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Course Overview

English IV continues to build on the sequential development and integration of communication skills in four major areas—reading, writing, speaking, and listening. It most specifically focuses on deepening and furthering students’ understanding in the following ways.

  • Reading–reinforces reading comprehension skills by teaching students comprehension techniques for literary fiction, poetry, and drama, including discussion of common literary devices; shows students how to analyze, evaluate, and interpret a text; reinforces awareness of the elements and structure of narrative and expository prose; guides students through English literary history, including readings of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Milton’s Paradise LostBeowulf, Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, and other selections of and excerpts from major English literary figures.
  • Writing–develops students’ writing skills by teaching about clauses and phrases in sentence structures; reviews common sentence and paragraph construction errors and methods for avoiding them; teaches Greek and Latin roots and prefixes to enhance vocabulary and spelling skills; expands students’ abilities to write cohesive and coherent expository prose; gives students the opportunity to develop their abilities in writing literary critiques, poetry, short stories, and expository prose.
  • Listening–teaches effective listening comprehension skills, weaving these throughout the lessons; builds upon students’ study skills as well as helps them to become reliable and efficient note takers.
  • Special Topics- incorporates research skills, including internet, library, and reference material use, throughout the curriculum.

Curriculum Contents

Reading Comprehension Skills
  • Context, Denotation, Connotation, and Symbolism
  • Reading Drama
  • Reading Poetry—Reading Aloud and Recognizing Scansion
  • Reading Skills—Analysis, Evaluation, and Interpretation
  • Strategies for Comprehension—Making Inferences, Identifying Main Ideas, and Reading for Details
Composition
  • Diction Errors—Trite Expressions and Stilted/Vague Language
  • Essays—Planning, Outlining, Writing, and Revising
  • Sentence Construction Errors—Fragments, Dangling Construction, Parallelism, Reference, Agreement, and Logical Errors
  • Paragraph Construction—Coherence, Transition, and Unity
  • Paragraph Construction Errors—Coherence, Transition, Shift in Person, Shift in Tense, and Shift in Number
  • Subordination
  • Writing a Brief Biography
  • Writing about British History
  • Writing a Character Study
  • Writing a Character Sketch
  • Writing a Compare/Contrast Essay
  • Writing about Literary Forms
  • Writing a Literary Critique
  • Writing Poetry
  • Writing about Poetry—Analysis, Interpretation, and Evaluation
  • Writing a Short Story
Grammar and Usage
  • Approaches to Grammar—Generative, Structural, Transformational, and Traditional
  • Levels of Language Use—Slang and Colloquialisms
  • Linguistic Theory
  • Mechanics—Abbreviations, Capitalization, Hyphens, Italics, and Numbers
  • Parts of Speech—Adjectives, Adverbs, Infinitives, Nouns, Pronouns, and Verbs
  • Semantics
  • Sentence Structure—Clauses, Conjunctions, Interjections, and Phrases
  • Word Choice
Literature Studies
  • Drama
    • Elements—Structure, Theme, Setting, Style, Character, and Literary Device
    • Genre/Type—Medieval Drama and Elizabethan Drama
  • Fiction
    • Elements—Structure, Theme, Mood, Point of View, Character, Dialogue, Setting, Style, Satire, and Literary Device
    • Literary Device—Alliteration, Allusion, Imagery, Metaphor, and Personification
  • History of English Literature—from 1000-1800
  • Poetry
    • Elements—Structure, Meter, Rhyme, Symbolism, and Subject Matter
    • Literary Device—Alliteration, Apostrophe, Assonance, Caesura, Consonance, Hyperbole, Kenning, Metonymy, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Paradox, Personification, Simile, Sprung Rhythm, and Synecdoche
    • Genre/Type—Sonnet, Dream Vision, Ballad, Elegy, Brenton Lay, Epic, Gnome, Free Verse, Blank Verse, Dramatic Monologue, Mock-Heroic, and Satire
Vocabulary Building
  • Context Clues
  • Etymology
  • Greek/Latin Prefixes and Roots
Special Topics
  • The Bible as Literature
  • Listening Skills
  • Origin/Development of Language—Old and Middle English
  • Research Skills—Internet, Library, and Reference Materials
  • Study Skills—Note Taking

Additional Resources

In addition to the default course program, English IV Enrichment includes extra alternate projects and tests for use in enhancing instruction or addressing individual needs.

Literature List

Following are literary works students will encounter in English IV.

Drama
  • Shakespeare, William. Hamlet
Fiction
  • Bunyan, John. Pilgrim’s Progress (excerpt)
  • Swift, Jonathan. “A Modest Proposal”
Poetry
  • “Barbara Allen’s Cruelty”
  • Beowulf (excerpts)
  • Browning, Elizabeth Barrett.
    • “Sonnet 43”
    • “A Thought for a Lonely Death-bed”
    • “A Child Asleep”
  • Browning, Robert.
    • “Home Thoughts from Abroad”
    • “My Last Duchess”
  • Byron, Lord (George Gordon).
    • Chide Harold’s Pilgrimage (excerpt)
    • “The Destruction of Sennacherib”
    • Don Juan (excerpt)
  • Campion, Thomas.
    • The Third and Fourth Book of Ayres (excerpt)
  • Chaucer, Geoffrey. Canterbury Tales (excerpts)
  • Chesterson, G.K. “The Donkey”
  • Coleridge, Samuel.
    • “Epitaph”
    • “Kubla Khan”
  • Dekker, Thomas. “Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes” from The Pleasant Comedy of Patient Grisill
  • Donne, John. “Death, Be Not Proud”
  • Goldsmith, Oliver. “The Deserted Village”
  • Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “God’s Grandeur”
  • Jonson, Ben. “The Triumph of Charis”
  • Keats, John.
    • “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
    • “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
    • “When I Have Fears”
  • Macleish, Archibald. “Ars Poetica”
  • Milton, John.
    • “Lycidas” (excerpt)
    • “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity” (excerpts)
    • Paradise Lost (excerpts)
    • “Sonnet XIX”
  • Nashe, Thomas. “Spring the Sweet Spring…” from Summer’s Last Will and Testament
  • “The Ruin”
  • “The Seafarer”
  • Pope, Alexander. The Dunciad (excerpt)
  • Shakespeare, William.
    • “Song” from Cymbaline
    • “Song” from Much Ado about Nothing
    • “Sonnet XVII”
    • “Sonnet XXIX”
    • “Sonnet CXVI”
    • “Sonnet LV”
  • Shelley, Percy.
    • “Ode to the West Wind”
    • “Ozymandias”
    • “Song to the Men of England”
  • Spenser, Edmund.
    • “Sonnet XV”
    • “Sonnet XXXIV”
  • Sydney, Sir Phillip.
    • “Sonnet XXXI”
    • “Sonnet XL.”
  • Tennyson, Alfred.
    • “Break, Break, Break”
    • “Crossing the Bar”
    • “Flower in the Crannied Wall”
    • In Memoriam (excerpt)
    • “Sweet and Low”
    • “The Wanderer”
  • Wordsworth, William.
    • “It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free”
    • “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”
    • “London, 1802”
    • “She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways”

Required Resources

Some assignments in this course require the use of resources that must be acquired separately. These outside resources are listed below by assignment.

 

Unit Assignment Resource
8 Various Projects
  • Bible
Charity Christian Academy