AP LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
Ms. Egan
(310) 378-8471 x701
Goals:
· Students will analyze works within a variety of literary themes and genre from the Greek mythological and dramatic tradition to literature in the British and American traditions.
· Students will learn general vocabulary, literary terms/conventions and linguistic/rhetorical structures and apply to challenging literature.
· Students will learn the discipline of constructing meaning from a text through knowledge of the environment in which the text was written.
· Students will become independent, mature, informed, and experienced readers — people whose understanding of a text derives from their sensitivity to its art and their ability to deal intelligently with all of its elements.
· Students will develop a mature writing style both authoritative and analytical brought about by responsive and responsible readings.
· Students will pass the AP Literature and Composition Exam.
Texts:
1. English Literature (textbook)
2. Awakening (Chopin)
3. Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut)
4. Oedipus Rex (Sophocles)
5. Mythology (Hamilton)
6. Hamlet (Shakespeare)
7. Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
8. Alias Grace (Atwood)
9. Contemporary Lit Circles
Grading Policies:
Essay Policy: All essays must be submitted to turnitin.com. Essays will be written in class for time. Students will then take the essays home to type and submit to turnitin.com. Students must turn in 2 copies of the essay (handwritten and typed). The typed copy will not be graded without the handwritten version. If the essay is deemed to similar to another student’s work, you will be asked to rewrite the essay for partial credit. In extreme cases, your essay will be forwarded to administration for disciplinary action.
Turnitin.com Login information:
Class ID: 12982788 Password: aplit
You must make an account and submit your summer reading homework by August 30.
Make-up Testing Policy: You must take the test or vocabulary quiz before I go over it with the class. I will go over the test or quiz the A day after it is given at the start of the period. This means you can take it early (on the A day before the quiz day). You may also take the test or quiz on the same day during a different period. If you are unable to do this, which sometimes happens, you will be able to make up the test or quiz the week before finals week. You will have to schedule your make-up with me in advance. Your make-up test will be an AP MC section or an alternate unit test and your make-up vocab quiz will be an alternate vocab quiz. You will have a 0 in the grade book until you make-up the missing test or quiz. If you would like to avoid a make-up test or quiz, please consult the calendar and make arrangements in advance whenever possible.
Late Work Policy: You will lose 10% for each day an assignment is late.
Grading Guidelines:
Participation (10%):
· This is a student discussion driven class. You are expected to participate in discussion every day.
· To prepare for discussion, you are expected to come to class prepared, having completed the reading and homework.
Homework (20%):
· Given every school night; usually over the weekend
· Approximately 25 pts per week
Quizzes (20%):
· Voc quizzes given approximately every two weeks; usually worth 30-35 pts each
· Reading quizzes given periodically; worth 10 - 25 pts each
Essays (25%):
· Timed essays assigned frequently, depending on work in progress; usually 1 every 2 weeks; usually worth 25 – 50 pts each
· Culminating writing portfolio at the end of the year (includes work from all 4 years)
Tests (25%):
· Given at the end of every major unit usually worth 50 pts each
· Final exams are AP “practice” tests
Course outline / overview (including, but not limited to):
· Fall Semester:
o Summer reading discussion, activities, essays: Slaughterhouse Five, The Awakening
o Greek mythology, The Bible, archetypes, archetypal criticism
o Oedipus Rex, the tragic hero, Aristotle
o Anglo-Saxon literature: Beowulf and other selections
o Medieval literature: selections from Canterbury Tales and others
o Renaissance literature: British history, the sonnet, poetic conventions; Raleigh, Marlowe, Shakespeare (sonnets plus Hamlet), Jonson, Milton
o Early 17th Century: Metaphysicals and Cavaliers - Donne, Marvell, Herrick
o Contemporary Literature Circles
Vocabulary and grammar; literary criticism and theory; practice essays for the AP exam; practice multiple-choice portions of AP exam.
· Spring semester:
o Restoration & 18th Century literature: British history, the satire; selections from Pope, Swift, Wollstonecraft, Defoe
o Romantic Era: history, conventions; Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, Keats, and others
o Victorian British literature: history, convention; Tennyson, R. Browning, E. Browning, Hopkins, Arnold, Housman, Hardy
o Atwood’s Alias Grace and excerpts from Moral Disorder
o Modern British and American literature: modernism and post-modernism as movements; Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Owen, Woolf, Yeats, Joyce, Lawrence, Auden, Thomas
Vocabulary and grammar; more intense practice with AP essay format [three types of essays: (1) style analysis/close reading of passages (2) style analysis/close reading of poetry and (3) open ending literary question]; regular multiple-choice practice; cumulative 4-year writing portfolio.