British Literature

Help students delve into the rich British literary tradition.
Develop students’ conceptual and analytical thinking skills using The Center for Learning’s comprehensive approach to teaching British literature. Our flexible lesson plans guide classroom discussion of style, characterization, and symbolism and increase classroom participation with unique, student-centered activities.

Book 1: Beginnings to Age of Reason

Make early British literature more accessible to your class with British Literature, Book 1: Beginnings to Age of Reason. This unit addresses a variety of works and styles, including Anglo-Saxon epic poetry, tales from the medieval period and Arthurian legends, Elizabethan poetry and drama, and writings of the Cavaliers and Metaphysicals. Featured authors include Chaucer, Shakespeare, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Swift, Pope, and Johnson.

Download a free copy of the following elements:

• Introduction
• Table of Contents
• Teacher Notes
• Lesson 4: The Concept of the Hero

Book 2: Romantics to the Present

Relate literature to culture and history with British Literature, Book 2: Romantics to the Present, which can be used in continuation of Book 1 or as an independent resource. Organized chronologically, this unit’s lessons cover satire, the women’s movement, Romanticism, Victorianism, and contemporary writers. Featured authors include Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Tennyson, the Brownings, Hardy, and Yeats.

Download a free copy of the following elements:

• Introduction
• Table of Contents
• Teacher Notes
• Lesson 15: Revolution in Retrospect

Thematic Approaches to British Poetry

Concentrate on British poems that reflect the universal themes of nature, love, and death/dying in Themeatic Approaches to British Poetry. The four lessons that focus on nature consider it from a variety of perspectives, particularly emphasizing images, figures of speech, and symbols. The four lessons on love explore many moods, including determination, humor, playfulness, devotion, irony, and awe. The four lessons on dying examine death as an inevitable part of life, possibilities of an afterlife, and attitudes toward one's own death and the deaths of others.