American Literature Curriculum Choices for Homeschool
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At some point in most students’ high school journeys, they spend a year studying American literature. This is a fancy way of saying most American high schoolers, including homeschool students, read novels, short stories, poems, and plays written by American authors. Needless to say, there are a lot of books that make up American literature. I think it is important to carefully select your homeschool American literature curriculum because the reading lists will vary tremendously.
When I was researching American literature curriculums, I noticed that many publishers claim to have an American literature curriculum when they actually have a literature-based American history curriculum.
There is certainly room for overlap, but a literature curriculum is different from a history curriculum. Literature focuses on the novels and the authors while history focuses more on the sequence of historical events.
I like to combine the two by teaching American history in the same year that I teach American literature. We read books that deal with the time periods we are studying.
When you are choosing the right American literature curriculum for your family, ask yourself a few questions.
- What is your budget?
- Do you want to be very involved in daily teaching or do you want the curriculum to do most of the teaching for you?
- How many novels do you want to cover in one year?
- Do the titles seem like something your student would want to read?
- Do you want a Biblical worldview? (This is somewhat easy to add to whatever curriculum you choose.)
Please note that none of the curriculums listed provide the novels. I think this is a good thing because it keeps the prices lower. You can find many, if not all, of these titles at your library or local used book store.
American Literature Curriculum Choices for Homeschool
Literary Adventures for Kids American Literature Curriculum
Literary Adventures for Kids offers a high school-level American Literature course online. It is designed to last an entire year, but it is self-paced so students can work as quickly or as slowly as they need. It is worth one high school credit.
The online platform walks students through the program. Each week, students log in and see their assignments.
They will of course read, but they will also learn vocabulary, literary terms, and grammar. There is a student writing component to the program where students write a variety of essays and fiction stories. The teaching is done online, but the homeschool parent will be responsible for grading the various writing projects.
The high school-level American classic literature series includes:
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington
- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
- The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- The Call of the Wild by Jack London
There are 10 novels, one for each month of the school year (although you can work at your own pace or schedule). The program provides ideas for an ‘end of the book’ celebration for students to do with parents. This is a fun way to discuss the novel.
Literary Adventures for Kids is different from a lot of American literature curricula because they also offer an elementary American literature program. The curriculum creator, Dachelle, has even matched up the books from each curriculum with themes to study.
This is a great way to teach multiple kids at their own level while still having a common theme.
The elementary American literature titles include:
- Stuart Little by E.B. White
- Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
- Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard Atwater and Florence Atwater
- Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell
- Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
- The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
- Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
- From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
7 Sisters Homeschool American Literature Curriculum
7 Sisters publishes a high school American literature curriculum that is intended to last one school year. The curriculum is a series of novel study guides that are designed to get students to really think about the book, even if they are not natural book lovers. By high school, students already know how to read for comprehension. Now it is time to do a bit of literary analysis and interpret, infer, and evaluate while reading.
The purchase includes two PDFs – 1 for students and 1 for parents.
The student PDF contains a study guide to accompany each book. The students will learn background information, vocabulary words, supplemental ideas, and questions. The accompanying parent guide will include answer keys to make correcting and grading easy.
The 7 Sisters American literature curriculum includes the following titles:
- A Separate Peace by John Knowles
- A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Some of the 7 Sisters products have a Christian worldview, but the American literature curriculum states that it does not include any religious references.
Oak Meadow American Literature Curriculum Choices
Oak Meadow offers three American literature curricula for high school. Each one is intended to last one semester. A one-semester course is typically worth 0.5 credits. To fulfill a year’s worth of literature, just pick two of the curricula and put them together.
Oak Meadow gives you the option of purchasing each part of the curriculum separately – a coursebook, a teacher edition, and a course package of all the novels.
The Oak Meadow American Literature curriculum options include:
- Social Transformations
- The Westward Journey
- Classics (This option is intended to take one year and is worth a full credit.)
The titles included in the American literature: Social Transformations curriculum are:
- Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
- Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
- Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli
- Oak Flat: A Fight for Sacred Land in the American West by Lauren Redniss
The titles included in the American literature: The Westward Journey curriculum are:
- My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir
- River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West by Rebecca Solnit
- My Antonia by Willa Cather
- Sacajawea by Joseph Bruchac
- American Indian Stories, Legends, and Other Writings by Zitkala-Sa
The titles included in the American literature: Classics are:
- The Great Gatsby
- The Red Badge of Courage
- To Be a Slave
Easy Peasy American Literature Curriculum
Normally I’m not a huge fan of Easy Peasy because I think it is a little light. This literary study is changing my opinion! This American literature curriculum is incredibly thorough. It is intended to last one school year and is worth one credit. It is described as being an honors-level class.
Easy Peasy offers a very detailed lesson plan. Everything your student will need to do to cover reading, grammar, vocabulary, and writing is broken down by day. There are quizzes, tests, and essay assignments. The lesson plans tell you exactly what to do.
The Easy Peasy American literature curriculum includes more than just novels. It includes:
- 15 Short stories
- 31 Poems (including selections by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost)
- 1 Play
- 13 Letters, speeches, and/or essays
- 4 Novels (The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, My Antonia, and To Kill a Mockingbird)
- 8 Additional readings (including historical documents)
Create Your Own American Literature Curriculum
Sometimes it feels impossible to find a prepared curriculum that fits all of our needs and wants. When that happens, I like to create my own curriculum. There is no reason we can’t do that with works of American literature too.
One of the advantages of creating our own curriculum is that we can tailor the books to a specific interest or theme. Maybe our teens are interested in reading books that feature American culture through various decades. Or maybe they have an interest in early American literature.
I have created a literature curriculum for my kids most years. After years of doing this, my husband and I have our process down. It won’t work for everyone, but it has worked for us.
First, my husband and I talk about what books we want to include. This is usually the hardest part. We have spent many date nights discussing the merits of including one book over another. We check the books out of the library and flip through them if it has been a while since we have read them.
Then we start gathering resources. We look at things like Crash Course videos, novel study guides, online discussion questions, and movie adaptations. If we know we will be pressed for time, we buy a few stand-alone book study guides (Literary Adventures for Kids and 7 Sisters Homeschool offer these).
We plan a loose schedule. This lets us know in which order we are reading the novels.
Either my husband or I will read the book and facilitate discussions about the novel. We will also assign essays. Most years we include writing projects like a narrative essay or reflective essay for each book.
We end up with a completely customized literature curriculum, but it is more work than purchasing a prepared curriculum.
Related: How to DIY a Literature Curriculum
Frequently Asked Questions About American Literature
What grade level is American literature taught?
American literature is typically taught in high school. It really doesn’t matter whether it is taught in 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th grade.
What is taught in American literature?
An American literature class is simply reading and studying books written by American authors. Students learn about literary elements while reading great books.
I hope this helps you have a great literature curriculum for your teens!
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