A study of Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, James, Steinbeck, Cather, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, O’Connor, Faulkner, & American poets. This course integrates the needs of students who have acquired basic skills in NFS programs with those of students who have little background in literary analysis.

Students will read several works by each author, including short stories and novels, and will learn to take lecture notes on the both the backgrounds of authors, and on elements of the authors’ individual themes & writing styles.

By examining several stories and novels, students will discover patterns of theme and style in an individual author’s work. The study of each author will culminate with a 1000-word paper analyzing themes in various pieces; students will learn how to develop their own essay questions and theses as the year progresses.

Writing requirements include:

• a research paper that links literary criticism of an author's works with an in-depth analysis of one of those works
  

• logical arguments in analytical and SAT II-type timed essays
  

• selecting, writing, and editing successful college application essays
  

• understanding how to do a detailed analysis of short literary passages, (a required element of the AP exam)
  

• choosing, writing, and responding to creative nonfiction pieces
  

• exploring publishing opportunities, especially those which provide editing response on returned pieces.

English III requires an intense schedule of reading. The second year of a two-year preparation for the AP Language & Composition exam, and the first year of a two-year preparation for the AP Literature & Composition Exam, it is a full-year course. Students meet two days per week for 90 minutes each day.