British Literature

High School Course

What is the true meaning of British poetry, novels, plays and essays? Explore the language, meter and rhyme expressed in the Renaissance, Romantic, Victorian, Edwardian, and Modern literary styles and how primary writers were influenced by the intertwining of culture and politics. Read from Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens and more.

This High School Course is also offered as part of the College Prep Online Diploma program.

Credits: 1 Unit

Course ID: ENV12

Course Area: English

Course Type: College Prep

Study Method: Online

Course Outline:

Module 1: A Spot of Each Age

Unit 1: Scansion, Schemes, and Sonnets: Lesson 1: The rhythm of poetry; Lesson 2: Italian sonnets; Lesson 3: Elizabethan sonnets; Lesson 4: Fun with sonnets
Unit 2: The Renaissance: Lesson 1: William Shakespeare; Lesson 2: Christopher Marlowe and Ben Johnson; Lesson 3: John Donne; Lesson 4: Sir Francis Bacon; Lesson 5: The Puritan Interregnum
Unit 3: The Romantic Age: Lesson 1: Samuel Taylor Colleridge; Lesson 2: William Wordsworth; Lesson 3: John Keats; Lesson 4: Lord Byron; Lesson 5: Percy Bysshe Shelley; Lesson 6: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley; Lesson 7: Frankenstein
Unit 4: The Victorian Age: Lesson 1: Henley and Tennyson; Lesson 2: Robert Browning; Lesson 3: Elizabeth Barrett Browning; Lesson 4: The Bronte sisters; Lesson 5: Thoughts on marriage
Unit 5 : The Edwardian Age: Lesson 1: William Butler Yeats; Lesson 2: Father Gerard Manley Hopkins; Lesson 3: T.S. Eliot
Unit 6: The War Poets: Lesson 1: William Butler Yeats; Lesson 2: The Canadian airmen; Lesson 3: Wilfred Owen; Lesson 4: Rupert Brooke
Unit 7: The Modern Age: Lesson 1: e.e. cummings; Lesson 2: Seamus Heaney; Lesson 3: Adventures in free verse

Module 2: A Spot of Epic Proportions

Unit 1: Beowulf: Lesson 1: Epic Conventions; Lesson 2: Beowulf and Grendel; Lesson 3: Beowulf and Grendel's Mother; Lesson 4: Beowulf and the Dragon; Lesson 5: Heane' s Beowulf vs. Gardner's Grendel
Unit 2: Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: Lesson 1: The General Prologue; Lesson 2: The Wife of Bath's Tale; Lesson 3: The Clerk's Tale; Lesson 4: The Merchant's Tale; Lesson 5: The Franklin's Tale; Lesson 6: The Knight's Tale; Lesson 7: Culminating writing/portfolio
Unit 3: Around the Round Table: Lesson 1: Idylls of the King; Lesson 2: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Lesson 3: Le Morte D'Arthur; Lesson 4: The Once and Future King
Unit 4: Other Classic Epics: Lesson 1: The Faerie Queen; Lesson 2: Paradise Lost; Lesson 3: The Rape of the Lock; Lesson 4: Ulysses; Lesson 5: Culminating writing assignment

Module 3: Bits of the bard

Unit 1: Writing the Research Paper: Lesson 1: The life of Shakespeare; Lesson 2: Famous quotations
Unit 2: Much Ado About Nothing: Lesson 1: Acts 1-2; Lesson 2: Acts 3-4; Lesson 3: Act 5; Lesson 4: Culminating analysis
Unit 3: Hamlet: Lesson 1: Act 1; Lesson 2: Character analysis: Hamlet; Lesson 3: Act 2; Lesson 4: Character analysis: Claudius
Unit 4: Hamlet: Lesson 1: Act 3; Lesson 2: Act 4; Lesson 3: Adaptations; Lesson 4: The Lion King

Module 4: A Spot of Contemporary Phenomena

Unit 1: A Little Irish Brew: Lesson 1: Elements of contemporary drama; Lesson 2: The Importance of Being Earnest; Lesson 2: Playboy of the Western World; Lesson 2: Juno and the Paycock
Unit 2: A Dysutopian Novel: Lesson 1: 1984, part 1; Lesson 2: 1984, part 2; Lesson 3: 1984, part 3; Lesson 4: Culminating writing assignment
Unit 3: Pioneers in Children's Literature: Lesson 1: Carroll and Barrie; Lesson 2: Rudyard Kipling; Lesson 3: E.B. White; Lesson 4: Roald Dahl; Lesson 4: Charles Dickens; Lesson 4: Culminating writing assignment
Unit 4: The Magic of Harry Potter: Lesson 1: The Philosopher's Stone; Lesson 2: The Chamber of Secrets; Lesson 3: The Prisoner of Azkaban; Lesson 4: The Goblet of Fire; Lesson 5: The Order of the Phoenix; Lesson 6: Culminating portfolio

Items Provided by Students:

Books

1984 (Orwell)
Othella (Shakespeare)
Hamlet (Shakespeare)
Brave New World

Videos/DVDs

Film: Mists of Avalon
Film: Once and Future King or Excalibur
Film: Othello — preferred version the 1995 film with Laurence Fishburne, Irene Jacob, and Kenneth Branaugh
Film: Hamlet — preferred version — the 1990 film with Mel Gibson and Glenn Close
Film: Blade Runner