| AP English Literature and Composition—Syllabus
Linda Cook, NBCT
Understandings:
What will students understand as a result of each unit? Essential
Questions:
What arguable, recurring, and thought-provoking questions will guide inquiry
and point toward the big ideas of each unit?
• Writing is a form of communication across the ages.
• Literature reflects the human condition.
• Literature deals with universal themes.
• Literature provides a mirror to help us understand ourselves and
others. • How has writing become a communication tool?
• How does literature reflect the human condition?
• How does literature express universal themes?
• How does literature help us to understand ourselves and others?
Course Description:
Welcome to Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition. This
course is designed around the guidelines and suggestions published in the
most recent AP English course description. This course emphasizes the
development and use of critical thinking skills. Students will study
examples of prose, drama, and poetry from various fields and periods with an
emphasis in British and World literature. Students will learn how to
discover meaning in literature by being attentive to language, image,
characterization, argument, and the various techniques and strategies
authors use to evoke responses from readers. Students will justify their
interpretations by reference to details and patterns found in the text, to
compare their interpretations with those proposed by others (peers,
teachers, published scholars) and to be prepared to modify their own
interpretations as they learn more and think more. Through such study and
practice, students gain an understanding of the principles of effective
reading and writing and will become effective readers and writers
themselves. In May, students can, by good performance on the AP examination,
earn up to two semesters of college credit and/or advanced placement in
college composition.
Course Objectives:
1. Provide an overview of British and World Literature, as well as
works written in several genres from the 16th century to contemporary times
2. To understand, through close reading, how writers use various
elements such as diction, tone, imagery, syntax, details, and figurative
language to convey theme
3. To understand how plot, setting, characterization, point of view,
theme work together to create meaning
4. To write effectively for a specific audience with a wide-ranging
vocabulary, a variety of sentence structures, logical organization, and
supporting detail
5. To consider how social and historical events and values shape the
texts we read
6. To apply the writing process in formal, expended analyses and time,
in class responses in the following modes: writing to understand, writing to
explain, and writing to evaluate
7. To provide instruction and feedback on students’ writing assignments
both before and after student revision
Writing:
Students will write weekly and will track their writing performance by
keeping a writing portfolio. Often, students will be asked to write, in one
class period, responses to previously released AP exam questions. These
questions will pertain to the current reading. In addition to these timed
writings, students will be asked to write several longer essays focusing on
the student’s interpretation of a text and incorporating published scholarly
interpretations. Both informal and formal writings will require that the
student has read closely, reflectively, and can incorporate textual details
which will support the interpretation. These will be graded using a 9-point
grading scale based on the AP exam rubric.
Reading and Discussing:
The works selected require careful, deliberative reading that yields
multiple meanings. These works will span many centuries, viewpoints, and
genres. I expect students to annotate the text for meaning, literary devices
and their effects, significant passages, figurative language, syntax, and
new vocabulary. This practice helps students make connections to other
texts, to the world, and to themselves. All class discussions of texts
should reveal multiple layers of meaning and interpretations supported by
textual evidence.
UNITS
Summer Reading Unit:
Literature Component:
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Going After Cacciato by Tim O’Brien
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Unit Activities:
Students will keep a reflective journal for each novel. Each journal should
have a minimum of 10 entires, spanning the novel. Each entry should include
the passage and page number, as well as the reaction/response to the passage.
Students will annotate each book, identifying theme, style, imagery, tone,
new vocabulary words, syntax, mood, characterization, setting and shifts.
Students will research the author and the time period in which the book was
written.
All of these items will be used in Socratic Seminars and essays for each
text.
Tragic Hero Unit:
Literature Component:
• Excerpts of Aristotle’s Poetics
• Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Unit Activities:
• Students will develop a definition of tragedy and characteristics of
a tragic hero based on Aristotle
• Students will then apply this knowledge to Shakespeare’s tragedy
• Assessment will involve discussions, close reading passages, and an
essay relying on textual details to support and interpretation of the text
Short Fiction Unit:
Literature Component:
• Plot: “The Destructors” by Graham Greene, “The Japanese Quince” by
John Galsworthy
• Character: “I’m a Fool” by Sherwood Anderson, “The Black Madonna” by
Doris Lessing
• Theme: “Defender of the Faith” by Philip Roth, “The Lesson” by Toni
Cade Bambara
• Point of View: “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather, “Hills like White
Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
• Symbol and Irony: “The Guest” by Albert Camus, “Greenleaf” by
Flannery O’Connor
• Emotion and Humor: “The Storm” by McKnight Malmar and “That Evening
Sun” by William Faulkner, “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote and “The
Drunkard” by Frank O’Connor
• Fantasy: “The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence, “Young Goodman
Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Evaluating Short Fiction: “A Municipal Report” by O. Henry, “A Jury
of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
Unit Activities:
• Students will read chapters in Perrine’s Structure, Sound, and Sense
to help shape a deeper, more interpretive understanding in the elements of
irony, plot, character, theme, point of view, symbol and irony, emotion and
humor, and fantasy.
