American Literature, 3rd ed. Lesson Plan Overview

AMERICAN LITERATURE, THIRD EDITION

Lesson Plan Overview

Days

Topic

Pages

Support Materials*

Bible Integration

Unit 1: Early American Literature: An Era of Change

Chapter 1: Literature of Settlement

Unit 1: Early American Literature

1–5

Teaching Helps 1A–

2–3

Settlement

The Iroquois Confederacy: “How the

World Began”

6–18

Teaching Helps 1E–

Supplemental Texts

1A–1B

Evaluate: Myth versus the Bible

Shape Worldview: Contrast of Ancient

One’s jealousy versus God’s

infallibility and holiness, thinking

biblically about the original paradise,

biblical view of earth not as our

mother but as a resource to use

responsibly, viewing the curse in light

of God’s redemptive plan

The Constitution of the Five Nations

18–22

Teaching Help 1G

Supplemental Texts

1C–1D

Shape Worldview: God’s moral law

written in hearts

5–6

John Smith: The General History of

Virginia,

A Description of New England

23–30

Teaching Helps 1I–

Evaluate: Worldview and bias

7–8

William Bradford: Of Plymouth

Plantation

31–38

Teaching Helps 1C,

1L–1N

Supplemental Text

Evaluate: Divine Providence

Shape Worldview: The power of

Scripture to heal and soothe griefs

and fears, Bradford’s motivation to

persuade the younger generation to

remain faithful to the God of their

fathers, contrasting the Pilgrims’ and

Puritans’ approaches to government

9–10

John Winthrop: Journal,

“A Model of Christian Charity”

39–45

Teaching Helps 1O–

Supplemental Text

Evaluate: Law and liberty

Shape Worldview: Biblical evaluation

of a husband’s treatment of his wife

Mary Rowlandson: “A Narrative of

the Captivity”

46–52

Teaching Helps 1T–

Supplemental Text

Evaluate: God’s sovereignty

Shape Worldview: Balancing

Rowlandson’s perspective on Native

American attacks with settlers’ lack of

mercy and charity

Shape Worldview: Complexity of God’s

purposes in war

Chapter 1 Review

Answers, pp. R1–R3

Chapter 1 Test

Chapter 2: Literature of Religious Experience

14–

Puritanism

Roger Williams: A Key into the

Language of America / The Bay

Psalm Book: “Psalm 23”

54–60

Teaching Helps 2A–

Supplemental Texts

2A–2B

Shape Worldview: Perpetuating

spiritual error

Evaluate: View of Native Americans

Writing Lesson 1: Narrative Essay

W1–

Writing Rubric 1

Writing Worksheets

1A–1B

17–

Anne Bradstreet: “The Author to Her

Book,” ”Contemplations,” “Upon

the Burning of Our House,” ”To My

Dear and Loving Husband”

61–68

Teaching Helps 2F–

Supplemental Text

Evaluate: The human dimension

Shape Worldview: Puritans’ view of

spousal love patterned upon Christ’s

love for the church, correcting one’s

own unbiblical thinking

Days

Topic

Pages

Support Materials*

Bible Integration

19–

Edward Taylor: “Meditation 6 (First

Series),” “Huswifery,” God’s

Determinations, “Upon a Spider

Catching a Fly”

69–75

Teaching Helps 2K–

Evaluate: Worldview and aesthetics

Shape Worldview: Good religious

poetry helps believers grapple with

and resolve internal conflict

21–

Jonathan Edwards: “Sinners in the

Hands of an Angry God”

76–86

Teaching Helps 2O–

Evaluate: The sinner’s plight

Shape Worldview: Necessity of heart

knowledge for genuine belief

23–

Samson Occom: A Short Narrative

of My Life

Red Jacket: “The Great Spirit Has

Made Us All”

