English V: World Literature
What does World Literature cover?
World Literature is a college-prep literature survey course. Focus works, including novels, short stories, poems, and drama, have been selected for literary quality, and for their place in the historical development of literature. Context readings provide background information about the author, the historical time and place, and the literary and artistic context of the focus work.
Students will gain an understanding of the development of world literature and will practice the skills of close literary analysis through essays, approach papers, and other evaluative and creative writing. You may learn more about how I chose the literature for Excellence in Literature in How I Chose Books for Excellence in Literature .
World Literature is a challenging course, and I recommend it for older students (11-12th grade). You may wish to take longer than four weeks for each unit, or you may even decide to skip a unit or two (some parents may not wish to cover Inferno and Faust). Whatever you choose, your student will grow in many ways through the study of some of the greatest literary works from around the world.
World Literature: English 5
This World Literature study guide is available for purchase at the Everyday Education website, where you’ll also find many more details about the curriculum and guidance on how to use it. In addition to the study guide, you will also need the focus texts for World Literature. These are the classic books your student will read.
There is also an honors track available for this course. You can view a list of the honors texts here.
Objectives
By the end of the course, students will:
- Possess a broad knowledge of significant works of world literature.
- Have specific understanding of selected representative texts by major authors of the times and places studied.
- Have a general understanding of the historical and cultural contexts of the works.
- Be able to analyze literary texts and present thoughtfully developed ideas in writing.
- Demonstrate competence in essay organization, style, and mechanics.
- Demonstrate competence in the MLA style of source documentation
Table of Contents
Introduction 5
Overview and Objectives for Excellence in Literature 7
Frequently Asked Questions 13
How to Read a Book 19
Discerning Worldview through Literary Periods 25
Unit 1: The Odyssey by Homer
Honors: The Iliad by Homer
Unit 2: Antigone by Sophocles
The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone by Seamus Heaney
Honors: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Unit 3: The Aeneid by Virgil
I recommend the translations by Robert Fitzgerald or Robert Fagles. To decide which one to use, click on the translators’ names in the previous sentence to visit their pages on Amazon.com, where you can click on the book covers there to look inside. You’ll be able to read the first page of each, which will give you a sense of each author’s style. These are both excellent translations with good annotations, so choose the one you like (my personal copy is the Fitzgerald translation, which is also used in the Norton Anthology). If you prefer the Fagles translation, it is also available in paperback, which is less expensive.
Honors: Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans by Plutarch
Unit 4: Divine Comedy: Inferno by Dante
Honors: Paradisio and/or Purgatorio by Dante
Unit 5: Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Honors: The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Unit 6: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Honors: The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo or
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Unit 7: The Portable Nineteenth Century Russian Reader edited by George Gibian
Honors: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Unit 8: Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Honors: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis (if you didn’t read it in English II) and The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde, or Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, or Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
Unit 9: Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
and “Babette’s Feast” by Isak Dinesen
The book shown above is a collection of Dinesen stories including the story we recommend: “Babette’s Feast.” We have not yet reviewed the other stories included in this collection.
Honors: Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life by C.S. Lewis
Honors 105
Formats and Models 107
Approach Paper Format 108
Historical Approach Paper Format 112
Author Profile Format 114
Literature Summary Format 114
Sample Poetry Analysis 118
What an MLA Formatted Essay Looks Like 120
Excellence in Literature Evaluation Rubric 123
Excellence in Literature Evaluation Rubric for IEW Students 125
Student Evaluation Summary 127
Glossary 129
Selected Resources 139
Optional Resources
Your student will need a good writer’s handbook in order to develop the habit of looking up things when a question arrises. Every professional writer and editor I have encountered has several handbooks, as each has a different focus and use; but for your student, one or two should be adequate. Here are two options:
Excellence in Literature Handbook for Writers
This writer’s handbook has two parts. The first section provides detailed instructions on how to construct essays and arguments, and the second second is a manual of grammar, style, and usage. This is a book that will be useful from high school into college.
Writer’s Inc. is a time-tested high school handbook that is chock-full of helpful tips and advice on writing, style and usage, and more. This is especially useful as a first handbook for writing students.
Catalog – Other levels of EIL
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