Kell High School
AP Literature and Composition Syllabus
Hilary Minich, Instructor / /
2013-2014
Course Overview
The Advanced Placement Program, which the College Board has sponsored since 1955, offers able and ambitious high school students an opportunity to study on a college level and then, depending on examination results and requirements of particular universities, to receive advanced placement credit when they enter college. It exists for students capable of doing college-level work in English while they are in secondary school. These students should be willing to devote the energy necessary to complete a course more rigorous and demanding than other high school English courses designed for college-bound students. The aims of the AP English Course are both ambitious and general. The course attempts to teach students to write well onimportant, substantive topics and to develop the skills of a mature reader. In the AP Course, students are involved in both the study and practice of writing about literature, as well as the close reading of it.The content is not a finite set of facts; it is an infinite set of possibilities.
Specific objectives for the course include:
- To aid students in preparation to succeed at a high level on the AP Literature/Composition exam
- To help students cultivate a deep awareness, understanding, and appreciation of advanced classical and contemporary literary texts
- To facilitate students in advanced writing, study, and interpretation of literature in preparation for other college-level English courses
According to the course guide created by College Board,
An AP Course in English Literature and Composition engages students in careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of selected texts, students deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. As they read, students 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.
By the end of the AP English Literature and Composition course, students should be able to approach a poem, a prose work, and a play and – proceeding beyond visceral and emotional reactions – respond to it analytically and critically, both orally and in writing. These well-developed responses will, at their best, use literary terms and key concepts to illuminate insights rather than simply show students’ familiarity with them.
(taken from the College Board’s Advance Placement Course Description: English)
The AP Literature/Composition Exam:
The AP test is an exercise in verbal problem-solving. Requiring a broad base of literary knowledge, the test asks students to respond at the highest levels of application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The test is composed of a multiple choice section and an essay section. The multiple choice section accounts for 45% of the total score and includes between 45-60 questions. The essay section accounts for 55% of the score and includes three essays (poetry response, prose response, and open question).
Texts (provided for the Student)
Meyer, Michael, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. 8th Edition. Bedford/ St.
Martin’s. 2008.
Hodges, John C. et. al Hodges’ Harbrace Handbook. 15th edition. Thomson Wadsworth.
2004.
Rozakis, Laurie, PhD. Master the AP English Literature and Composition Test. 6th
Edition. Thomas Arco. 2003
Suggested Texts
O’Connor, Patricia T. Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English. Riverhead Trade, 1998.
Petersen’s AP English and Composition
Class novels/ plays – students are encouraged to purchase a personal copy to write in, but most of these books can be checked out in the media center or are found in the Bedford textbook:
Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky
How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Foster
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
A Doll House, Henrik Ibsen
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Required Supplies
Binder with multiple dividers
A few reams of loose-leaf notebook paper
Blue and black pens
Post-it Notes
Highlighters (pink, green, yellow, blue)
Much Appreciated Classroom Supplies (I keep my room clean for your benefit and mine )
Last name A-G: 1 box of tissues
Last name H-O: 1 container of disinfectant wipes
Last name P-Z: 1 bottle of hand sanitizer
Class Policies
The following policies are important to respect because 1) they’re just good manners and 2) you may need a college recommendation from me this year!
Tutoring/ Help Sessions/ Conferences: Tuesday afternoons and Thursday afternoons from 3:30 -4:10
Protocol:
- First come, first served: When you arrive, start a list and put your name on the board (in order of arrival). I may not be able to meet with all students each session (depending on volume), but will meet with as many as I can until 4:10. I reserve the right to cancel help sessions if other obligations interfere.
Emailing Assignments: All assignments completed outside of class will be submitted to Only assignments submitted to this site by the due date and time will be graded for full credit. Emailed assignments will not be graded.
Late Work Policy
All major assignments are assigned multiple days in advance and are never due the next class period. Therefore, all major assignments will only receive full credit if turned in on the actual due date and time. Late assignments will receive a 20% deduction (no more, no less) any day turned in for 3 subsequent school days (for example, if an assignment is due on a Monday, a student has until Thursday of that week to turn in for a 20% flat deduction, no accumulation). After the third day, a score of zero will be assigned.
Cell Phones
For the 50 or so minutes students are in AP Lit class, they will not be permitted to use a cell phone or i-pod for any reason. Texting and gaming during class is rude. Trust me; you don’t have time for it in AP Lit anyway.
Methods, Activities, and Evaluations
Each unit may incorporate any or all of the following methods of study:
Close reading and active note-taking
Critical Annolighting of text (annotating and highlighting)
Formal and informal research
Formal and informal student presentations
Post-reading synthesis activities
Oral and written quizzes
Objective and essay tests
Creative writing
Literary analysis
Socratic Seminars
Literature Circles
Dialectical Journals
Informal written responses to readings
In class as well as process essays
Collaborative assignments
Major Works Data Sheets
Poetry response essays
Group and whole class discussions (graded and informal)
Peer/ Self editing and evaluation of writing
Students are encouraged to correct all mistakes made in their graded essays. Students are also encouraged to attend pre and post conferences for feedback on specific pieces of writing. See below for more detail on essay revision.
In-Class Essays will be graded using the holistic AP rubric with the following percentages assigned:
See attached rubric.
