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AP ENGLISH Literature and Composition 12

Woodland Hills High School

Instructor: Mrs. Silverman

Room: 126

e-mail:

Student Syllabus

Course Description

Students in this course are engaged in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through close reading of selected literary works, they will develop critical standards for interpreting the effects writers create by means of the artful manipulation of language. To achieve these goals, students study individual works and their characters, action, structure, and language. They consider large-scale literary elements such as form and theme, and smaller-scale elements such as figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone. The writing assignments focus on the critical analysis of literature and include expository, analytical, and argumentative essays. If a student performed at the basic or below basic level on the Keystone literature exam, this course is not recommended. This course prepares students to take the AP examination in Literature and Composition in May of the senior year.

Course Goals and Student Expectations

AP English students are expected to contribute to class every day and be independent learners. A climate of learning is only made possible with cooperation and class participation. The class will be conducted as a seminar/meeting. AP English students should be prepared to read, write, and discuss literature every day. AP English students are capable and motivated students who want to learn.

Students will:

  • Attend class daily and participate in class discussions.
  • Study materials presented in class and in the readings.
  • Keep a dialectical reading journal as an integral tool for developing vocabulary and generating ideas for writing and class discussions (same handout from summer reading).
  • Pass quizzes and tests on content studied at a minimum of 75% mastery.
  • Complete one writing project on an outside reading each marking period.
  • Present one mini-lecture to class introducing an author or literary/historical time period.
  • Complete the Advanced Placement examination.
  • Research, write, and present the Senior Project (graduation requirement).
  • Use language and organize ideas in a clear, coherent, and persuasive manner.
  • Develop critical standards for prose and poetry in regard to meaning, structure, value, time period, and relate these ideas with student experiences.
  • Explain and interpret ideas and themes presented in selected literature through discussion and writing.
  • Apply critical analyses through writing and speaking.
  • Write critical and expository essays which interpret literature and poetry.
  • Write and revise compositions in response to interpretive exercises, activities, and class discussions to explain literary selections.

This course will loosely follow the chronology of your British Literature textbook with the addition of supplemental texts by American and global writers to expand ourdiscussion of themes, archetypes, and the literary and historical movements of the literature we study. We will also refer to contemporary literary theory as a means to expand our critical and interpretive lenses.

Main texts to be used in class:

Glencoe British Literature Textbook

Norton Introduction to Literature 9th Edition

Warriner’s Handbook: Holt 6th Course

Course Content by Unit

UNIT 1: INTRODUCTION—WHAT IS LITERATURE?

TEXTS: Summer reading Great ExpectationsCharles Dickens

Out of This FurnaceThomas Bell

Another Kind of MondayWilliam E. Coles Jr.

Academic essays Kent, Charles W. “What is Literature: An Attempt at a Definition.” The

Sewanee Review 3.3 (1895): 307-313.

Hall, Robert A., Jr. “Once More—What is Literature?” TheModern

LanguageJournal 63.3 (1979): 91-98.

Literary essay“The Myth of Sisyphus” Albert Camus

OBJECTIVES:

  • Analyze structure and break down the logical organization of two academic essays defining literature (1895 and 1979).
  • Compare/contrast two definitions and establish working definition with student input for course.
  • Compare the writing quality of three literary works (summer reading) as a model for future analysis of style, tone, theme.
  • Identify and characterize the narrator through an analysis of voice.
  • Draw inferences in the analysis of character by analyzing the language and tone of the narration.
  • Articulate how imagery, tone, and narrative technique can be used to reveal theme from reading and responding to short stories in writing.
  • Recognize in fictional prose the three elements of style: grammar, rhythm & sound, and diction and practice in sentence writing using a variety of sentence structures and styles referenced in Warriner’s Handbook: Holt 6th Course.
  • Interpret textual evidence and formulate a well-argued thesis based on close textual analyses of structure, style (figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone), and social/historical values of each literary text.
  • Analyze “Myth of Sisyphus” as metaphor for senior year.

