English Language Development

Typical

Grades

Course

Focus Literary Texts

Related Nonfiction and

Informational Texts

11–12 British

Literature

Chaucer, Geoffrey.

1387–1400/2011. The

Canterbury Tales. Oxford, UK:

Oxford University Press.

McCrum, William Cran, and Robert

MacNeil. 2002. “The Mother Tongue.”

The Story of English, 3rd ed., 46–89.

New York: Penguin Books.

Austen, Jane. 1813/1995.

Pride and Prejudice. New

York: Dover Publications.

or

Bronte, Charlotte. 1847/1996.

Wuthering Heights. New

York: Dover Publications.

Woolf, Virginia. 1945. A Room of

One’s Own. London, UK: Penguin

Books.

Orwell, George. 1949/1992.

1984. New York: Knopf
      Doubleday Publishing.

Whittemore, Reed. 1977. “The

Newspeak Generation.” Harper’s

Magazine. February 1977: 16, 20,

24–25.

Three of the most common curricular structures for organizing literary study exemplify ways in
which existing ELA curricula can effectively integrate nonfiction text.

• Chronological Organization: Common to courses such as American literature or British literature,
  this approach to the study of literature is driven by historical and literary sequence. The
  integration of literary nonfiction and informational text in these curricula includes examination
  of themes such as period background, political and religious texts, and explanations of changing
  content and style. The historical or survey nature of this form of literary study lends itself quite
  readily to increased integration of nonfiction text.


• Thematic Organization: This form of literary study affords ELA instructors many opportunities to
  introduce informational text and literary nonfiction. In a unit titled Search for Self, for example,
  students might read poetry by Langston Hughes, drama by Sophocles, and short fiction by
  Sandra Cisneros, all of which might be complemented with the reading of articles by the
  scientist Loren Eiseley, the psychologist Abraham Maslow, the philosopher Rene Descartes, or
  the theologian Thomas Aquinas. In a unit on Justice and Compassion, students might read the
  nonfiction works of Michael Josephson or Lawrence Kohlberg and Carol Gilligan while studying
  the drama and fiction of literary artists such as William Shakespeare, Chinua Achebe, and
  Harper Lee.


• Organization by Genre: This structure is typical in the early years of secondary literary study.
  Many grade-nine anthologies, for example, present poetry, short fiction, drama, and the novel
  as discrete forms with genre-specific terminology and reading strategies. One option would be
  to include a unit devoted exclusively to the study of nonfiction, one which focuses on rhetorical
  strategies and features such as tone, syntax, organization. Another option might involve an
  outside or independent reading component, one which would allow students to research and
  read nonfiction works of varying lengths that are in some way related to core literary texts.

708 | Chapter 7 Grades 9 to 12