“To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know.”
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Instructor: Nell Whitman
Phone: 859-381-3423 ext. 2235 Email:
Room: 35 (downstairs, green hall) Blog: http://blogs.fcps.net/nwhitman
Remind: (859)-965-9453 3rd hour code: @whitman3; 4th hour code: @whitman4
Conferences by appointment, before or after school.
Course Description
The AP Literature and Composition course focuses on the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. As we read, we will consider a work’s structure, style, and themes, as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone. In community, we will experience, interpret, and evaluate celebrated poems, plays, novels and short stories from both British and American writers written from the sixteenth century to modern times. These pieces often leave us with more questions than they do answers, inviting and rewarding re-reading and discussion, as the works will not yield all of their pleasures of thought and feeling the first time through. This process is rich—even astounding—when we all come prepared with the day’s reading and our ideas about it. That’s not just an expectation, it’s an assumption. It will often seem that we spend more time discussing and analyzing the literature than it takes to read in the first place—close reading means we may cover fewer texts, but we will truly explore them. Though we will devote a portion of our time to what others have said before us, analyzing the critical essays and literary theories of experts, overall, the goal is to become the experts ourselves. Finally, we will write every day—for personal, creative, and analytical purposes. Our writing will range from paragraphs to polished papers. Come to class wielding a sharp pencil and a sharp mind. By May, we will strive to explain clearly, cogently, and elegantly what we understand about literary works and why we interpret them as we do.
Materials
· 3-ring binder (1, 1-1/2”)
o A set of 5 dividers is recommended
section headings: resources, notes, vocab, drafts, portfolio
· College-ruled composition book (no spirals)
· College-ruled loose-leaf paper
· Pencils and pens (legible)
· 3-5 pack of highlighters
· Please also bring in . . .
o 1st hour—a package of small post-its
o 3rd hour—one box of tissues / Texts:
· Jago’s Literature and Composition: Reading Writing and Thinking
· Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense
· Other novels, dramatic works, and poetry included in unit outline
· Recommended text:
o How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster
o Mythology Edith Hamilton
o The Bible
Elements of the course
1. Writing workshop:
2. Timed writings: Students will craft prompt-based responses to literature every two or three weeks. All timed writings will be scored using the AP general scoring guide; some will receive an 100-point formative grade, whereas others will receive a 100-point summative grade. Specific, whole-class instruction will be devoted to developing students’ writing. Writing instruction will focus on developing effective diction, syntax, organization, balance between generalizations and illustrative details, and use of rhetoric.
3. Process papers: Students will engage in two peer reviews, often outside of the classroom, before submitting a revised draft for teacher review. Your teacher will read, discuss, and award credit EXCLUSIVELY for drafts that have been reviewed by others and revised accordingly by the draft deadline. All previous drafts and peer review sheets must be submitted with the final draft.
4. Personal/creative writing: Students will submit a personal essay appropriate for college applications in the fall. Students will write a blog post of 200-250 words on or responding to other posts on allusions, poetry, and literary themes due Tuesday night at 11:00 p.m. In addition, students will submit a polished works of drama or poetry generated by prompts. Students will write one performance review per semester based on a language-based performance.
5. Reading response journals: Students will respond to literature by writing dialectic and prompt-based entries that will be collected at the end of the unit and scored on test day for a 50-100 point formative grade.
6. SEAL’D study: Students will begin the day by sealing in your knowledge of the “language arts” in SEAL’D study (Style—voice lessons, Editing—skill practice for effective revision, Allusions—Classical and Biblical allusions, Literary knowledge—literary technique and movements, and Diction—vocab acquisition and word play).
7. Reading quizzes: Students will complete reading quizzes to demonstrate their close reading of assigned texts for a 20-40 point formative grade.
8. Tests: AP-style tests will be given periodically to measure the growth of critical reading skills for a 100-point summative grade.
9. Projects: Students will submit several projects involving research on social and historical background of literary works and critical interpretation.
10. Reading: Students should expect to spend 30-60 minutes an evening on close reading of our texts.
Grades
Grading Policy
· Grading Scale
o A = 92-100
o B = 83-91
o C = 74-82
o D = 65-73
o F = 0-64 / Final Grade Calculation
o 50% = Formative Assignments
§ Daily Work
§ Homework
§ Quizzes
o 50% = Summative Assignments
§ Tests
§ Projects
§ Writing Assignments
Policies
Academic integrity: Success in this course, and ultimately on the AP Exam, depends on a process approach to learning in which students assume responsibility for engaging in personal interpretations of literature. There are no short cuts. Students who engage in academic theft will receive a zero for the assignment, a comment on their transcript, and will be referred for disciplinary action. Plagiarism includes using an idea generated by another source without proper documentation. (Example: if students go online and read an interpretation of a symbol or search for historical background, any mention of this in their writing—even if it is paraphrased—is stealing. Students must cite it to be ethical and avoid academic repercussions.)
Deadlines and make-up work: All assignments are due at the beginning of class. Many written assignments will be submitted on Turnitin. Join our class in Turnitin.com by creating a student account:
3rd hour Class id: 8366881 Password: bluedevils3
4th hour Class id: 8366899 Password: bluedevils4
You will receive two late passes allowing you to submit late work for 80% credit the following day. Make-up work is the responsibility of the student. Assignments will be posted to my blog at http://blogs.fcps.net/nwhitman. If you are absent, please feel free to contact me for make-up work assignments. I will email assignments, if possible. Assignments may not be available before an absence. Per FCPS policy, students will have the number of days excused absent plus one to complete make up work.
UNIT OUTLINES:
Unit 1: Art and the Artist Weeks 1-3
What is art?
What is the artist’s role in society?
