Read and discuss some of the great American writers and their work in the mid-19th century. This feature explores the themes of slavery, the role of women, and the experience of war.
“Incredible Bridges: Poets Creating Community” is a series developed by the Academy of American Poets in collaboration with EDSITEment that enlists the voices of nine contemporary American poets, each delivering a poem that has been selected in support of the National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman’s initiative, “The Common Good.” The discourse is guided by nine companion lesson plans with activities designed for secondary-level students.
Each of these twenty-one poems or poetic forms for AP Literature and Composition includes a link to the poem and multimedia resources such as EDSITEment lessons and EDSITEment-reviewed websites that discuss the poem, the poet, and its context.
Teacher guide “The Song of Wandering Aengus” by W. B. Yeats includes information about the poem and discussion questions. The included supplementary documents provide contextual background on Irish traditional sources including Celtic mythology and Irish aisling poetry.
In their book Salem Possessed, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum remark upon the prominent place the Salem witch trials have in America's cultural consciousness. They observe, “For most Americans the episode ranks in familiarity somewhere between Plymouth Rock and Custer's last stand.”
This feature outlines the context of The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 which produced the “Declaration of Sentiments,” a CCSS exemplar for grades 11 – CCR. This document made a bold argument, modeled on the language and logic of the Declaration of Independence that American women should be given civil and political rights equal to those of American men, including the right to vote.
Learn how to make the most of STEM in your humanities classroom and how to incorporate nonfiction into STEM with the National Library of Medicine's lesson plan resources.
For each of the twenty-one poems or poetic forms for AP Literature and Composition, students and teachers will find a link to the poem and additional multimedia resources. These include EDSITEment lessons as well as EDSITEment-reviewed websites that discuss the poem, the poet, and its context.
Through this collection of over 30 lessons, students can explore the great American authors of the 1800s, including Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Mark Twain.
