2017-2018 AP English Literature and Composition Syllabus[1]
Mrs. Kean-Walsh
– 702-799-1777x4076
Brief Description of AP® English Literature and Composition
AP® English Literature and Composition purpose of this course is two-fold:
-To help students develop themselves as more critical readers able to make in-depth analyses of works of literary merit
-To help students develop the skills necessary to compose coherent, creative essays that express penetrating insights and that reveal a breadth of reading experience
Students and parents should be aware that because AP® English Literature and Composition is a college course with college-level content and expectations. This course is rigorous; the reading, challenging; the writing, frequent. Furthermore, it requires an independent mind. Students are expected to prepare for each class by reading the assigned work alertly, curiously, and critically – that is, in a way that generates meaningful questions and ideas about the reading, questions and ideas that students then bring to class to make a part of thoughtful discussion. Students must be committed to listening and learning from one other as well as reading literary works closely. It is especially in this sharing of ideas that students become better readers and writers, that students truly become educated.
In May, students will take the AP® English Literature and Composition Exam, which measures the ability to answer multiple-choice questions about literary style and meaning, to write essays analyzing demanding prose and poetry, and to write open-ended essays on the close reading of literature from the United Kingdom, the United States, and various other countries from around the world. Consequently, students will engage in activities that develop their critical reading and composition skills: journal writing and annotations of texts; reading passages and multiple-choice literary analysis questions from released past AP® tests; Socratic-seminar style discussions; frequent timed, in-class, analytic, expository, argumentative essays based on past AP® test prompts; out-of-class extended essays involving literary analysis, comparison/contrast, narration and description, exposition and definition, argumentation and persuasion, and research; and original poems, fiction, and/or drama. Additionally, students will receive regular feedback on their analysis and compositions skills from both peers and instructor.
Students scoring a 3 or above on this exam are granted college credit at most colleges and universities in the United States.[2]
“The beauty of literature is you allow readers to see things through other people's eyes. All good books do this.”
--fiction writer Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street
Overall Student Learning Goals
• To know how to use a variety of skills/concepts (prediction; inference; identification of main topic, central idea, essential details, patterns of organization, advanced literary/rhetorical devices, and conventions of style/voice and genre/form, e.g.) to comprehend, analyze, evaluate in-depth fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction, and multi-media texts.
• To understand and know how to use strategies and advanced literary/rhetorical terms to close read (analyze/evaluate) under timed circumstances fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction from the level of the word to the level of the line/sentence to the level of the paragraph/stanza to the level of the whole text.
• To know key characteristics of different periods literary/historical periods and movements and to understand how literary texts from those periods and movements are both a reflection of the culture and the individual writer’s response to and critique of the culture.
• To know how to use strategies from a variety of critical literary stances (the New Criticism, Formalism, the New Historicism, Socio-Economic Studies, Gender Studies, Reader-Response, e.g.) to advance sophisticated, multiple interpretations of texts.
• To know how to use the rhetorical principles of argumentation/persuasion, exposition, description, and narration in the composition of print, non-print, and multimedia texts, including how to establish and maintain Focus/Coherency and Support/Development and how to manipulate elements of Organization and Style/Voice.
• To know how to use the relationships among rhetoric, audience, subject matter/topic, genre/form, and aim/purpose to create effective compositions.
• To understand and know how to use strategies for pre-composition, drafting, revision, and editing stages of composition.
• To understand how to advocate an issue of public concern via the use of primary and secondary research and standard conventions of research (MLA and others as directed by teacher) and the evaluation of the reasoning behind arguments from different points of view.
• To know how to use the conventions of Standard English.
Evaluation/Assessment/Grades
Quarter
Summative Assessment: 60%
Formative Assessment: 25%
Speaking/Listening: 15%
Semester
First/Third Quarter: 40%
Second/Fourth Quarter 40%
Exam 20%
Units
Unit One: Is he Heroic or just Crazy?
Genres: Tragedy, Modern Novel/Short Fiction
Unit One Objectives
ü Students will examine the nature of the hero/villain across time/cultures, including epic, tragic heroes; the anti-hero.
ü Students will examine the concept of the lover as hero from courtly love poems (particularly sonnets and pastorals from the Renaissance and sonnets from the modern/contemporary periods).