ASSESSMENTS:

  • Write a timed in-class essay on style and imagery (sample AP exam prompt)
  • Peer assessment of timed essay response, as well as revision according to teacher feedback during student-teacher conferences, as well as large group instruction, for the 5-paragraph essay.
  • Write a 5-paragraph essay on a student selected novel from summer reading, which explicitly interprets the novel’s structure, style (diction, figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone), and social/historical values represented in novel.
  • Participate in a whole class close reading of Albert Camus’ “Myth of Sisyphus” as a model for future close readings (form and theme, social/historical values [existentialism], literary elements).
UNIT 2: ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD, THE EPIC HERO, AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

TEXTS: Glencoe British Literature Textbook

Beowulf (and three differentexcerpt translations by Morgan, Heaney, Raffel)

“Ulysses” Alfred Lord Tennyson

Warriner’s Handbook: Holt 6th Course

AP English Literature and Composition Released Exam

OBJECTIVES:

  • Identify cultural clashes that produced the English language, as well as the impact of Christianity on pagan culture in Beowulf.
  • Identify and analyze themes and elements of the epic hero archetype in Beowulf and Victorian poet Tennyson’s “Ulysses.”
  • Analyze poetic devices used in medieval poetry (alliteration, enjambment, kennings).
  • Compare/contrast style and diction of three different excerpt translations of Beowulf.

ASSESSMENTS:

  • Write an epic boast implementing stylistic devices used in Beowulf (alliteration, enjambment, kennings).
  • Develop a thesis that defends one translation of Beowulf by analyzing why its translator is the most accurate stylistic interpreter of Anglo-Saxon poetry.
  • Revise sample AP essay according to student-teacher conferencing, peer revision circles, large group teacher instruction, and teacher written suggestions from drafts.
  • Participate in a Socratic seminar on the changing face of epic heroism and masculinity as represented in Anglo-Saxon, Victorian, and contemporary cultures.

UNIT 3: THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD, SATIRE, AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF HELL

TEXTS:The Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer

“Bisclavret” Marie de France

Excerpt Dante’s Inferno

No Exit Jean-Paul Sartres

Warriner’s Handbook: Holt 6th Course

AP English Literature and Composition Released Exam

OBJECTIVES:

 Analyze the use of framing devices.

 Identify elements of the Anglo-Norman lai and analyze Marie de France’s writing as a source text for Chaucer.

 Analyze the universality of satirical themes presented through the use of figurative language, humor, and irony to convey the social/historical values of the literary period represented.

Compare/contrastsocio-historic periods (medieval, modern) and their influence on author depictions of hell in three literary texts.

  • Identify stylistic elements of Dante’s poetic style (terza rima, speaker, framing devices).

ASSESSMENTS:

  • Independent study of Canterbury Tale of choice which will include:
  1. One page summary of the tale.
  2. Annotated bibliography of five academic articles about chosen tale in which the student must write a brief article synopsis and evaluate the source.
  3. Essay analyzing the tale’s purpose, using research (MLA style documentation) and personal observations of text.
  4. Informal oral presentation of research to class.
  • Compare in writing Camus’ existential philosophy (from “The Myth of Sisyphus”) with that of Sartre using textual evidence for support (AP style timed writing comparing texts).

UNIT 4: THE RENAISSANCE, SHAKESPEARE, AND THE TRAGIC HERO

TEXTS: Hamlet William Shakespeare

“On Revenge” Sir Francis Bacon

Aristotle’s theory of tragedy

Elaine Showalter’s “Stages of Feminism”

Sigmund Freud’s “Oedipal Complex”

Fences August Wilson

Warriner’s Handbook: Holt 6th Course

AP English Literature and Composition Released Exam

  • Develop knowledge of subordinate and coordinate clauses through teacher instruction, written practice, and group discussion.
  • Discuss teacher feedback and instruction and revise these insults utilizing a variety of sentence structures, including uses of subordination and coordination.
  • Complete a character analysis by examining actions and words of the characters.
  • Articulate universal themes that are common to great tragedy.
  • Evaluate plot, character, theme, and language as elements of tragedy.
  • Define elements of Aristotle’s classical definition of the tragic hero and the modern anti-hero.
  • Compare dictions used by both playwrights.
  • Compare socio-historic periods—Renaissance culture and 1950’s American culture—in terms of creating conflict for the characters.
  • Use feminist and psychoanalytical theory to examine character motives in both Hamlet and Fences.

ASSESSMENTS:

  • Perform Shakespearian soliloquies using newly learned vocabulary, sentence variety, and subordination and coordination.
  • Complete unit vocabulary test.
  • Complete grammar exam on complex sentences: subordination and coordination.
  • Create and write a modern prose soliloquy that is evaluated for the use of unit vocabulary, a variety of sentence structures, and subordination/coordination.
  • Write a timed in-class essay using a sample AP prompt from AP English Literature and Composition Released Exams.
  • Write a well-developed essay defending whether Fences’ protagonist Troy Maxson is better defined as a classical tragic hero or modern anti-hero.
  • Write a photo essay tying 1950’s Teenie Harris photography to Fencesthrough analysis of mood and subject in art.
  • View and compare two Troy Maxson performances/director interpretations of character.

