English 3 LA
Thematic Unit: Formulating and Assimilating a Nation
Essential Questions
Required Texts
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How does a country formulate and develop?
Why do people formulate a new nation?
Why is it difficult for people to assimilate into a new nation?
How do writers portray the challenges of formulating and assimilating
into a nation?
Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson
Common Sense and American Crisis by Thomas Paine
“Speech in VA Convention” by Patrick Henry
Native American speeches – www.americanrhetoric.com/speechbank
Immigration editorials
“On the Emigration to America” by Philip Freneau
“On Being Brought from Africa to America” by Phyllis Wheatley
“America and I” by Yezierska
“Mexicans Begin Jogging” by Soto
“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan
“What is an American” by Crevecoeur
“Straw into Gold the Metamorphosis of the Everyday” by Cisneros
“In the American Society” by Gish Jen
“Don’t Call Me a Hot Tamale” by Judith Coffer Ortiz
The Jungle by Sinclair
Thematic Unit: Power of the Human Spirit and Individualism
Essential Questions
Required Texts
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Who am I?
How am I influenced?
How do the actions, behaviors and words of political, religious and social
groups as well as media influence society today?
Why are people more prone to conforming than rebelling?
“Nature,” “Self-Reliance,” and “Fable” by Emerson
“Civil Disobedience” and excerpts from Walden by Thoreau
“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” By Whitman
“The Soul Selects Her Own Society” by Dickinson
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Dickinson
“Tell the Truth but Tell it Slant” by Dickinson
“Richard Cory” Robinson
“Miniver Cheevey” by Robinson
“Mending Wall” by Frost
“The Road Not Taken” by Frost
“Think as I Think” by Crane
“The Mortgaged Heart” by McCullers
“Men are from Mars Women are from Venus” by Gray
The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne
Catcher in the Rye by Salinger
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Thematic Unit: War
Essential Questions
Required Texts
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How is human suffering during war portrayed in the Arts and Media?
How does war impact individuals, societies, politics and cultures?
Why does war bring on so much controversy?
How are the controversies about war evident in literature, art, music
and the media?
“The Gettysburg Address” by Lincoln
“War is not Kind” by Crane
“Beat! Beat! Drums!” by Whitman
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Bierce
“In Another Country” by Hemingway
“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Jarrell
“Why Soldiers Won’t Talk” by Steinbeck
“At the Justice Department, November 15, 1969” by Levertov
Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
Select one of the following novels: Born on the 4th of July by Kovic,
Things They Carried by O’Brien, Hiroshima by Hersey, or Red Badge of
Courage by Crane
Songs, artwork and editorials related to war
Thematic Unit: Gender and Family
Essential Questions
Required Texts
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What are the male and female stereotypes?
Why have the roles of men and women changed?
How has the family dynamics changed over the years?
How has the change in family dynamics influenced society or vice-versa?
“There is No Unmarked Woman” by Tannen
“Being a Man” by Theroux
“About Men” by Ehrlich
“Separating” by Updike
“Teenage Wasteland” by Tyler
“Wandering” by Wilson
“Mirror” by Plath
“Self in 1958” by Sexton
“The Ending of Something” by Hemingway
To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee or Ordinary People by Guest
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Williams
Death of a Salesman by Miller