86–96

Teaching Help 2Q

Shape Worldview: Personal failings

affecting others’ acceptance of the

gospel

Evaluate: Race and religion

Chapter 2 Review

Answers, pp. R4–R6

Chapter 2 Test

Chapter 3: Literature of Revolution

27–

Deism

Benjamin Franklin: The

Autobiography

98–

111

Teaching Helps 3A–

Supplemental Texts

3A–3B

Evaluate: Moral example

Shape Worldview: Divine wisdom

superior to conventional wisdom, the

harm of Franklin’s immoral example,

biblical evaluation of the American

Dream, biblical evaluation and

clarification of “doing good to man,”

biblical evaluation of Franklin’s plan

for moral perfection, discernment of

Franklin’s religious views

Patrick Henry: “Give Me Liberty, or

Give Me Death!”

112–

Teaching Helps 3D–

Evaluate: Authority versus liberty

31–

Thomas Paine: The Crisis, No. 1;

The Age of Reason

117–

Teaching Helps 3H–

Evaluate: Discernment in reading

Shape Worldview: Use of name calling

unbiblical

Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography,

Declaration of Independence

126–

Teaching Help 3L

Shape Worldview: Biblical evaluation

of the major premise of the

Declaration of Independence

Phillis Wheatley: “To the University

of Cambridge,” “On Being Brought

from Africa to America”

134–

Teaching Helps 3M–

Supplemental Texts

3C–3E

Evaluate: True freedom

Chapter 3 Review

139

Answers, pp. R7–R9

Chapter 3 Test

Unit 2: American Romanticism: An Era of Optimism

Chapter 4: Minor Romantics

Unit 2: American Romanticism

140–

Teaching Helps 4A–

Shape Worldview: Biblical evaluation

of romantic emphases

38–

Knickerbockers / New England

School

Washington Irving: “Rip Van Winkle”

146–

Teaching Helps 4C–

Supplemental Text

Shape Worldview: Christ, the best

source of escape from life’s

pressures; description of Rip’s farm

attesting to truth of Scripture

Writing Lesson 2: Persuasive Essay

W3–

Writing Rubric 2

Writing Worksheets

2A–2B

42–

James Fenimore Cooper: The

Deerslayer

163–

Teaching Helps 4E–

Supplemental Text

Evaluate: Racial and cultural

differences

Shape Worldview: Proper motivations

undergirding the golden rule

William Cullen Bryant:

“Thanatopsis,” ”To a Waterfowl”

172–

Teaching Helps 4H–

Evaluate: Nature as teacher

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

178–

Supplemental Text

Evaluate: The brevity of life

Days

Topic

Pages

Support Materials*

Bible Integration

“Psalm of Life,” ”Mezzo Cammin”

Shape Worldview: Evaluating the

eternal value of one’s work

John Greenleaf Whittier: “Ichabod,”

“First- Day Thoughts”

181–

Teaching Help 4J

Evaluate: Inner light

James Russell Lowell: A Fable for

Critics, ”The Courtin’”

184–

Teaching Helps 4K–

Supplemental Texts

4D–4E

Oliver Wendell Holmes: “Old

Ironsides,” ”The Chambered

Nautilus”

189–

Evaluate: Spiritual self-improvement

Chapter 4 Review

193

Answers, pp. R10–

R11

Chapter 4 Test

Chapter 5: Major Romantics

51–

Transcendentalism

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature,

“Self-Reliance”

194–

201

Teaching Help 5A

Supplemental Texts

5A–5B

Evaluate: Transcendentalism

Shape Worldview: Interrogating

transcendentalists’ assumptions and

responding biblically, Scripture’s

denial of Emerson’s optimistic vision

of the future, unbiblical view of

children as exemplars of innocence,

Emerson’s moral relativism

answered, Emerson’s argument for

the reliability of intuition challenged

54–

Henry David Thoreau: “Civil

Disobedience,” Walden

202–

Teaching Helps 3G,

5B–5D

Evaluate: Applications of self-reliance

56–

Walt Whitman: “Song of Myself,” “I

Hear America Singing,” “A

Noiseless Patient Spider,” “O

Captain! My Captain!”

