Cover: Connections in Language & Literature (High School), 1st Edition by Renee Shea; Megan M. Harowitz; Natalie Landaeta Castillo; Katherine E. Cordes; Natalie Landaeta Castillo; Carlos A. Escobar; Robin Dissin Aufses

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Connections in Language & Literature (High School)

First  Edition©2027  Renee Shea; Megan M. Harowitz; Natalie Landaeta Castillo; Katherine E. Cordes; Natalie Landaeta Castillo; Carlos A. Escobar; Robin Dissin Aufses

About

Designed for Every 12th Grade ELA Student

Connections in Language & Literature helps you build the reading, writing, and analytical skills you’ll need for college, careers, and beyond. Engaging texts and relevant themes connect what you read to the world around you, while practical skill-building activities help you strengthen your communication skills and prepare for what comes next.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Becoming an Active Reader 

Reading Literature

    Big-Picture Literary Elements

    Close Reading Literature

Reading Nonfiction

    The Rhetorical Situation

    Claims and Evidence

From Reading to Analysis: Annotating a Text

Entering the Conversation: Listening and Speaking

    Active Listening

    Effective Speaking

    Civil Discourse


Chapter 2: Heroes and Monsters 

Central Text: Anonymous, from Beowulf

Conversation: What Makes a Monster: The Boundaries of Humanity

    Manvir Singh, from How Monsters Went from Menacing to Misunderstood (2025)

    Paul Trout, from Why We Invented Monsters (2011)

    Maurice Sendak, from Where the Wild Things Are (1963, illustration)

Other Voices:

    Anonymous, from The Epic of Gilgamesh

    Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses

TalkBack: C. P. Cavafy, Ithaka

    Christina Rossetti, from Goblin Market

    John Singer Sargent, Hercules and the Hydra (painting)

    Agha Shahid Ali, The Wolf’s Postscript to “Little Red Riding Hood”

    U. A. Fanthorpe, Not My Best Side

    Chiba Mikio, Granny Long Tongue

    Peter Ho Davies, Minotaur

    Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Lacrimosa

Writing Workshop: How to Write a College Essay


Chapter 3: Fate and Free Will

Central Text: William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

Conversation: How Do We Make Important Decisions?

    Joshua Rothman, from The Art of Decision-Making

    Laura Kutsch, from Can We Rely on Our Intuition? 

    Roz Chast, No-Action Comics (cartoon) 

Other Voices:

    Sophocles, from Oedipus the King

    Francesco Salviati, The Three Fates (painting)

TalkBack: Yusef Komunyakaa, Thanks

    Percy Bysshe Shelley, Song: To the Men of England

    Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night

TalkBack: Linda Pastan, Go Gentle

    Julio Cortázar, Continuity of Parks

    Ana Blandiana, The Open Window

    Wisława Szymborska, Love at First Sight

    Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, A Private Experience

    Tishani Doshi, The Immigrant’s Song

Writing Workshop: Writing an Argumentative Essay


Chapter 4: Nature and Technology

Central Text: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Conversation: Faux or Friend: The Relationship between AI and the Natural World

    Sophie Nitoslawski and Lindsey Prowse, from AI Is Helping These Organizations to Protect and Restore Nature

    Jon Gorey, from Data Drain: The Land and Water Impacts of the AI Boom

    Tjeerd Royaards, AI Nature Simulator (cartoon)

Other Voices:

    Jonathan Swift, from Gulliver’s Travels

    William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much with Us

TalkBack: Leila Chatti, The World Is Too Much with Us

    Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain

    Pablo Neruda, Ode to Tomatoes

    Brian Aldiss, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long

    Craig Santos Perez, Love in a Time of Climate Change

TalkBack: Ada Limon, Startlement

    Mbozi Haimbe, Shelter

    Mosab Abu Toha, Mothers and Mulberry Tree

Writing Workshop: Writing a Close Analysis of Fiction Essay


Chapter 5: Money and Happiness

Central Text: Oscar Wilde, The Model Millionaire

Conversation: How Much Do Billionaires Owe to Society?

    Craig Newmark, Billionaires, Stop Whining and Give Your Money Away

    Harley Schwadron, Thank You, Sir, and My Condolences on the Billionaires’ Tax (cartoon)

    Bernie Marcus and John Catsimatidis, Making Money Is a Patriotic Act

Other Voices:

    William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29

TalkBack: Dorothy Parker, The Choice

    Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice

TalkBack: Mary Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

    Anton Chekhov, The Bet

    W. H. Auden, The Unknown Citizen

    Chinua Achebe, Civil Peace

    Philip Larkin, Money

    Kathleen Jamie, The Wishing Tree

    Susan Stockwell, Money Dress (sculpture)

    E. C. Osondu, Uber Talk

Writing Workshop: Writing a Research-based Argumentative Essay


Chapter 6: Tradition and Progress

Central Text: Seamus Heaney, Digging

Conversation: Disrupting Traditions of Work: When Should Change Be Resisted and When Should It Be Embraced?

    Alexis C. Madrigal, from Could Self-Driving Cars Be Good for Truckers?

    Tristan Bovem, from The Tech Industry Is Applying an Uber-style “Gigification” Model to Nursing. It Means No Workers’ Comp, AI Managers, and “Surveillance Wages.”

