[MsBHistory]

Hello!
I recently accepted a job teaching English for all grades at a high school in South Dakota. I'm very excited for the job but there is one small catch; I went to school for History and had my student teaching experience in a Social Studies classroom. The previous English teacher left on bad terms with the school and so I am unable to ask her for old lesson plans or advice. I would love any help that I could get for lesson plans for the following classes:
- American Literature
- British Literature
- Composition I and II
- Creative Writing
- Speech

Thank you so much in advance, and I look forward to any responses!

[tmbg]

Divide the class into groups and assign each group an era of Brit Lit.....have them create a presentation that highlights the themes, authors, famous works, and characteristics of each era and present it to the class.
Give a quiz based on presentations.

Speech - I have had them do Ted Talks, Shark Tank style pitches, dramatic interpretations, etc.

Writing - How to write a college essay - always a good one if you teach 11th and 12th grade

[cruxian]

Little late to this but what are the state standards for each class? Is there any way you can reach out to other teachers within the district to discuss?
Are American and British Literature survey courses (as in students are supposed to read and analyze a variety of works within that genre) or are you supposed to teach them from a historical perspective? I'd bend towards a survey class if not otherwise specified. Pick a couple of books per quarter to work on and analyze (either chronologically or by theme). If you're not sure about analyzing them, I'd go by the Notice and Note strategies which puts the emphasis on the kids noticing and responding to the works rather than a teacher-led right versus wrong answer.
I like tmbg's suggestions for speech, those are great.
Composition----college essay would be good. Story corps type questions as a structure. Composition II students---you might find out what they did last year and build on it.
Creative writing: consider a variety of types of writing and work on those. Rubrics for what should be included.

[Jdocpony]

I also ended up teaching English in a surprising way. I found the National Council of Teachers of English to have a LOT of resources to help.
http://www2.ncte.org/resources/
You can search by grade level and class type. It really helped me. I found a lot of units by searching online.
I started with the Standards for my State and then asked myself if I was in my class what would I want to learn. I found that I was able to put together some amazing learning units by borrowing ideas from others and tweaking them to my needs.
Good Luck. I hope your year is going great!