ü Students will familiarize (or refamiliarize) themselves with the following terms/concepts: epic, tragedy, epic hero, tragic hero, villain, anti-hero, archetype, protagonist, antagonist, existentialism, absurdum, diction, denotation and connotation, imagery, characterization, motif, theme
ü Students will understand how to annotate a passage from a text, with special attention to an author’s diction and syntax, imagery and figures of speech.
ü Students will explore the concept of hero in constructing a response to a college admissions essay.
ü Students will review and implement techniques for finding and maintaining focus/coherency and for strengthening support and elaboration in their compositions.
ü Students will examine and implement strategies for improving organization and manipulation of features of voice or style in their compositions (diction, parallelism, appropriate sentence coordination and subordination).
ü Students will manipulate the basic elements of either an Italian or English sonnet to compose an original poem.
ü Students will use strategies for prewriting, revising, and editing their compositions (required for all out-of-class compositions and to some extent for in-class ones).
ü Students will use textual evidence to support their analytical arguments and judgments when writing responses to literature.
ü Students will draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work's social, historical and/or cultural values.
ü Students will review the basics of MLA research (source documentation and note-taking) and study the format for the annotated bibliography.
Literature (Common Reading)
How to Read Literature Like a College Professor (Summer)
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (Summer)
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Hamlet companion pieces
Selected Short Fiction
Selected Poetry
Instructional Reading: Selected portions of “Reading the Story,” “Characterization,” “Theme,” “What Is Poetry?” and “Reading the Poem,” “Denotation and Connotation,” and “Imagery” and the section on tragedy in “Tragedy and Comedy” from Bedford Introduction to Literature.
Compositions
In-Class Essays: Timed Writings: Close Passage Analyses and Open-Ended Essays Based on Past
AP® Prompts
Portfolio of Out-of-Class Compositions:
College Admissions Essay (Narrative/Descriptive Prompt on “Why I write” and/or from college of choice)
Revision/Extended Development of One In-Class Essay
Other Significant Assignments/Activities
Socratic Seminar Discussions
Journals and Annotations of Texts
Reading Quizzes on Works Read in This Unit
Unit Two: Dysfunctional Families/Dysfunctional Relationships
Genres: Tragedy; Modern Fiction (Short Story/Novel); Poetry
Unit Two Objectives
ü Students will explore the topic of dysfunction in familial and other relationships.
ü Students will familiarize (or refamiliarize) themselves with these terms or concepts: revenge tragedy, soliloquy, allusion, symbol, psychoanalytic (Freudian) criticism, archetypal/mythological (Jungian), ethnic (African-American) criticism, reader-response criticism, and feminist/gender studies criticism.
ü Students will identify and understand the impact of key characteristics of the Medieval, Renaissance, Modern Periods or Movements (including a review of the Harlem Renaissance).
ü Students will refine their understanding of how the interplay of diction, syntax, irony and other rhetorical/literary devices inform tone and style.
ü Students will refine skills at exposition through the composition of an extended definition essay.
ü Students will continue to implement techniques for finding and maintaining focus/coherency and for strengthening support and elaboration in their compositions.
ü Students will continue to implement strategies for improving organization and manipulation of features of voice or style in their compositions (diction, parallelism, appropriate sentence coordination and subordination).
ü Students will continue to use strategies for prewriting, revising, and editing their compositions (required for all out-of-class compositions and to some extent for in-class ones).
ü Students will continue to use textual evidence to support their analytical arguments and judgments when writing responses to literature.
ü Students will continue to draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work's social, historical and/or cultural values.
ü Students will review basics of MLA research (paraphrasing/summarizing, note-taking).
Literature (Common Reading)
Daisy Miller by Henry James
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Outside Reading (Novels on previous exams)
Selected Short Fiction
Selected Poetry
Instructional Reading: Selected portions of “Point of View, ”Figurative Language 2,” “Allusion” “Realistic and Nonrealistic Drama” “Tragedy and Comedy” (review of tragedy) from Bedford Introduction to Literature
Compositions
In-Class Essays: Timed Writings: Close Passage Analyses and Open-Ended Essays Based on Past AP® Prompts
Portfolio of Out-of-Class Essays:
Extended Definition Essay
Revision/Extended Development of One In-Class Essay
Other Significant Assignments/Activities
Socratic Seminar
Reading Quizzes on Works Read in This Unit
Process Journals and Annotations of Texts
Group Study Guides on Novels/Plays Studied Unit Test (Close Reading Passages, Genres, Literary Terms, Allusions)
Unit Three: Faith, Doubt, Existentialism
Genres: Modern Novel, Lyric Poetry, Modern/Postmodern/Absurdist Drama
Unit Three Objectives
ü Students will explore the themes of faith and doubt and disillusionment in literature excerpted from the Renaissance through the twentieth century.