    Likely Drivers of Workplace Transformation by 2030, According to a World Economic Forum Survey of Employers (graph)

Other Voices:

    Anonymous, The Ballad of Mulan

Art Feature: Tradition and Progress in Painting

    Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa

    Tomoko Nagao, Gioconda Blue Green Ribbon White Dots

    Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas

    Pablo Picasso, Las Meninas

    Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Portrait of Mademoiselle Caroline Riviére

    Fernando Botero, Miss Riviére

    Edvard Munch, The Scream

    Osinachi, The Scream

    Grant Wood, American Gothic

    Harmonia Rosales, America’s Civilized

    William Blake, London

TalkBack: Kira Alexis Tucker, Detroit

    William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

    Virginia Woolf, from If Shakespeare Had a Sister

    Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day

    Bessie Head, The Prisoner Who Wore Glasses

    Aisha Mango Borja, The Lost Indigenous Language of Colombia

    Simin Behbahani, And Behold

TalkBack: Marisa Lin, Tiananmen Square, 1989

    Imbolo Mbue, A Reversal

Writing Workshop: Writing a Close Analysis of Poetry Essay


Chapter 7: Self and Society

Central Text: Helen Oyeyemi, My Daughter the Racist

Conversation: Social Norms: Defiance, Compliance, or Compromise?

    Clay Skipper and Cass Sunstein, from Why Your Opinions Usually Aren’t Your Own (and How You Can Fix That)

    Richard Weissbourd and Chris Murphy, from We Have Put Individualism Ahead of the Common Good for Too Long

    Peter de Seve, To the Sea (illustration)

Other Voices:

    Elizabeth I, Speech to the Troops at Tilbury

    William Wordsworth, Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

    Ranier Maria Rilke, The Panther

TalkBack: Lorna Goodison, On Becoming a Tiger

    Remedios Varo, La llamada (The Call) (painting)

    Doris Lessing, Through the Tunnel

    Mahmoud Darwish, Identity Card

    Yehuda Amichai, The Eve of Rosh Hashanah

    Warsan Shire, For Women Who Are Difficult to Love

    Cristina Rivera Garza, Foreigner

TalkBack: Raymond Antrobus, Maybe my most important identity is being a son

    Chetna Maroo, Brothers and Sisters

Writing Workshop: Writing a Resume and Cover Letter

Renee Shea

Renée H. Shea was professor of English and Modern Languages and director of freshman composition at Bowie State University in Maryland, where she taught graduate seminars in rhetoric. A College Board faculty consultant for more than thirty years in AP® Language and Literature, and Pre-AP® English, she has been a reader and question leader for both AP® English exams. Renée served as a member on many committees for the College Board, including the AP® Language and Composition Development Committee, the English Academic Advisory Committee, and the SAT Critical Reading Test Development Committee. She is co-author of Literature & Composition, American Literature & Rhetoric, Conversations in American Literature, Advanced Language & Literature, and Foundations of Language & Literature, as well as volumes on Amy Tan and Zora Neale Hurston for the NCTE High School Literature Series. Renée continues to write about contemporary authors for publications such as World Literature Today, Poets & Writers, and Kenyon Review. Her recent publications focused on Celeste Ng, Imbolo Mbue, Namwali Serpell, Manuel Muñoz, and Ohio’s 2020–2025 poet laureate, Kari Gunter-Seymour.

Megan M. Harowitz

Megan M. Harowitz is a National Board Certified Teacher with over ten years of experience in the secondary English Language Arts classroom. She has received distinctions including the National Council of Teachers of English High School Teacher of Excellence (FL) She has served as President and Executive Director of the Florida Council of Teachers of English. Megan currently works at Rockville High School (MD) as the Staff Development teacher, AP® Coordinator, and AP® Language teacher. She is also a co-author of The Language of Composition, 3rd edition.

Natalie Landaeta Castillo

Natalie Landaeta Castillo currently teaches AP® English Language and Composition, AP® Seminar, and other English electives at her alma mater, Felix Varela Senior High School, in Miami, Florida. She also serves as the College Board Advisor on the AP® Seminar test development committee and as Question Leader for that course’s exam at the AP® Reading. She has led workshops and presentations for AP® teachers both in her county and nationally, in addition to mentoring AP® English Language teachers in her district.

Katherine Cordes

Katherine E. Cordes is a National Board Certified English teacher with a BA in English, psychology, and medieval studies; an MEd in curriculum and instruction; and an MFA in poetry. She has more than twenty years of experience in the secondary English Language Arts classroom and currently teaches AP Seminar®/Honors English 10 and AP® English Literature at Skyview High School in Billings, Montana, where she has also taught dual enrollment college writing and AP® English Language. As part of the College Board’s Instructional Design Team, Katherine contributed to the development, review, and dissemination of the 2019 AP® English Literature Course and Exam Description, and she has been an AP® Reader for the AP® English Literature and AP® Seminar Exams. She is a co-author of Literature & Composition and The Language of Composition.

Carlos Escobar

Carlos Escobar  teaches tenth-grade English and AP® English Literature and Composition at Felix Varela Senior High School in Miami, Florida, where he is also the AP® Program Director. Carlos has been the College Board Advisor for AP® English Literature, an AP® Reader, a presenter at local and national AP® workshops and conferences, and a member of the AP® English Literature and AP® African American Studies Test Development Committees. As part of the College Board’s Instructional Design Team, he contributed to the development, review, and dissemination of the 2019 AP® English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description. Carlos designed and delivered daily live YouTube lessons streamed globally by the College Board and was the Lead Instructor for AP® Daily, the College Board’s skill-based, on-demand video series accessed through AP® Classroom. He is also a co-author of Bedford, Freeman & Worth’s The Language of Composition and Literature & Composition.

Robin Aufses

Robin Dissin Aufses is director of English Studies at Lycée Français de New York, where she teaches AP® English Language and Composition. Previous to this position, Robin was the English department chair and a teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, New York, and prior to that she taught English at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, New York. She taught AP® English Literature and AP® English Language at both schools. She is co-author of Literature & Composition, American Literature & Rhetoric, and Conversations in American Literature and has published articles for the College Board on novelist Chang-rae Lee and the novel All the King’s Men.