World Literature

Click each title below for a detailed description of the study guide.

Have you always wanted to read the Great Books? Now is your chance! With the Excellence in Literature curriculum, you and your student can enjoy reading, understanding, and analyzing the greatest literature of all time. Excellence in Literature presents a feast of great literature along with the context information you need in order to fully understand it.

These challenging, self-directed courses introduce students to full-length great literature in its historical context, while developing skills in .

“Discovered some of her favorite books of all time . . .”

“Just as a note of testimony . . . I overheard a phone conversation [my daughter] was having with a friend this morning, and she was talking about literature with the friend. She said that she hadn’t really looked forward to literature this year because she thought it would be dry and boring but had discovered some of her favorite books of all time this year, including The Great Gatsby (because of all the symbolism), ‘Evangeline’ (even though it’s a poem, and she didn’t think she liked poetry), and The Scarlet Letter. What a wonderful thing for me to be able to overhear!”

Heather M., AR (after using Excellence in Literature’s American Literature with her daughter)

An Honors Track, with additional readings and writing, for each course encourages preparation for AP or CLEP exams. Some students who have taken this track have been permitted advanced placement in college based upon the material covered. Students who complete five years of Excellence in Literature have the potential of earning 24-30 hours of college credit through testing.

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Course Format

The literature-based module format of Excellence in Literature offers students the opportunity to grow thoroughly familiar with some of the greatest writers and literary works of all time. There are nine four-week modules in each level.
Study material and writing assignments for each module are centered around a full-length focus text — a novel, play, or poem — chosen for its significance to the period of literature being studied.