Contemporary Literature

Course Description:

Students will daily demonstrate their understanding and application of their reading in thoughtful seminar model discussion, presentations, and quizzes.  Students will demonstrate their knowledge through a paper, project, and/or assessment at the end of each novel unit.  This way, students are held accountable for reading and application while they’re reading, and they’re expected to present the novel as a whole with a final project.  This course is designed to prepare students for college literature classes, thus students are expected to read and write, and be able to discuss thoughtfully with classmates.

Primary Text/Resources:

  • Class novels: The following represents the range of novels/other literature that have been taught and may be taught again. There are 12 novels listed below in addition to the possibility of independent student choices and large selection of unlisted short stories. We will typically read 6-7 novels/semester and roughly 10 short stories.

1st Semester : Tolkien Seminar—The Hobbit; Lord of the Rings Trilogy; Selections from the The Silmarillion and various other Tolkien pieces, OR Jayber Crow, Ishmael, Slaughterhouse-5, and Life of Pi.

 2nd Semseter: The Road,  A Brave New World,  Frankenstein, All Quiet on the Western Front,

  • Independent Classics: Students choose from a list
  • Short story—many various authors and genres