Why study the liberal arts?
v How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
v The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
v The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
v Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
v The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
v The Round House by Louise Erdrich
v The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
v The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
v The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
v Summer reading responses: found poem, major works data sheet, timed writing (Q3)
v Skills focus: Introduction to AP course and exam structure, close and critical readings and annotations via short fiction, overview of literary terms and genres; reader-response and formalist criticism
v Short fiction: “Sonny’s Blues” Baldwin; “The Yellow Wallpaper” Perkins Gilman; “Cathedral” Carver; “Videotape” DeLillo
v Poetry workshop:
o Selected poems by Frost, T.S. Eliot, Heaney, Pope, Wordsworth, Browning, McKay, Stevens, O’Hara, Oliver, Collins, Boland, and Lorde with a focus on dramatic monologue and the ode.
o Devices: Pattern/stanza & shift, diction, apostrophe, figurative language & imagery
o Slam poetry: “Strive” and other contemporary poems
v Sample test with Q1 & Q2 questions
v Writing workshop: Literary analysis of author’s craft; short fiction.
Unit 2: Identity and Culture Weeks 4-7
What makes us who we are?
Do individuals create culture or does culture create individuals?
Is how we identify ourselves more important than how others identify us?
v Short fiction: “The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven” Alexie, “Aguantando” Diaz, “The Book of the Dead” Danticat, “Who’s Irish?” Gish Jen, “Interpreter of Maladies” Lahiri, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” Oates; “Two Kinds” Amy Tan, “The Moths” Helena Maria Viramontes; “A&P” Updike
v Skills focus: Setting, mood, tone, symbolism/allegory, narration, parallel structure, characterization; critical lenses: biographical/historical, psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, archetypal, post-colonial, new historicist
v Poetry workshop
o Selected poems by Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Dickinson, Cummings, Soto, Alexie, Alvarez, Frost, Thomas
o Forms: lyric
o Devices: speaker and symbolism
v Writing workshop: Literary analysis using critical lens with two sources; college/personal essay.
Unit 3: Love and Relationships Weeks 8-18
What is true love?
How does love transform a person’s life?
v Novel: Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë (Q3)
v Drama: The Importance of Being Earnest Oscar Wilde (Q2 & performance; performance review)
v Short fiction: “Hills like White Elephants” Hemingway; “The Story of an Hour” Chopin; “Love in L.A.” Gilb; “For Esme with Love and Squalor” J.D. Salinger
v Skill focus: Romanticism, gothic fiction, allusion, frame, narration/point of view, foil, theme, foreshadowing, comedy of manners, satire, irony, humor, and pun.
v Project: Dramatic interpretation of scene from Wilde
v Poetry workshop:
· Selected poems by Donne, Marvell, Byron, St. Vincent Millay, Atwood, Collins, Shakespeare, and Keats.
· Forms: sonnet & pastoral
· Devices: how rhyme and sound devices contribute to meaning; meter; the conceit.
Unit 4: Conformity and Rebellion Weeks 19-23
What does conformity accomplish for society? For the individual?
What does rebellion accomplish for society? For the individual?
v Novel: (Q3)
· Madame Bovary (French) Auguste Flaubert
· Frankenstein Mary Shelley
· Tess of D’urbervilles Thomas Hardy
· Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
· Crime and Punishment (Russian) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
· Middlemarch George Eliot
· A Room with a View E.M. Forster
· Age of Innocence Edith Wharton
· My Antonia Willa Cather
· Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston
· Tender is the Night F. Scott Fitzgerald
· Clockwork Orange Anthony Burgess
v Drama: Hamlet (Q2)
v Skills focus: Elizabethan tragedy, soliloquy, aside, motif, rhetorical question
v Poetry workshop: Selected poems by Shelley, Dickinson, Cummings, Sexton, Randall, Clifton, and Ginsberg
v Writing Workshop: dramatic monologue (poem) or dramatic scene
Unit 5: Home and Family Weeks 24-28
What defines a family?
What are the boundaries of love and sacrifice for family?
v Novel: Beloved Toni Morrison (Q3)
v Drama: Lit circle--Raisin in the Sun Hansberry; Our Town Thorton Wilder; Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller; Piano Lesson August Wilson; Blues for Mr. Charlie Baldwin; Topdog/Underdog Suzan-Lori Parks; class performance
v Poetry workshop:
· Selected poems by Bishop, Thomas, Plath, Hayden, Roethke, Hughes, Wong and Jonson
· Forms: villanelle and pantoum
· Devices: repetition, anaphora
v Writing Workshop: Villanelle, pantoum; performance review
Unit 6: Contemporary Voices Weeks 29-36
In what ways do contemporary voices echo voices of the past?
How do they extend into new literary territory?
v Lit circle: Contemporary voices
· Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
· Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
· The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
· The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
· The Life of Pi by Yann Martel
· The Road Cormac McCarthy
· Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell
· Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
· All the Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr
· Caucasia by Dansy Senna
· Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk
· A Heartbreaking of Staggering Genius Dave Eggers
· Novels from summer reading list
· Approved contemporary fiction
Project: Voices from the Outside: Research poet and compile an album of 3-5 of his/her best works
v Writing workshop: After researching the time and place from which a poet wrote, write an interpretation of one of your selected poems considering the social and historical context you uncovered in your research.
v Process paper: Evaluative analysis of a work of contemporary fiction based on artistry and quality
v Final project: collaborative promotional campaign for lit circle novel
Please sign and return this page.
Signature Page—AP Literature and Composition Syllabus —I have read and understand all of the contents of this course syllabus, including the course description, the explanation of literary selections, the required class materials, the rules and expectations for students, and the grading policy. I will use technology for instructional purposes including text communications, blogs, and Turnitin.com. I am financially liable for a textbooks assigned to me, including those left in the classroom.
Student name (please print):______
Student signature:______
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