AP Literature and Composition Syllabus

AP Literature and Composition Syllabus Ms. Hummel, instructor

Black Hills High School

http://mshummelbhhs.pbworks.com

“Much effort, much prosperity.” – Euripides

Course Overview: As specified by the College Board, AP Literature and Composition is a rigorous college-level course centered on the analysis of challenging literature. Writing will be frequent and will require an independent, critical and analytical mind. Class discussions and activities will be held regularly and will require your participation. Homework will be daily and will often require significant time to complete. As a culmination to the course, students take the AP Literature and Composition Exam in May. A student who earns a 3*, 4, or 5 on the exam will be granted college credit at most colleges and universities throughout the United States.

AP Test Information:

Cost: $92

Due by: March 18th

Test date: May 4th

Course Goals:

1. To become critical and appreciative readers of complex, and at times, ambiguous imaginative literature.

2. To employ style knowledge and skills in analysis and composition.

3. To study works of literary merit from various genres spanning the sixteenth through the twenty-first century and consider the social and historical values these works represent.

4. To write confidently on assertions made about literature, especially on topics concerning craft and style.

Conceptual Context: In order to focus our thinking and writing, the following will serve as core concepts/ideas for this course:

Enduring Understandings:

1. Literature helps us understand ourselves and others.

2. Literature reflects the human condition with its inherent and inevitable choices, conflicts, and consequences.

3. Literature examines cultural and societal values, beliefs, and standards and the struggles between individuality and conformity.

4. Literature presents universal and timeless themes to discuss and contemplate in connection with ourselves and others

Guidelines for Success: In AP Lit, we seek to create a community of learners by communicating our strengths, addressing weaknesses, and celebrating progress. This progress is fostered by seeking to establish “habits of mind” characteristic of highly skilled, capable, and successful learners. These include:

· Perseverance

· Metacognition (thinking about thinking)

· Striving for accuracy

· Thinking and communicating with clarity and precision

· Managing impulsivity

· Listening with understanding and empathy

· Creating, imagining, innovating

· Thinking flexibly

· Responding with wonderment and awe

· Taking responsible risks

· Finding humor

· Questioning and posing problems

· Thinking interdependently

· Applying past knowledge to new situations

· Remaining open to continuous learning

Writing: Since one of the main goals of this course is for you to read like writers and write like readers, this is (drum roll, please) a writing-intensive course. You will write every day, you will respond to your peers’ writing, the texts read and write on topics of your own.

Because the reading/writing connection is so vital to understanding the intricacies of the writer’s craft, writing instruction will occur daily, and when not being taught explicitly will be embedded in our study of literature. The course includes frequent opportunities for students to write and rewrite formal, extended analyses and timed in-class responses. Each essay will be returned with feedback on appropriate audience, use of evidence, organization, vocabulary, sentence and paragraph structure, effective argument, and grammar.

Our writing will encompass a variety of forms, and be both analytical and creative. Regardless of form, your writing should demonstrate through analysis and explanation (explicitly and/or implicitly) deep levels of understanding. Formal essays will be presented with a rubric specific to that essay. Make sure you consult the rubric prior to handing in. AP essays will be returned with a scoring guide as feedback. These will be scoring guides as used by the AP English Literature and Composition Exam for that specific question.

The forms of writing that this course will include but not limited to the following:

· Annotation/close reading notes

· Timed essays based on past AP prompts

· Essay questions as required of college-level writers

· Reading/responding to/analyzing novels, drama, fiction, nonfiction, essays and poetry

· Imaginative writing including but not limited to: poetry and short story

· Literary analysis papers—expository and persuasive

· Personal and college entrance essays

· Graphic organizers, journals, paragraph responses, questions

Reading: This is a literature course, so it is vitally important that you not only read the required books on time, but thoroughly. This means that you will have to plan time in your busy schedule to read the assigned novels and plays, and you will have to schedule ample time for extended reading efforts - annotation, which should include rereading, journaling, research, etc. This holds true for the poetry we’ll study as well; poetry might utilize less ink than a novel or play, but we know that poetry is usually an exercise in density.