• Students will be asked to read closely, looking for form, structure,
and language devices. Weekly discussions and timed writings will be used in
assessing how students are reading and interpreting the literature.
Formal essay will be the culminating assessment. Students will choose two
stories to analyze, make an assertion about them, and cite evidence from the
stories to support their interpretations/assertions.
• Writing Focus: Students will examine and employ a variety of
sentence structures in their writing assignments.
Quests and Journeys:
Literature Component:
• How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas Foster
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• Beowulf by unknown author
• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Unit Activities:
• Students will refer to their knowledge from last year’s reading of
Foster pertaining to journeys and quests in the above listed texts.
• Students will identify common elements between these texts in
discussions.
• Students will apply their knowledge in creating sample AP style
multiple-choice questions for one of the texts.
• Writing Focus: Students will use detail (general and specific
illustrative detail) in writing assignments. Previously written essays will
be examined.
Understanding our Humanity/Examining Self in Society Unit:
Literature Component:
• The Awakening by Kate Chopin
• Poinsonwood Bible by Kingsolver
• A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
• A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Unit Activities:
• Students will be looking for symbolic and thematic connections
between the texts.
• Students will examine characterization, point of view, setting and
imagery and their effects on the works and the reader.
• Students will research social, historical and literary movements for
these works, as well as biographical information about the writers. With
this information, students will write a formal essay using a literary
criticism approach to how they interpret the work and its influences.
• Discussion will center on structure and figurative language in close
reading passages.
• Writing Focus: Examine effective use of rhetoric (tone, voice,
diction, syntax, sentence structure) in the texts and incorporate into new
writing assessments.
Poetry Workshop Unit:
Literature Component:
• Students will use the weekly poetry reflections as a basis for
analysis and examination for this workshop.
Unit Activities:
• Students will apply the TPCASTT and DIDLS strategies to interpreting
poetry.
• Students will practice scansion to help identify rhythm, pattern and
mater.
• Students will apply these skills in interpreting new poems and
creating their own poems.
• Students will be assessed through discussion, timed writings and AP
style multiple-choice and short answer questions.
• Writing Focus: individual conferences with each student on writing
strengths and areas for improvement
The Follies of Man Unit:
Literature Component:
• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
• Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespears
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
Unit Activities:
• Students will identify the elements of comedy by choosing passages
that exemplify satire, wit, sarcasm, irony, etc. Students will concentrate
on style, diction, and tone in identifying what makes passages humorous.
• Discussions will center on identifying thematic or comedic
similarities among the texts, and identifying cultural, literary or other
events which may have influenced these texts.
• Students will write their own “modest proposal” mimicking Swift’s
style
• Writing Focus: individual conferences with each student on writing
strengths and areas for improvement in previous essays
Independent Reading Unit:
Literature Component:
• Students will choose one contemporary novel from the list of novels
suggested on previous AP Exams.
Unit Activities:
• Students will evaluate the novel in literary circle discussions and
will turn in an essay in which the focus will be on the literary merit of
the novel. Multiple drafts and conferencing about essay will be required.
Ongoing Assignments:
Poetry Reflections: Each semester students will receive a list of poems to
choose from. Every week students will be asked to reflect upon the meaning,
intent, language, and the connection to the literary period. Additionally,
students will be asked to examine effects such as figurative language,
imagery, tone and diction, rhythm and meter, symbolism, irony, allusion,
paradox, pattern, hyperbole, understatement, and theme. These reflections
should 1-2 pages in length. These reflections will expose students to a
variety of poems, styles and poets.
College Essay Unit: This unit will span the first semester. Students will be
given model essays and sample prompts to annotate and discuss. Students will
begin writing their own college admissions and/or scholarship essays. I will
provide feedback throughout the process. Final drafts will go in students’
writing portfolios.
Senior Project: This research project will span the entire first semester
and will end with a presentation of the research in the second semester. The
first semester will be devoted to selecting a topic, gathering research,
creating a proposal, note cards, an outline, rough draft, and final draft.
The paper must use the MLA format. I will monitor all steps of the process.
In the second semester, students will present their findings in a formal
presentation with visual aid.
Literary Criticism: Students will receive initial instruction about the
different types of literary criticism. Various samples and models will be
provided to show students how, why and when to use the different approaches.
Students will be asked to apply different approaches for many of the texts
read in class, and justify their choices.
Portfolio Review: Several times over the course of the semester students
will review the progression of their writing. I will conference with each
student to review proficiencies, deficiencies and a plan of attack for
strengthening weakness in reading and writing.
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