Puritan Literature
These Puritan Literature activities give students an opportunity to get to know who the Puritans and Separatists really were before reading classics like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s satirical novel The Scarlet Letter. Taking the time to build this background knowledge is important because secular, revisionist culture capitalizes on classics like The Scarlet Letter to focus only on the negative aspects of our nation’s Puritan heritage which in turn poisons societal attitudes toward traditional Christian values. With counterbalances in place, students are able to understand nuance and can distinguish historical facts from revisionist bias.
Enjoy discussions with your students as you compare original Puritan poetry with the modern music it has inspired! Discussion prompts included.
The poetry of Puritan Anne Bradstreet lays bare the heartfelt emotions of a Puritan who passionately loves husband, her children, and nature, and struggles as we all do to find peace with God in difficult circumstances. Her writing is anything but hypocritical. Appropriate for high school and advanced middle school students.
John Winthrop's famous "City on a Hill" sermon clearly portrays the Puritan goals of brotherly affection and community while warning of the dangers of turning away from God's laws. The Study Guide includes a comparison with Joshua's directives to the Israelites before crossing the Jordan River to enter into the Promised Land. Appropriate for high school and advanced middle school students.
Elementary and middle school students will struggle with Winthrop's 17th century antiquated vocabulary, but with parental guidance, they easily connect with "City on a Hill"'s most memorable and valuable phrases. I give extra credit to my middle school students for memorization!
I use these Puritan Literature Warm Up Assignments as Summer Homework for my Worldview English: American Literature course so that students already have the background schema in place for well-rounded discussions about the Puritans and are ready to read Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter with maturity and discernment.