Speaking and Listening: Success in this class will rely on your participation of successful discussions. Too often a class discussion will have few participants -more confident students take over, the insecure but outgoing students waste time, the shy students retreat, and the disengaged students further disengage. A good discussion has structure, and students should be conscious of what makes that structure work. We will take the time to learn how to have more productive discussions and you will be assessed in your ability to contribute to the class learning community.

Required Texts: Because of the need to respond to text within the text (annotate), students are asked purchase individual copies of the following:

· Required Texts

o How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster

o Hamlet, William Shakespeare

o The Awakening, Kate Chopin

o Poetry, as selected

o Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad

· Alternative/Extension Texts

o Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison

o Macbeth, William Shakespeare

o Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison

o Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

*BHHS library has all texts available for check out

Course Activities: Students can expect to engage in the following activities on a regular basis:

· Class discussions – this is HUGE

· Timed essays

· Literary analysis papers and essays

o draft to publication

· AP-style MC exams

· Frequent formal and informal presentations

· Literature circles, student led discussions and Socratic Seminars

Units of Study:

o Unit Objectives

· Students will explore the world of literature through the reading of non-fiction, novels, plays, poems, and short stories.

· Students will review Elements of Fiction to include; plot, character, setting, p.o.v, symbolism, theme, as well as style, tone and irony.

· Students will work on their knowledge of key literary terms.

· Students will explore the intricacies of language used by authors to convey their message through literary responses.

o Students will use these responses to explore the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and theme in novels through an expository essay.

· Students will demonstrate their understanding of literary works through formal presentations to the class.

· Students will better understand the complexities of the literary world and the connections that exist among many works across different genres and cultures.

· Students will gain an understanding of how the time period influenced the works that were created.

· Students will explore the literary world of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries to better understand the works produced.

· What does all of this mean? Students will explore the etymology of language to better understand the language of the time period.

· Gain an understanding of MLA formatting, poetic language and devices, and the three levels of questioning.

· Students will gain an understanding of how to properly annotate poetry as well as instruction on meter, rhythm and rhyme and how these different literary techniques can alter the meaning of a work.

· Students will explore and understand literary time periods, focusing of themes.

· Understand the relationship between American and British Romanticism. Students will also explore the differences between the two philosophies.

· Students will improve their ability to answer questions correctly and gain an understanding in how to take an AP test.

· Students will improve their AP test taking skills.

· Students will continue to examination of how American writers defined “the new man on the new continent.”

· Students will gain an understanding of the Creole culture that brought The Awakening and explore the themes and symbolism associated with it.

· Students will gain and understanding of how time periods influenced authors and how some authors struck out against society with their writing.

· Students will explore the roles that social class, theme and setting play in literature.

· Students will understand the effect that British Colonization had on many parts of the world and explore the effect that this colonization has had on literature.

· Students will work to understand how cultural influences shape author’s writing.

· Students will explore the differences in style between cultures.

English Grading Policy: All academic grades will be based solely on summative assessments. The purpose of this emphasis is to accurately and reliably represent the mastery demonstrated by students by the end of the teaching units, rather than the incomplete understanding demonstrated before students have had a full opportunity to develop their skills.

Homework, class participation and progress will be monitored, but will not be a factor in the calculation of students’ academic grades. However, two additional categories – Independent Work and Self Regulation will be included in student grade reports. These will provide valuable information regarding the students’ work habits and classroom behaviors that help build the mastery assessed in the term’s academic grade.

APE students will be assessments in both the AP Standards and the Washington State Common Core Standards areas of Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening, and Language.You can find these Standards on my class wiki page http://mshummelbhhs.pbworks.com. In this ongoing process, and in our attempts for compliance with this shift to report learning rather than the behavior (known as work ethic), we have seen high achieving students grades somewhat fall. We have adopted the philosophy that achieving is not only about “doing the work” or accumulating points, but about demonstrating the learning at any given point. Yes, some units of study are going to be more challenging than others, and yes, some scores will be lower. The primary purpose of grades is to communicate student achievement at given intervals and to give the teachers data to reflect and act upon.

