Free American Literature Resources

The resources in this post are from the one or two years in which I taught American Lit. The handouts were for my grade-level & Integrated 11th graders. When I first started teaching the class, it made sense to teach the class by time period, so that is how the materials below are organized. I drifted away from this in later years and I can post those materials when I come across them. For this particular year/blog post, I chose one representative piece for each time period so that we could move through the year at a good clip. I hope some of these materials are helpful to you.

Beginning of the Year/Introducing the Class

• Introducing American Lit Class (My 2012 PowerPoint)

• Intro to American Literature via Art PowerPoint

• Intro to American Literature via Art handout/Note-taking Guide. After this activity, I had kids write me a letter about which time period they felt they would best connect with based on the activity.

• American Literature Time Periods Graphic Organizer

Native Americans (The Sky Tree)

• Native American Literature "Poster" (time period notes in giant font)

• "The Sky Tree" Text

• "Sky Tree" Essay Outline

Puritans (Anne Bradstreet)

• Introduction to the Puritans Activity & PowerPoint

• Puritan Journal Prompts

• Anne Bradstreet Vocabulary PowerPoint

• Anne Bradstreet "Upon the Burning of Our House" Text (I changed some of the lines to make them easier for the kids.)

• Anne Bradstreet "Upon the Burning..." Lesson Notes

• Grading Rubric for Bradstreet Annotations

Rationalism (Ben Franklin)

• Introduction to Rationalism PowerPoint

• Introduction to Ben Franklin PowerPoint

• Ben Franklin Vocabulary PowerPoint

• Personal Credo Assignment

Romanticism (Emerson)

To introduce Romanticism, I showed kids a clip of Legends of the Falls and went through the below handout.

• Introduction to Romanticism Handout

Below are my handouts and activities for the rest of the unit.

• Romanticism Jigsaw. You will need this HOLT Textbook:

• City vs. Country Persuasive Essay

• Romanticism Journal Prompt

• Introduction to Vocabulary in Emerson's "Nature"

• Lines from Emerson's "Nature" (Introduction to the language/summary practice)

• Emerson "Nature" Summary Sheet (Presentation Prep)

• Emerson Nature Passages for Summary Presentations (Divided into 4 sections)

• Emerson Photo Summary Activity (Presentation Prep)

• Emerson "Nature" Presentation Note-Taking Guide

• Emerson "Nature" Quiz

• Thoreau Passages w. Vocabulary (You can use these in place of the Emerson passages above.)