Essential Questions

Unit 1- Search for Identity (Aug-Oct)

Essential Questions 

Who am I?

How do individuals develop values and beliefs?

How do our values and beliefs shape who we are as individuals and influence our behavior?

How are people transformed through their relationships with others?

Major Works

The Alchemist

The Canterbury Tales

Hamlet

Nature/Technology/ Creation of Self (Nov)

Essential Questions 

When is it appropriate to challenge the beliefs or values of society?

How do individuals reconcile competing belief systems within a given society (e.g., moral beliefs conflicting with legal codes)?      

Can literature be a vehicle for social change?

What are the responsibilities of the individual in regard to issues of social justice?

To what extent does a culture or society shape an individual’s understanding or concept of happiness?

What are the potential conflicts when one person’s reality is another person’s illusion?

Major Works

Frankenstein 

Satire

Independent Reading (Choice Novel)- Middle Eastern Lit

Complications of Culture (Dec-Mar)

Essential Questions

How does one’s perspective shape or alter truth?

In a culture where we are bombarded with other people and other things trying to define us, how do we make decisions for ourselves?

How is who we want to be as revealing as who we are and how we are perceived by others?

Major Works

Heart of Darkness

Sir Gawain

Macbeth

Metaphysical/Carpe Diem Poetry, “Dead Poet’s Society”

Christmas Break Special Reading ;) : Kafka’s Metamorphosis

Integrity and Identity (April)

Essential Questions

How do we define who we are?  

How do we form and shape our identities? 

Is humankind inherently good or evil?

Have the forces of good and evil changed over time and if so, how? 

Are we governed/guided by fate, freewill, a greater power, or do we fall somewhere on the spectrum between?

What are the benefits and consequences of questioning/challenging social order?

What is the meaning of life and does that shape our beliefs regarding death? 

Major Works

“Everyman”

Grendel

Exeter Book

Beowulf