ASSESSMENT: Students can expect to engage in the following assessments on a regular basis:

· Literary Responses for the required texts

· Timed essays and responses

· Literary analysis essays

o draft to publication

· In-class analytical activities (individual & small group)

· Pre AP/Advanced exams and (Applied Practice and Holt Textbook)

· District and Site driven Benchmarks

· Unit tests and quizzes

· Frequent formal and informal class discussions

SKYWARD: All assignments and grades are accessible on the Skyward link found at the BHHS web page http://bhhsweb.tumwater.k12.wa.us/. A Tuesday progress report will automatically be sent via email. It is your responsibility to follow your academic progress. Grades are calculated on a weighted point basis:

· 30% Common Core Reading

· 30% Common Core Writing

· 25% Common Core Listening and Speaking (Seminar)

· 15% Common Core Language

ACADEMIC GRADING SCALE: An "A" in this course means nothing less than excellent. Because of the high academic expectations set forth at BHHS, students who go above and beyond to provide independent, sophisticated, focused, thorough analysis will earn an “A”. Earning a "B" in this course is perfectly acceptable because this grade means the student has worked to proficiency (proficiency in Honors exceeds expectations of the traditional classroom).

A = 100- 93

A- = 92.99 – 90

B+ = 89.99 – 87

B = 86.99 – 83

B- = 82.99 – 80

C+ = 79.99 77

C = 76.99 – 73

C- = 72.99 -70

D = 69.99 – 60

F = 59.99 – 50.00

IE = 49.99 - 0

· Assessment Re-Takes: student will be afforded one opportunity to repeat an assessment. Before the student repeats the assessment, he/she must successfully complete a review assignment in my room before school, after school, or during PACK time. This review assignment is intended to provide students with an opportunity to address the weaknesses demonstrated in the initial assessment. The full earned score from the assessment, even if it is less than the original.

Our learning community takes ALL of us to be successful. I will never assign “homework” that does not have an immediate impact on what we are doing. It is your choice to be a prepared, active and enlightened participant in this community. Your ability to be successful is tied to your commitment to the goals of the learning community, if you choose not to work towards the goals you are missing out and your assessment will show this trend.

*Extra Credit: There will be no extra credit opportunities so please focus all energy on the learning at hand.

CLASSROOM & STUDENT EXPECTATIONS: Standards of expected behaviors in my classrooms are 4 simple behaviors: Be Prepared, Be Respectful, Be Responsible, Be Safe.

Progressive Discipline: our classroom needs to maintain a rigorous academic environment. Due to the nature of our learning community behavior disruptions destroy our learning rather quickly. I ask that you maintain this community’s academic integrity. Student, parents and administration will be informed of all infractions and consequences.

Absent: Please follow the Student Handbook on absent policy. Due to the interactive nature of our learning community your absence will be felt deeply. I ask that you maintain this community’s academic integrity by checking in with your study partner and getting the class assignments from the wiki page prior to your return. It is your responsibility to know what you missed and communicate with me upon your return.

Tardy: Please follow the Student Handbook on Tardy policy. If you find yourself excessively tardy, you will come to the attention of Student Court.

Academic Dishonesty: This applies to both written work and oral presentations. Examples of academic dishonesty include, but are not limited to, the following: the willful giving or receiving of an unauthorized text, unfair, dishonest, or unscrupulous advantage in academic work over other students using fraud, duress, deception, theft, trickery, talking, signs, gestures, copying, or any other methodology. Consequences of Academic Dishonesty will be dealt with in a progressive manner, not limited to the following; reassessment, lunch detention, afterschool detention, suspension from class and school, reported on your permanent record.