Course Description:
| This course introduces students to various literary selections from around the world and the contexts from which they emerge. For each text, students will analyze the cultural context reflected in Greek and Roman literature. Within the texts, students will interpret author’s choice in using literary devices to affect the tone and message of the text. Students will examine how the central ideas develop over the course of a text and how the sequence of events creates tension and meaning. As an intended outcome of this unit, students will write and perform a skit to tell a story (based on Pyramis and Thisbe.) There will also be a culminating test.
In addition, students will read and analyze the traditional Greek drama Oedipus Rex. They will begin by exploring the historical context of Oedipus Rex and continue with a full interpretation of the work, examining author’s use of language and literary devices, structure and staging, character, conflict, action, and author’s purpose.
Finally, students will write an expository essay on Sophocles’s use of irony in Oedipus the King and take it through the writing process. Explicit instruction of grammar will take place during the unit, and students will be asked to demonstrate command of Standard English conventions.
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