Sea of Troubles

Elizabeth James is the coauthor of Method to the Madness: A Common Core Guide to Creating Critical Thinkers through the Study of Literature. She teaches at the high school and college levels and provides professional development for English teachers. She and B. H. James share two wonderful sons.B. H. James is the author of Parnucklian for Chocolate and coauthor of Method to the Madness: A Common Core Guide to Creating Critical Thinkers through the Study of Literature. He teaches high school English in Northern California, where he lives with his wife, Elizabeth James, and their two sons.

Are you keen to explore contemporary issues with students but more than a little bored with the titles in your curriculum? Sea of Troubles offers a model for re-envisioning how traditional texts are taught. Elizabeth and B.H. James describe instructional moves designed to demonstrate how literature “reflects the world and the world is reflected in fiction.” Whether you teach online or in person, their lessons integrating informational readings with literary works are sure to enliven classroom conversations.

• PrefaceAcknowledgementsIntroductionChapter One: Syntactical Othering and The Merchant of VeniceChapter Two: Racial Injustice and A Raisin in the SunChapter Three: Intertextuality in The Merchant of Venice and A Raisin in the SunChapter Four: Abuses of Power and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s NestChapter Five: Authoritarianism in 1984 and Animal FarmChapter Six: Genocide and Ethnic Internment in Night and Farewell to ManzanarChapter Seven: Gender Inequality and The Handmaid’s TaleChapter Eight: The Tragedy of Growing Up in Romeo and Juliet and To Kill a MockingbirdBibliographyAbout the Authors