UNIT 5: THE ENGLISH RESTORATION, EMPIRE, AND “OTHERNESS”

TEXTS: “A Modest Proposal” Jonathan Swift

Oroonoko Aphra Behn

Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe

Postcolonial Theory: Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha

Warriner’s Handbook: Holt 6th Course

2007 AP English Literature and Composition Released Exam

OBJECTIVES:

Analyze three different literary responses to empire and/or colonization (satiric essay, novella, novel).

  • Identify and discuss each author’s use of motif, symbolism, tone, imagery, satire, and irony in literature.
  • Use postcolonial theory to interpret literature, particularly the role of marginalized “others.”
  • Compare/contrast Behn’s Eurocentric view of the African tragic hero with Achebe’s Afrocentric view.

ASSESSMENTS:

  • Participate in a Socratic seminar that focuses on a variety of topics including, but not limited to: depictions of nature, the role of women in society, masculinity, heroism, civility/savagery, point of view, socio-political ideology.
  • Compose several drafts and revise the multi-paragraph essay according to teacher instruction/feedback and peer revision; interpret the three texts using one of the three postcolonial theoretical lenses.
  • Complete a peer revision worksheet – attached to each draft of the multi-paragraph essay that focuses on content, logical organization of ideas, style (subordination and coordination), and grammar mechanics appropriately, as well as unit vocabulary.

UNIT 6: WOMEN’S VOICES: THE VICTORIAN AGE TO POSTMODERNISM

(ESSAYS, DRAMA, SHORT STORIES)

TEXT: Glencoe British Literature Textbook

Norton Introduction to Literature 9th Edition

“A Vindication of the Rights of Women” Mary Wollstonecraft

“A Room of One’s Own” excerpt Virginia Woolf

“Yellow Wallpaper” Charlotte Perkins Gillman

“Jury of Her Peers” Susan Glaspell

“Soap and Water” Anzia Yzierska

“Desiree’s Baby” Kate Chopin

“Sanctuary” Nella Larsen

“Sarah” Mary Lavin

“No Name Woman” Maxine Hong Kingston

Images of women in male-authored texts:

A Doll’s House Henrik Ibsen

“The Dead” James Joyce

“Wife-Wooing” John Updike

  • Interpret literature in terms of socio-historical implications for women.
  • Identify various elements of the short story: point of view, tone, symbolism, conflict, theme, imagery, mood, irony, epiphany, metafiction.
  • Revisit/discuss Elaine Showalter’s stages of feminism and its theoretical implications for various authors and literary eras.
  • Analyze, compare, and contrast images of women in male-authored texts.
  • Identify/analyze literary conflict specific to historic and literary period.

ASSESSMENTS:

  • Develop a thesis that evaluates elements of the short story and how they contribute to the overall tone and mood of the work.
  • Discuss the effective use of rhetoric, controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure in large group teacher led instruction.
  • Write a timed in-class essay that explains and evaluates the artistry and quality of the short story within a feminist framework (sample AP prompts from AP English Literature and Composition Released Exam).

UNIT 7: GENRE STUDY—DYSTOPIAN LITERATURE

TEXT:1984 George Orwell

Brave New World Aldous Huxley

“The Pedestrian” Ray Bradbury

“Blood-Child” Octavia Butler

“Harrison Bergeron” Kurt Vonnegut

AP English Literature and Composition Released Exam

OBJECTIVES:

  • Explore the genre of dystopian literature (novels and short stories).
  • Articulate comparisons of the various themes of the novels, including the authors’ balance of generalization and specific details to create their dystopian worlds.
  • Define vocabulary and write compositions utilizing the unit vocabulary with a variety of sentence structures (including subordination and coordination) to increase vocabulary and grammar skills (Warriner’s Handbook: Holt 6th Course).
  • Identify, define, and explicate examples of the following literary devices: simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, metonymy, allegory, symbol, paradox, hyperbole, understatement, irony, and illusion.
  • Discuss the major conflicts that each author undertakes in his/her work.
  • Apply a balance of generalization and specific details in writing through teacher instruction/feedback from multiple drafts of creative dystopian short story.

