AP ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITIONK. Fisher

2014 - 2015 COURSE SYLLABUS

Welcome to your senior year and your Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition class. In this class, you will become engaged in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of selected texts and works, you should be able to deepen your understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. The AP English Literature course is also concerned with enabling students to write in order to understand, explain, and evaluate a literary work. You will be studying representative works from the sixteenth century to contemporary times (from Shakespeare to the present) and you will read short stories, novels, essays, plays, and poetry. The study of poetry will be an important element of the course because questions that deal directly with poetry, whether multiple-choice or free-response, appear frequently on the AP English Literature Exam. Although many selections will come from the works of British writers, American literature will also be a focus.

Course Objectives

Students should be able to

  • Carefully read and critically analyze imaginative literature
  • Develop accurate, perceptive reading through close study of major texts (English, American, and Classical) representing various literary genres and periods (from the sixteenth century to the present) but know a few works extremely well
  • Understand the way writers use language to provide meaning and pleasure and to consider a work’s structure, style, and themes as well as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone
  • Acquire a fluent, precise writing style through the preparation of essays about the texts, including expository, analytical, and argumentative essays, and also be provided with opportunities to prepare creative writing examples/products
  • Understand the technique of poetry (such as scansion and metrical variations) as it affects and enhances meaning in a poem
  • Generate independent, thoughtful, and analytical discourse during class discussions
  • Deliver oral reports with poise and clarity
  • Become aware through speaking, listening, reading, and chiefly writing of the resources of language: connotation, metaphor, irony, syntax, and tone

Performance Tasks

  • Timed essays based on past AP prompts
  • Responses to essay questions as required of college-level writers
  • Reading, responding, and analyzing novels, drama, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry
  • Formal literary analysis papers—expository, persuasive, and comparison/contrast
  • Reader’s notebook, master works data sheets, paragraph responses, journal responses, and annotation of text
  • Well-organized and well-maintained class notebook

Evaluation and Assessment

Achievement of the objectives is measured by:

  • Regular writing assignments—both formal and informal
  • Oral reports and projects
  • Grammar/mechanics review and assessment
  • Class Participation
  • Quizzes for assigned material
  • In-class journals/responses to selections/reader’s notebook/Master Works Data Sheets (MWDS)
  • Cumulative examinations
  • The AP Exam

The major text for class this year (published in 2008 and recently purchased) is the college-level textThe Bedford Introduction to Literature, Eighth Edition. Many of the works to be studied this year as provided in this syllabus come directly from this text. You will be issued the text to take home but will be expected to bring it to class with you every class session. Although this text will be the primary text for the course, other texts will be used for supplementation:

  • Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature Like a Professor. New York: Harper, 2003.
  • Vogel, Richard. Multiple-Choice and Free-Response Questions in Preparation for the AP English Literature and Composition Examination, Seventh Edition. Brooklyn, NY: D&S Marketing Systems, Inc., 2006.
  • Kovacs, Mary Anne. Advanced Placement Short Story: Challenging Approaches for Honors, Gifted, and AP English Classes. Westlake, OH: The Center for Learning, 1993.
  • Jago, Carol, et al. Literature & Composition: Reading – Writing – Thinking, First Edition. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011.

Before beginning our study of literature, we will start with a series of lessons on how to approach the study of literature and consider the following questions:

  • Why study literature?
  • What makes an effective reader?
  • What is close reading?
  • What are the elements of style?
  • What are the special considerations for reading poetry closely?
  • How do you develop a thesis and organize a close analysis essay?
  • What are the elements of fiction?
  • What are the special considerations for analyzing drama?

The following is the list of works you will be studying, although there definitely will be additions or deletions made as the class progresses. AP test practice, timed writings, literary analysis, grammar review, research assignments, literary terms and content vocabulary study, and class discussions of all works studied will be an ongoing and important part of the curriculum. Although not listed in the course outline, films, where appropriate, will be used to enrich the study of a particular work. We will also study other works, such as poems and excerpts from short stories and novels, through our multiple-choice practice tests, used either for bell-ringers or full-length practice tests.

Unit 1: Interpretations of Justice

Drama: Antigone—Sophocles

Novel:Scarlet Letter—Hawthorne

Frankenstein—Mary Shelly

Short Stories:“Miss Brill” – Katherine Mansfield

“Sonny’s Blues”—James Baldwin

“I Stand Here Ironing”—Tillie Olsen

“Good Country People”—Flannery O’Connor

“The Yellow Wallpaper”—Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“Babylon Revisited”—F. Scott Fitzgerald

Poetry:“My Papa’s Waltz” –Theodore Roethke

“Those Winter Sundays” – Robert Hayden

“Rite of Passage”—Sharon Olds

“To an Athlete Dying Young””—Housman

Socratic Circle:“Daddy”—Sylvia Plath

Timed Writing:Comparison/Contrast: “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those Winter Sundays”

Formal Essay:Analysis: Culture Clashes and/or Identity Conflicts As Evidenced in Unit 3 Selections

Style/Language:Conflict, Connotation, Denotation, Symbolism,Connotation, Purpose, Voice, Style, Point of View,

Unit 2: Appearances vs. Reality

Drama:The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People—Oscar Wilde

Novel:Daisy Miller—Henry James

Short Stories:“The Lady with the Pet Dog”—Anton Chekhov and Joyce Carol Oates

“The Story of an Hour”—Kate Chopin

“A Rose for Emily”—William Faulkner

“A & P”—John Updike

“Cathedral”—Raymond Carver

Poetry:“The Flea”—John Donne

“To His Coy Mistress”—Andrew Marvell

“Coy Mistress”—Annie Finch

“She Walks in Beauty”—George Gordon, Lord Byron

“Weighing the Dog”—Billy Collins

“My Last Duchess”—Robert Browning

“When I Consider How My Light Is Spent”—John Milton

“The World Is Too Much with Us”—William Wordsworth

“Short Story on a Painting of Gustave Klimt”—Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Socratic Circle:Ferlinghetti’s poem “Short Story on a Painting of Gustave Klimt” and Klimt’s The Kiss

Timed Writing:College Board Prompt: Poetry

Formal Essay:Analyzing Irony in The Importance of Being Earnest

Style/Language:Playful, Satiric, and Sarcastic Irony, Tone, Setting,Characterization

Unit 3: Is Evil Inevitable?

