Learn how writer Zora Neale Hurston incorporated and transformed black folklife in her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. By exploring Hurston's own life history and collection methods, listening to her WPA recordings of folksongs and folktales, and comparing transcribed folk narrative texts with the plot and themes of the novel, students will learn about the crucial role of oral folklore in Hurston's written work.

Major narrative texts from diverse Western cultures, beginning with Homer and concluding with at least one film. Emphasis on literary and cultural issues: on the artistic significance of the chosen texts and on their identity as anthropological artifacts whose conventions and assumptions are rooted in particular times, places, and technologies. Syllabus varies, but always includes a sampling of popular culture (folk tales, ballads) as well as some landmark narratives such as the Iliad or the Odyssey, Don Quixote, Anna Karenina, Ulysses, and a classic film. This class will investigate the ways in which the formal aspects of Western storytelling in various media have shaped both fantasies and perceptions, making certain understandings of experience possible through the selection, arrangement, and processing of narrative material. Surveying the field chronologically across the major narrative genres and sub-genres from Homeric epic through the novel and across media to include live performance, film, and video games, we will be examining the ways in which new ideologies and psychological insights become available through the development of various narrative techniques and new technologies. Emphasis will be placed on the generic conventions of story-telling as well as on literary and cultural issues, the role of media and modes of transmission, the artistic significance of the chosen texts and their identity as anthropological artifacts whose conventions and assumptions are rooted in particular times, places, and technologies. Authors will include: Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, Christian evangelists, Marie de France, Cervantes, La Clos, Poe, Lang, Cocteau, Disney-Pixar, and Maxis-Electronic Arts, with theoretical readings in Propp, Bakhtin, Girard, Freud, and Marx.

In 1845, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and Written by Himself was published. In it, Douglass criticizes directly often with withering irony those who defend slavery and those who prefer a romanticized version of it.

A  lesson plan on Hubert Harrison is available, with sections adapted for use with students in grades 2–5, 6–12, and beyond.An engaging and accessible introduction to Hubert Harrison is the goal of this lesson plan for children in grades 2–5, which incorporates interactive storytelling, creative exercises, and fundamental terminology. Younger students have a deeper understanding of Harrison's life and work during the Harlem Renaissance and his Caribbean / Danish West Indian heritage.The 6th–12th grade lesson plan delves deeply into Harrison's activist and scholarly endeavors. Analytical and critical thinking skills are developed through activities such as evaluating sources, giving speeches on civic responsibility, and conducting research. This section is designed to encourage older students to dig further into the complicated lives of historical figures and the contexts in which they lived, and to draw parallels between past and present issues.In addition to studying Harrison, this lesson plan provides students with a deeper understanding of how their actions can lead to societal shifts. 

This resource from CommonLit offers this lesson based on the work of American author O. Henry. To support student's understanding of the themes in the story, teachers can access guiding questions, assessment questions and discussion prompts as well as texts with similar themes literary devices, topics and writing style.

This collection uses primary sources to explore John Steinbeck's novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This collection uses primary sources to explore F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

This lesson sensitizes students to the similarities and differences between cultures by comparing Shakespearean and Bunraku/Kabuki dramas. The focus of this comparison is the complex nature of revenge explored in The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and Chushingura, or the Treasury of the Loyal Retainers.

In this video from ThinkTV Dayton, learn about Harriet Beecher Stowe and the basis of her famous book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, that documented racial injustice before the Civil War.

Designed to explore the hero and the heroic in literature, this unit asks students to discuss their ideas of heroism and analyze heroes in literature.

Since 1988, the U.S. Government has set aside the period from September 15 to October 15 as National Hispanic Heritage Month to honor the many contributions Hispanic Americans have made and continue to make to the United States of America. Our Teacher's Guide brings together resources created during NEH Summer Seminars and Institutes, lesson plans for K-12 classrooms, and think pieces on events and experiences across Hispanic history and heritage.

This resource from CommonLit offers resources based on the work of Pulitzer Prize for Poetry honoree Gwendolyn Brooks from the short story "Home." To support student's understanding of the themes in the story, teachers can access guiding questions, assessment questions and discussion prompts as well as additional texts with similar themes literary devices, topics and writing style.

This resource from CommonLit offers a lesson plan based on the poetry of American poet Emily Dickinson: "Hope" is the Thing with Feathers - (254 To support student's understanding of the themes in the poem, teachers can access guiding questions, assessment questions and discussion prompts as well as poems with similar themes literary devices, topics and writing style.

This art history video discussion examines the "Mihrab" (prayer niche), 1354--55 (A.H. 755), just after the Ilkhanid period, Isfahan, Iran, polychrome glazed tiles, 135-1/16 x 113-11/16 inches / 343.1 x 288.7 cm (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York).

This collection uses primary sources to explore immigration to the US and immigrant Americanization between 1880 and 1930. Digital Public Library of America Primary Source Sets are designed to help students develop their critical thinking skills and draw diverse material from libraries, archives, and museums across the United States. Each set includes an overview, ten to fifteen primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide. These sets were created and reviewed by the teachers on the DPLA's Education Advisory Committee.

Students will learn about the impact of enjambment in Gwendolyn Brooks' short but far-reaching poem "We Real Cool." One element of this lesson plan that is bound to draw students in is a compelling video of working-class Bostonian John Ulrich reciting the poem.

Techniques of creating narratives that take advantage of the flexibility of form offered by the computer. Study of the structural properties of book-based narratives that experiment with digression, multiple points of view, disruptions of time and of storyline. Analysis of the structure and evaluation of the literary qualities of computer-based narratives including hypertexts, adventure games, and classic artificial intelligence programs like Eliza. With this base, students use authoring systems to model a variety of narrative techniques and to create their own fictions. Knowledge of programming helpful but not necessary. This course explores the properties of non-linear, multi-linear, and interactive forms of narratives as they have evolved from print to digital media. Works covered in this course range from the Talmud, classics of non-linear novels, experimental literature, early sound and film experiments to recent multi-linear and interactive films and games. The study of the structural properties of narratives that experiment with digression, multiple points of view, disruptions of time, space, and of storyline is complemented by theoretical texts about authorship/readership, plot/story, properties of digital media and hypertext. Questions that will be addressed in this course include: How can we define 'non-linearity/multi-linearity', 'interactivity', 'narrative'. To what extend are these aspects determined by the text, the reader, the digital format? What kinds of narratives are especially suited for a nonlinear/ interactive format? Are there stories that can only be told in a digital format? What can we learn from early non-digital examples of non-linear and interactive story telling?

Through their interpretation of primary documents that reflect Victorian ideals, students can learn the cultural expectations for and limitations placed on Victorian women and then contemplate the writer Charlotte Brontes position in that context. Then, through an examination of the opening chapters of Jane Eyre, students will evaluate Jane's status as an unconventional Victorian heroine.

Students are introduced to Old English and the poetic devices of alliteration, kenning, and compounding in preparation for reading the epic poem "Beowulf".