ASSESSMENTS:

  • Develop a thesis that evaluates the novel’s artistry and quality.
  • Write a timed in-class essay that explains and evaluates the artistry and quality of the novel, and argues its relevance towards modern 21st century issues (sample AP prompts from AP English Literature and Composition Released Exam).
  • Write a dystopian short story based on 21st century global issues
  • Written revision of short story according to teacher instruction, comments and peer revision.

UNIT 8: POETRY AND INDEPENDENT STUDY

TEXT:Norton Literature: 8th ed. (various poems)

Glencoe Literature Textbook

Warriner’s Handbook: Holt 6th Course

AP English Literature and Composition Released Exam

OBJECTIVES:

  • Choose and utilize words for their connotations as well as denotations.
  • Analyze the effectiveness of poetry that conveys experience through the use of sensory imagery.
  • Distinguish between "total meaning" and "prose meaning" in poetry.
  • Apply logical organization enhanced by techniques to increase coherence such as repetition, transition, and emphasis in poetry.
  • Identify, define, and evaluate the effectiveness of alliteration, assonance, consonance, rhyme, and refrain.
  • Scan lines of poetry to determine poetic foot and line (Norton Literature: 8th ed).
  • Interpret tone in student-generated poems after teacher instruction and small-group student led discussion activity.

ASSESSMENTS:

  • Independent poetry study: research one poetic theme or subject of choice as depicted by different poets, literary periods, genders, and cultures.
  • Read poetry and identify poets’ use of rhetoric, controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through poetic devices (symbolism, metaphor, simile, rhyme, and rhythm) including diction and verse/sentence structure.
  • Analyze both form and function of poetry.
  • Read and annotate academic research on one poem/poet of choice.
  • Critique poem using research and personal observations.
  • Present research to class.
  • Using a sample poem from the AP exam, write an in-class timed analysis arguing how the poem’s organization and poetic techniques of repetition, transition, and emphasis are essential to interpreting the poem’s imagery (sample AP prompt from AP English Literature and Composition Released Exam).
  • Revise second draft according to written teacher instruction/feedback on student drafts and peer revision comments done in small groups or pairs.
  • Compose final draft utilizing teacher feedback and peer revision comments.

UNIT 10: RESEARCH WRITING UNIT – SENIOR PROJECT

TEXT: MLA Handbook for Research Writers

Warriner’s Handbook: Holt 6th Course

Student Research sources

OBJECTIVES:

  • Research, write, and present the Senior Project (graduation requirement).
  • Identify a topic of interest to research.
  • Develop a thesis statement that can be researched, analyzed, argued, and supported by expert critical sources for the purpose of writing a 5-8 page research paper.
  • Use language and organize ideas in a clear, coherent, and persuasive manner.
  • Discuss and explain the effective use of rhetoric, controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure before and after teacher instruction by writing note cards.
  • Develop logical organization skills utilizing MLA Format in a Sentence Outline to increase student awareness of the topic’s coherence, repetition, transitions, and emphasis of ideas and research details.
  • Apply a balance of generalization and specific, illustrative details using MLA format to cite research through several written drafts before and after teacher instruction and peer revision of writing.
  • Present and provide a 20 minute timed presentation with the option of several visual aids.

ASSESSMENTS (Common Core Standards Writing Assessment Rubric):

  • Preliminary written topic proposal and thesis statement followed by teacher feedback and comments.
  • Write specific, illustrative details from research sources using a minimum of 20 Note cards following MLA Guidelines (MLA Handbook For Research Writers).
  • Develop research into a formal sentence outline following MLA Format (MLA Handbook For Research Writers).
  • Compose several drafts of 5-8 page research paper utilizing peer revision and teacher feedback and instruction on MLA formatting guidelines before and after each draft.
  • Revise drafts to achieve the perfect final copy of the 5-8 page research paper.
  • Demonstrates effective use of rhetoric, tone, voice, diction, and sentence structure appropriate for a formal research paper.
  • Develop and write an outline for a speech that persuades, explains, and argues the Sr. Project focus/thesis during a timed 20 minute student presentation.

The Senior Project is a graduation requirement. It is based on a self-selected topic; however, all projects must be academically challenging and intellectually rigorous. The project requires a written and detailed proposal. Parents/guardians must approve the project. Once the proposal is granted, the research process begins. The end product must meet the academic standards for Language Arts and the requirements of this project.