212–

Teaching Helps 5E–

Supplemental Text

Evaluate: The self as divine

Shape Worldview: The insufficiency of

nature alone to convey truth,

contrasting Whitman’s expression of

equality with the Bible’s

58–

Edgar Allan Poe: “The Raven,”

“Annabel Lee,” “The Cask of

Amontillado”

219–

Teaching Helps 5I–

Supplemental Texts

5D–5F

Evaluate: Pessimistic view of man’s

nature

Shape Worldview: The forfeiture of life

for those guilty of premeditated

murder

60–

Nathaniel Hawthorne: “The

Minister’s Black Veil,”

“The Birthmark”

232–

Supplemental Texts

5G–5H

Evaluate: View of God and man

Shape Worldview: The impossibility of

hiding sin permanently, separation

from God as the result of sin,

prudence of preparing for death even

as a young person, Scripture’s

condemnation of envy

63–

Herman Melville: “Bartleby, the

Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”

255–

Teaching Helps 5L–

Evaluate: Man’s responsibility to man

and determinism

Chapter 5 Review

281

Answers, pp. R12–

R14

Chapter 5 Test

Chapter 6: Voices of Conflict

67–

Literature Through the War

Abraham Lincoln: Gettysburg

Address,

Second Inaugural Address

282–

Teaching Help 6A

Evaluate: Brotherly love and divine

providence

Writing Lesson 3: Short Story

W5–

Writing Rubric 3

Writing Worksheet 3

70–

Ambrose Bierce: “An Occurrence at

Owl Creek Bridge”

289–

Evaluate: Pessimism

Days

Topic

Pages

Support Materials*

Bible Integration

Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the

Life of Frederick Douglass

298–

301

Evaluate: The humanity of slaves

Negro Spiritual: “Go Down, Moses”

302–4

Teaching Help 6B

Evaluate: The Bible and slavery

Chapter 6 Review

305

Answers, pp. R15–

R16

Chapter 6 Test

Unit 3: American Realism and Naturalism: An Era of New Beginnings

Chapter 7: Regionalists

Unit 3: Realism and Naturalism

306–

Teaching Helps 7A–

Shape Worldview: Biblical treatment of

neighbors, regardless of their cultural

or ethnic identity; biblical perspective

on wealth; biblical perspective on

individual worth and material wealth;

genuine Christianity versus mere

conformity; scriptural motivation

behind many reform efforts; benefits

of reading realists and naturalists

77–

Regionalism

Bret Harte: “The Boom in the

Calaveras Clarion”

312–

Teaching Help 7D

Supplemental Text

Shape Worldview: The Christian and

offensive language

80–

James Whitcomb Riley: “When the

Frost Is on the Punkin” / Sarah

Orne Jewett: “A White Heron”

326–

Teaching Helps 7E–

Evaluate: Pleasure in ordinary life

Evaluate: Valuing animal life

82–

Emily Dickinson: Selected poems

338–

Teaching Helps 7H–

Evaluate: Death and immortality

Shape Worldview: Legitimacy of

discernment in religion, tempering

Dickinson’s view of the imagination

with Scripture’s view

85–

Kate Chopin: “Désirée’s Baby”

348–

Teaching Helps 7L–

Evaluate: The Bible and racism

Chapter 7 Review

355

Answers, pp. R17–

R18

Chapter 7 Test

Midterm Review

Midterm Exam

Chapter 8: Realists and Naturalists

91–

Master Realists / Naturalism

Henry James: The American

356–

Teaching Help 8A

Shape Worldview: Contrasting secular

realistic fiction with Christian realistic

fiction

Evaluate: Moral superiority

Writing Lesson 4: Historical Report

W7–

Writing Rubric 4

Writing Worksheet 4

96–

Mark Twain: The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn

377–

Teaching Helps 8B–

Supplemental Text

Evaluate: Moral dilemma

99–

101

William Dean Howells: “Editha”

