Literary Focus is a nonprofit organization that provides live, online literature courses for college-bound students in Grades 7-12 and professional development for secondary school English teachers.
Would you like to discuss literature in small, seminar-style classes to prepare for the rigor and challenge of college-level coursework?
Would you benefit from individual instruction to learn how to read more closely, write more clearly, and think more deeply?
Would you like to share thoughts and ideas with a diverse group of highly motivated students from around the country and world?
July 14, 2026
"My 9th grader just completed Fahrenheit 451 and said that he learned so much from Derek. Prior to taking the course, I corresponded with Derek many times to ask questions about the course. Derek always responded quickly, and I could feel that he was a very patient teacher. During the four-week course, my son met with Derek one-on-one twice a week, and Derek spent a half an hour with him each time to go over his essay. I'm still so awed by Derek's dedication to his students! My son will be doing Brave New World with Derek during the next session, and he plans to take more classes with Derek next summer and beyond."
- Linda T.
Cupertino, California
Tuition
Individual Courses
$225 per course
Half-Year Program
Any three courses during the academic year for $200 per course
Full-Year Program
All six courses during the
academic year for $175 per course
Literary Focus is a non-profit organization that is committed to providing academic opportunities for every student who has a desire to enroll in one of our courses—regardless of that student's financial situation. If your family has financial concerns, please complete a scholarship application with your parent or guardian to receive assistance.
Fall Courses
2026
We teach six books each session at three levels of difficulty to accommodate various ages and abilities:
Level I
Our Level I books are typically taught in Grades 7-9 and utilize relatively simple vocabulary and straightforward syntax. The underlying themes can be nuanced, however, and students will need to learn how to read closely and think deeply to uncover the work's hidden meaning. These books offer a solid foundation for those students who are still developing the basic skills and knowledge necessary for more advanced literary analysis.
Level II
Level II books are generally taught in Grades 10-11 and contain more advanced vocabulary, challenging syntax, and complex themes. Students will need to learn how to read between the lines to understand the writer's true intent. The most widely read classics in American and World Literature fall in this category, and most colleges will expect incoming students to have read these books at some point in their high school careers.
Level III
Level III books are the most challenging that students will read at the high school level. They are usually reserved for AP classes in Grade 12 and represent the type of books that students will read at the college level. These books are subtle and complex, often employing difficult syntax that requires careful reading to decipher the underlying themes. When students are comfortable with Level III books, they know that they are ready for college.
Session One
September 15 - October 8
Morning Courses
Level I
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
September 15 - October 8
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
10:00 a.m. - 10:50 a.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
While the powerlessness of the laboring class is a recurring theme in John Steinbeck's work, he narrowed his focus when composing Of Mice and Men in 1937, creating an intimate portrait of two migrant laborers, George and Lenny, who confront a world marked by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. But though the scope of the novel is narrow, the theme is universal: a loyal friendship and shared dream that make an individual's existence meaningful.
Level II
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
September 15 - October 8
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
11:00 a.m. - 11:50 a.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
After World War II, four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mah jong, and talk. United in shared unspeakable loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. With wit and sensitivity, Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club—published in 1989 and now widely regarded as a modern classic—examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between these four women and their American-born daughters.
Level III
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
September 15 - October 8
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
12:00 p.m. - 12:50 p.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, where she may go out once a day to markets whose signs are now in pictures because women are not allowed to read. Offred can remember when she lived with her husband and daughter and had a job—before she lost even her own name. Like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, originally published in 1985, endures as a literary landmark and warning of a possible future that remains chillingly relevant in today’s world.
Afternoon Courses
Level I
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
September 15 - October 8
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
4:00 p.m. - 4:50 p.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun became an instant classic when it was first performed on Broadway in 1959, making its author, at the age of twenty-nine, the youngest American, the fifth woman, and the first Black playwright ever to be awarded the Best Play of the Year prize by the New York Drama Critics. James Baldwin wrote in a review that “never before in the entire history of American theater had so much of the truth of Black people’s lives been seen on the stage.”
Level II
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
September 15 - October 8
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
5:00 p.m. - 5:50 p.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
Of all the contenders for the title of The Great American Novel, none has a better claim than Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Written in 1884 against the backdrop of the nation’s desire to expand into the promised future of the West, the novel stands as a stark reminder of the difficulty of escaping inherited traditions and prejudices. Huck and Jim’s voyage down the Mississippi River portrays a turbulent epoch in American history in voices that are often satirical but always authentic.
Level III
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
September 15 - October 8
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
6:00 p.m. - 6:50 p.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
In this deeply compelling and epic milestone of American literature, a nameless narrator describes growing up in the segregated South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of “the Brotherhood” before retreating into a basement lair amid violence and confusion. Published in 1952, Invisible Man won the National Book Award and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the 20th century.
Session Two
October 20 - November 12
Morning Courses
Level I
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
October 20 - November 12
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
10:00 a.m. - 10:50 a.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous—Sandra Cisneros' masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery. Acclaimed by critics and beloved by readers of all ages, Cisneros’ novel has been taught in schools and universities around the world since its publication in 1984.
Level II
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
October 20 - November 12
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
11:00 a.m. - 11:50 a.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
No dramatist has ever seen with more frightening clarity into the heart and mind of a murderer than has William Shakespeare in the compelling tragedy of Macbeth. Fast-moving and bloody, this drama—written in 1606—has an extraordinary energy that derives from brilliant plot devices, replete with treachery and murder, and from Shakespeare’s compelling portrait of the ultimate battle between a person’s ambition and the consequences of guilt and remorse.
Level III
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
October 20 - November 12
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
12:00 p.m. - 12:50 p.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
AIn Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, published in 1899, Marlow, a seaman and wanderer, recounts his physical and psychological journey in search of the infamous ivory trader Mr. Kurtz. Travelling upriver to the heart of Africa, he gradually becomes obsessed by how this enigmatic figure has gained power and control over the local people, which makes him question, not only his own nature and values, but those of Western civilization itself in this highly influential Modernist masterpiece.
Afternoon Courses
Level I
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
October 20 - November 12
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
4:00 p.m. - 4:50 p.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
Set in a bleak, dystopian future, Guy Montag is a fireman whose job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, until he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who sees the beauty of the world through the ideas found in literature instead of in the mindless chatter of television. Nearly seventy years after its publication in 1953, Ray Bradbury’s internationally acclaimed novel Fahrenheit 451 has grown more relevant in today’s world than ever before.
Level II
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
October 20 - November 12
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
5:00 p.m. - 5:50 p.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
Decades after its publication in 1997, Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation in New Mexico, deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of war and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his own people. Only by immersing himself in Native American history can he regain the peace that was taken from him.
Level III
Duration:
Four Weeks
​
Dates:
October 20 - November 12
​
Days:
Tuesdays and Thursdays
Time:
6:00 p.m. - 6:50 p.m. MT
​
Tuition:
$225
​
In Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake, published in 2003, we meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world—conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Jhumpa Lahiri brilliantly illuminates the tangled ties of the immigrant experience.
—Teachers—
Are you a veteran teacher interested in incorporating new instructional strategies and curricular designs into your existing practice?
Are you a new teacher looking for a comprehensive framework to teach any novel or play in an effective and engaging manner?
Are you a teacher eager to share your thoughts and ideas with other dedicated professionals outside your existing school?
—Donate—
Please support our mission by donating what you can to provide scholarships for students in financial need or from underrepresented communities.
Students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches as part of the USDA National School Lunch Program automatically receive tuition waivers to attend our academic enrichment classes.
Your generosity provides financial support for these students, and since we are a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization, your contribution is 100% tax deductible.