ü Students will familiarize (or refamiliarize) themselves with these terms or concepts: Modernism, Postmodernism, Theatre of the Absurd, existentialism, metaphysical poetry, conceit, dramatic monologue, Deconstruction, alliteration, assonance, consonance, masculine and feminine rhyme, rhythm, meter, foot, iambic, trochaic, anapestic, dactylic, spondaic, sprung rhythm.
ü Students will identify and understand the impact of key characteristics of the Romantic and Victorian Periods.
ü Students will refine their understanding of how interplay of diction, syntax & various rhetorical devices inform tone and style.
ü Students will experiment with voice in crafting dramatic monologue poems.
ü Students will continue to implement techniques for finding and maintaining focus/coherency and for strengthening support and elaboration in their compositions.
ü Students will continue to implement strategies for improving organization and manipulation of features of voice or style in their compositions (diction, parallelism, appropriate sentence coordination and subordination).
ü Students will continue to use strategies for prewriting, revising, and editing their compositions (required for all out-of-class compositions and to some extent for in-class ones).
ü Students will continue to use textual evidence to support their analytical arguments and judgments when writing responses to literature.
ü Students will continue to draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work's social, historical and/or cultural values.
ü Students will review the basics of MLA internal/parenthetical and Works Cited documentation.
ü Students will draft and revise their extended research essays.
Literature (Common Reading)
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
Selected Short Fiction
Selected Poetry
Instructional Reading: Selected portions of “Meaning and Idea,” from Bedford Introduction to Literature
Compositions
In-Class Essays: Timed Writings: Close Passage Analyses and Open-Ended Essays Based on Past AP® Prompts
Portfolio of Out-of-Class Compositions:
Original Dramatic Monologue
Revision/Extended Development of One In-Class Essay (Comparison/Contrast)
Other Significant Assignments/Activities
Socratic Seminar
Reading Quizzes on Works Read in This Unit
Process Journals and Annotations of Texts
Group Study Guides on Novels/Plays Studied
Unit Four: The She in Literature
Unit Four Objectives
ü Students will compose either an original short story or an original scene* from a dramatic work.
ü Students will continue to implement techniques for finding and maintaining focus/coherency and for strengthening support and elaboration in their compositions.
ü Students will continue to implement strategies for improving organization and manipulation of features of voice or style in their compositions (diction, parallelism, appropriate sentence coordination and subordination).
ü Students will continue to use strategies for prewriting, revising, and editing their compositions (required for all out-of-class compositions and to some extent for in-class ones).
ü Students will continue to use textual evidence to support their analytical arguments and judgments when writing responses to literature.
ü Students will continue to draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work's social, historical and/or cultural values.
ü Students will revise and edit their extended research essays.
ü Students will prepare and deliver a multimedia presentation based on the topic in their research essay.
*This scene may be an epilogue or alternate scene from a play by an author the student has studied during high school.
Literature (Common Reading)
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Selected Short Fiction
Selected Poetry
Compositions
In-Class Essays: 2-3 Timed/Week: Close Passage Analyses & Open-Ended Essays Based on Past AP® Prompts
Portfolio of Out-of-Class Essays: Research, Essays, Short Story or Dramatic Scene
Other Significant Assignments/Activities
Socratic Seminar
Reading Quizzes on Works Read in This Unit
Process Journals and Annotations of Texts
Group Study Guides on Novels/Plays Studied
Unit Five: Satire/ Social Commentary: Critiquing the Foibles of Society
Genres: Satiric Poetry, Beast Fable, Essay, Postmodern Short Fiction, Parody, Burlesque (High Burlesque/Mock Epic, Low Burlesque/Travesty) Dystopian, Novel, Comedy
Unit Five Objectives
ü Students will familiarize (or refamiliarize) themselves with the following terms/concepts: satire, parody, mock epic, caricature, lampoon, beast fable, romance, dystopian fiction, verbal irony (overstatement/hyperbole, understatement), situational irony (incongruity, reversals), dramatic irony, tone, metonymy/synecdoche, paradox, low comedy/high comedy, stereotype.
ü Students will explore the ways in which satire is use to comment on society and human nature.