schoolers an opportunity to meet the woman behind the poems. Scholars read letters she wrote to the Atlantic Monthly editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson...

A three-lesson unit module has readers of Moby Dick examine the narrative voice and dramatic perspective Herman Melville uses to contrast Ishmael and Captain Ahab. In addition, scholars analyze how the author incorporates various...