Novella:Heart of Darkness—Joseph Conrad

Drama: The Tragedy of Macbeth—William Shakespeare

Short Stories:“Young Goodman Brown”—Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Clothes”—ChitraBanerjeeDivakaruni

“One of These Days”—Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Poetry:“The Fish”—Elizabeth Bishop

“Ironing Their Clothes”—Julia Alvarez

“Piano”—D. H. Lawrence

Socratic Circle:Excerpt from “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”—Chinua Achebe

Timed Writing:Analyzing for Tone/Attitude in Lawrence’s “Piano”

Formal Essay:Analyzing Theme in Macbeth

Style/Language:Tone, Satire, Paradox, Irony, Characterization

Unit 4: Conformity and Rebellion

Drama:A Doll’s House--Ibsen

Novella:The Metamorphosis—Franz Kafka

Short Stories:“Good Country People”—Flannery O’Connor

“The Yellow Wallpaper”—Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“Everyday Use”—Alice Walker

“Girl”—Jamaica Kincaid

“Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”—Herman Melville

“Harrison Bergeron”—Kurt Vonnegut

Poetry:“Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night”—Dylan Thomas

“Her Kind”—Anne Sexton

“Sonnet: The Ladies’ Home Journal”—Sandra Gilbert

“next to of course god america I”—E. E. Cummings

“Is About”—Allen Ginsberg

Cartoon:From The Metamorphosis—Peter Kuper

Timed Writing:College Board Prompt for The Metamorphosis

Style/Language:Theme, Characterization, Plot Development, Syntax, Figurative Language, Imagery

Attached is a handout entitled “Beyond the Syllabus,” which gives more of the practical, technical information you will need in order to do well in this class. Also attached is an acknowledgement form which is to be signed by both you and a parent or guardian, indicating that you and your parent or guardian understand and agree to the requirements for the course. Please sign and then detach the form and return it to me for my records. The returning of this acknowledgment form will give you your first completion grade in AP Lit and Comp. Please return it within five days of receiving it.

EMAIL ME WITH ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS OR WORK YOU WISH TO TURN IN EARLY!

VISIT MY LINK ONTHE THS WEBSITE FOR PACKETS OR HANDOUTS MISSED IN CLASS.

Beyond the Syllabus 2014 - 2015

From Mrs. Fisher:

I want you to prepare to do an awesome job on the AP exam in May, but remember: The test is three hours – the class is 180 days. There is much to experience in this English class and in obtaining your English IV credit. Prepare for the test, but most of all, continue to read, think, and write well. That will be the focus of this class.

Notebook: You will need a three ring binder (1 ½ - 2 inches) with at least three divided sections. This is required and is vital for success in this class. You will receive many handouts throughout the year that are designed to be supplements for the course, such as literary terms and definitions; literature timelines and descriptions; and copies of literary works for study and annotation. You will need to refer to these handouts often in class, and it is imperative that they be kept so that they are readily accessible. Notebooks will be collected and graded; random notebook quizzes can be expected. This “Beyond the Syllabus” handout and your AP Literature and Composition Course Syllabus should be the first items in your notebook.

Academic Honesty: Cheating can be perceived as (1) receiving or providing information during a test, (2) receiving or providing information on tests given in an earlier period or day, (3) using or copying another student’s homework (Unless assignments, in or out of the classroom, are designated by me as “group activities,” all assignments are to be completed by the student as an individual.), (4) allowing other students to use or copy your work on assignments, and (4) using ideas or written materials from other sources: student, professional writers, internet notes/study guides—without acknowledging the source in your own writing. The consequences for any violation of the above are a zero for the assignment and disciplinary action (referral).

Missing/Late Assignments:

  • Homework and class assignments are NOT ACCEPTED unless you have an EXCUSED absence.
  • Larger, long-term assignments, papers and projects, will be accepted with one letter grade docked for each day (each physical day, not class meeting days) the assignment is late.
  • If you have an assignment due, yet you know you will be absent, you are encouraged to email your work to me.
  • Any missing assignment will receive a zero in the grade book (e-Sembler).
  • Any work completed in class after I have collected it (even if it is on the day an assignment is due) is considered late.
  • If you know that a due date for an AP Lit assignment is going to conflict with other due dates and will cause you an undue hardship, discuss this with me ahead of time—not the day the assignment is due.

Attendance: Inconsistent attendance invariably leads to increased stress: too much make-up work, loss of continuity with class activities, and inability to participate fully in class discussions. Good attendance is an indicator of success in AP Lit & Comp. Take care of yourself by careful planning and managing your time wisely. Be in class if at all possible.

Classroom Behaviors:

  • Ask questions.
  • Be attentive in class (no heads down).
  • Come to class prepared.
  • Contribute to class discussions but allow for the input of ALL class members—class discussions should be lively but controlled.

AP English Literature and Composition—K. Fisher ()

I have read the two handouts, AP English Literature and Composition Course Syllabus 2014 – 2015 and Beyond the Syllabus 2014 – 2015, and understand and acknowledge the behavior and work ethic needed for success in AP Literature and Composition.

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