What do you use for 11th grade English? From my research it looks like it is American Literature. Is this something that needs curriculum or would it be okay to have her read great American Literature novels and write papers on it? What do you think? I don't want to spend a lot if money stuff since she has grammar down good.
You could do that if you want. With my oldest, we did Notgrass American History. It included American History, American Lit, and Bible all three. With my middle one, I'm not worrying about it too much.
For 11th grade I used some Progeny Press lit guides or Novel Unit lit guides. We chose 4-5 books and went through them with the guides. I also used Jensen's Format Writing since sd need help in that area. For vocabulary we were working through Jensen's Vocabulary. If you got some of the lit guides they have vocabulary lists that you can use in them. You can usually get the lit guides used for under $10 a piece and they are always easy to resell. As for the content of literature you do not have to stick to American if you do not want to. If I remember correctly we did A Christmas Carol, Pride and Prejudice, The Chosen and October Sky ( I think there was one more but I cannot remember which one).
You can also do a little research on the authors' lives, to add some "where were they coming from when they wrote this?" kinds of knowledge. Personally, I'm hoping to get through English I and II and Lit I and II from CLE during high school with enough time left to hit the high points of American Lit and Brit Lit from Abeka or BJU or Lifepac....