394–

405

Teaching Helps 8D–

Evaluate: Views on war

102–

Stephen Crane: “God fashioned the

ship of the world carefully,” “A man

said to the universe,” “The Open

Boat”

406–

Teaching Helps 8H–

Evaluate: Naturalism

Shape Worldview: Reminder that life is

not limited to “under the sun” with its

inherent frustrations but transcends

to eternity, God not indifferent to

human plight

105–

Jack London: “The Law of Life”

426–

Evaluate: Man as an animal

Days

Topic

Pages

Support Materials*

Bible Integration

107

Chapter 8 Review

433

Answers, pp. R19–

R20

108

Chapter 8 Test

Unit 4: Modern American Literature: An Era of Pessimism

Chapter 9: Modern Poetry

109–

Unit 4: Modern American Literature

Imagism / Harlem Renaissance

434–

Teaching Helps 9A–

Shape Worldview: American attitude

toward wealth in the 1920s,

discerning good and evil,

understanding the heart, evaluating

Marxist theory from Scripture

111

Edwin Arlington Robinson: “Miniver

Cheevy,” “Richard Cory”

442–

Evaluate: Modern themes

Shape Worldview: Biblical injunction to

avoid comparison with others

112–

Robert Frost: “The Gift Outright,”

“The Road Not Taken,” “The Death

of the Hired Man,” “Stopping by

Woods on a Snowy Evening,”

“Mending Wall,” “Birches”

448–

Evaluate: Worldview

Shape Worldview: The truth that God

directs the path of a Christian

116

Edna St. Vincent Millay: “Sonnet

XXVI”

462–

Teaching Helps 9C–

Evaluate: Love and beauty

117

Imagists—Ezra Pound: “In a Station

of the Metro” / William Carlos

Williams: “The Red Wheelbarrow” /

H.D.: “Heat” / Archibald MacLeish:

“Ars Poetica”

464–

Teaching Helps 9F–

118

T. S. Eliot: “Journey of the Magi”

469–

Teaching Help 9H

Evaluate: Disillusionment or

transformation

119

Carl Sandburg: “Chicago,” “Fog,”

“Grass”

472–

Teaching Helps 9I–9J

Evaluate: Socialistic view of the

common man

Shape Worldview: The Christian and

war

120

E. E. Cummings: “Somewhere i

have never travelled,” “In Just-,” “r-

p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r”

478–

Teaching Helps 9K–

121

Theodore Roethke: “My Papa’s

Waltz,” “Dolor”

483–

Teaching Help 9M

Evaluate: Theme

Shape Worldview: Work given to man

by God

122–

Harlem Renaissance Poets—Claude

McKay: “If We Must Die,”

“America” / Countée Cullen: “Yet

Do I Marvel” / Langston Hughes:

“Harlem [2],” “I, Too,” “Dream

Variations”

486–

Teaching Help 9N

Evaluate: Responses to social injustice

125

Chapter 9 Review

493

Answers, pp. R21–

R23

126

Chapter 9 Test

Chapter 10: Modern Prose

127–

The Lost Generation / The Social

Idealists

Zora Neale Hurston: “How It Feels to

Be Colored Me”

494–

500

Teaching Helps 10A–

10B

Evaluate: Ethnic identity and equality

Shape Worldview: Evaluating differing

responses to injustice

129

Writing Lesson 5: Poetry

W9–

W10

Writing Rubric 5

Writing Worksheets

5A–5C

130–

James Thurber: “The Catbird Seat”

501–7

Teaching Help 10C

Evaluate: Humor

132

E. B. White: “Once More to the

508–

Teaching Helps 10D–

Evaluate: Reminiscence

Days

Topic

Pages

Support Materials*

Bible Integration

Lake”

10E

133–

F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Winter Dreams”

515–

Teaching Help 10F

Evaluate: The American Dream

Shape Worldview: The wrong of

judging from the subjective standard

of feelings

136–

Ernest Hemingway: “In Another

Country”

534–

Teaching Help 10G

Evaluate: Echoes of Ecclesiastes

138–

Thornton Wilder: The Happy

Journey to Trenton and Camden

540–

Teaching Help 10H

Evaluate: Traditional values

141–

John Steinbeck: “Flight”

555–

Teaching Helps 10I–

10J

Shape Worldview: Scriptural truths and

passages related to adulthood

Evaluate: Moral culpability

143–

Eudora Welty: “A Worn Path”

570–

Teaching Help 10K

Evaluate: Heroism

Shape Worldview: Showing sensitivity

to others

145

Chapter 10 Review

577

Answers, pp. R24–

R25

146

Chapter 10 Test

Unit 5: Contemporary American Literature: An Era of Diversity

Chapter 11: Contemporary Poetry

147

Unit 5: Contemporary American

Literature

578–

Teaching Help 11A

Shape Worldview: The Bible’s

perspective on material goods,

biblical response to postmodernism

148–

Contemporary American Poetry

Elizabeth Bishop: “The Fish,” “One

Art”

582–

Teaching Helps 11B–

11C

Shape Worldview: Biblical attitude

toward sin and sinners

150

Randall Jarrell: “The Death of the

Ball Turret Gunner”

588–

Evaluate: Response to war

151

William Stafford: “With Kit, Age 7, at

the Beach,” “Bess”

590–

Evaluate: Worldview

152–

African American Poets Laureate—

Robert Hayden: “Frederick

Douglass” / Gwendolyn Brooks:

“Life for my child is simple, and is

good,” “The Explorer” / Rita Dove:

“Rosa”

593–

Teaching Helps 11D–

11E

155

Sylvia Plath: “You’re,” “Stillborn”

599–

601

Teaching Helps 11F–

11G

Shape Worldview: Potential of

confessional poems for believers

156

Billy Collins: “Introduction to Poetry,”

“Workshop”

602–5

Teaching Help 11H

157

Li-Young Lee: “Eating Alone,”

“Eating Together”

606–8

158

Chapter 11 Review

609

Answers, pp. R26–

R28

159

Chapter 11 Test

Chapter 12: Contemporary Prose

160–

Contemporary American Prose

Ray Bradbury: “August 2026: There

Will Come Soft Rains”

610–

Teaching Helps 12A–

12C

Evaluate: The end of the world

163

Writing Lesson 6: Literary Analysis

Essay

W11–

W12

Writing Rubric 6

Writing Worksheets

6A–6B

164–

Flannery O’Connor: A Prayer

Journal, “The Life You Save May

Be Your Own”

618–

Teaching Help 12D

Evaluate: Worldview and aesthetics

Shape Worldview: The importance of

Scripture and the Holy Spirit for

wisdom in life

Days

Topic

Pages

Support Materials*

Bible Integration

167–

John Updike: “Still of Some Use”

628–

Teaching Help 12E

Evaluate: Presentation of divorce

169–

Joyce Carol Oates: “Murder”

633–

Shape Worldview: Biblical injunctions

against gossip and persecution of

others

171–

Alice Walker: “My Mother’s Blue

Bowl”

638–

Evaluate: View of possessions

173–

Amy Tan: “Two Kinds”

642–

Teaching Help 12F

Evaluate: Actions of characters

175–

Sandra Cisneros: “Straw into Gold:

The Metamorphosis of the

Everyday”

651–

Teaching Help 12G

Shape Worldview: Importance of

understanding people who differ from

you as part of the believer’s mission

177

Chapter 12 Review

655

Answers, pp. R29–

R30

178

Chapter 12 Test

179

Final Review

180

Final Exam