Grading Percentages for Class Work
20% Process Essays
15% Final Exam
30% In-Class Essays and Reading Responses
15% Minor Grades (quizzes, graded discussion, and other assessments of daily reading)
20% Tests and Major Projects
0% AP Success Skills
Essay Rewrites
Students are always encouraged to schedule a teacher conference and revise essays, but will be allowed to rewrite one essay per semester for a new score. No averaging; I’ll simply take the higher grade. Qualifiers: 1) A teacher conference is a mandatory prior to turning in the rewritten essay 2) It must be rewritten after school on a tutoring day in my classroom (same time restrictions apply) 3) The original essay and rubric must be stapled to the new essay when turning in.
Students may not rewrite reading responses and may not retake tests.
Study Island
Throughout the year, we will be using Study Island, a web-based program, to practice for the poetry and prose multiple choice sections on the AP exam. See the attached guidelines for details.
Plagiarism/ Cheating
True academic success is not possible without academic integrity. Your academic reputation is extremely important this year as you prepare to enter college and will need letters of recommendation from your teachers. Cheating and plagiarism includes everything from copying one answer on a homework assignment to plagiarizing a sentence from Wikipedia to directly copying or purchasing a paper and submitting it as your own or working collaboratively on an assignment when you were asked to complete it independently.
Plagiarism: any person who uses a writer’s ideas without giving due credit through documentation is guilty of plagiarism. This includes copying words verbatim and paraphrasing someone else’s ideas without giving him or her credit. A student who is caught plagiarizing will receive a zero on the paper or work,a “U” in conduct for the semester, possibly probation/suspension from any academic honors societies, and his or her parents will be contacted.
Cheating: During the course of the semester, students will have take-home tests and other work that I will ask for no collaboration on. If a student is discovered to have worked with other students on one of these assignments, a score of zero will be assigned, and a “U” in conduct will be given for the semester. In addition, if a student attempts to ascertain answers on any in-class quizzes, tests, or other assessments in a dishonorable way, a score of zero will be assigned, and a U in conduct will be given for the semester.
Make this your mantra this year in all of your classes:
“On my honor, I pledge that I have neither given nor received unpermitted aid on this assignment.”
(See the last page of this syllabus for the pledge of academic integrity and signature sheet)
Unit One: Summer Reading (4-5 Weeks)
Required Assigned Books:
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
Assignment: Annolight both books- Purchase your own copy of both books from either a used book store, amazon.com, or a local book store. Your assignment is to annolight both books. Annolighting involves highlighting significant passages and recording your own observations, insights and questions in the margins. See the online document on “how to mark a book.” I want to see annolighting of significant passages in each chapter, not necessarily every page, but multiple passages per chapter. Just simply highlighting will earn a 50/100 since it’s only half the battle. Your ideas in the margins are key to your understanding.
What should I highlight, you ask? Look for “literary” stuff, such as symbols, motifs (recurring ideas), interesting metaphors, major plot points, stylistically sophisticated writing, profound insight, etc. For a comprehensive of literary terms and definitions for optional use, visit the following website:
** If you cannot purchase your own copy, then borrow/ check out a copy and annolight the books using sticky notes instead of actually writing/ highlighting the text. This will involve quoting the passages on your sticky notes, then recording your observations, etc.
Optional Bonus Assignment: Fill out the online C&P reading guide as you work through the book. It contains insight and some summaries as well as questions, so very worthwhile!
*The above are NOT collaborative assignments. Any duplications of wording, insight, answers, etc. will be considered plagiarism, and the students involved will be given zeros for the assignments.
Now, before you read Crime and Punishment, as it’s an epic journey for any reader, I want you to look at some websites to help you with the context and give you some perspective on 19th century Russia before you start reading. At least skim through them:
Before Reading:
If you need access to an e-copy:
As you read:
In addition,
- Students will be given an objective/essay test on Crime and Punishment following class discussion and study.
- Students will conduct a Socratic Seminar discussion of designated chapters in How to Read Literature Like a Professor with an emphasis on the following:
- Summary of key points
- Explanation of one of the author’s examples
- One student-determined example of the chapter’s main concept (may be drawn from film, music, literature, art, etc.)
- Students will turn in hand-written notes on chapter presentations to be assessed and returned to use for reference purposes.
Unit Two: Critical Theory and Style Analysis (3 Weeks)
Style Analysis:
Major Terms of Study:
tone, attitude (irony, understatement)
diction, language (sound devices – alliteration, assonance, cacophony, etc.), figurative language (simile, metaphor,conceit, personification, hyperbole), figures of speech (metonymy, synecdoche, pun, oxymoron, paradox, euphemism
details, imagery
point of view, perspective
organization, narrative structure, form
Sources:
Throughout the year students will study the usage of common terms found on the Style Analysis Questions on the AP Exam. They will learn the definition of each word along with how to identify examples of each term in various pieces of writing. Students will analyze short fiction and prose through close reading for Style Analysis, applying their knowledge of these common terms. Students will use the following texts to practice style analysis and then engage in single paragraph and full essay analysis of each text. Students will practice both guided and independent analysis of the texts. They will have practice identifying and writing essays and individual paragraphs about all major terms. The teacher will read each of the style analysis paragraphs written by students and give them feedback both written and oral. Students will then revise their paragraphs based on teacher and peer feedback and resubmit them for further commentary by the teacher.
Students will use scaffolding organizers in the prewriting and drafting stage of their writing in order to incorporate topic and concluding sentences that state the main idea of their paragraphs. Further, students will incorporate transitional words and phrases within the paragraphs to show the logical connection of ideas. Jane Schaffer AP model paragraph writing will be used to exemplify sophisticated writing for this unit.
Partial list of Texts used for Style Analysis:
Prose:
Excerpt from Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (character details)
Poems:
“Sure You Can Ask me a Personal Question” Diane Burns (tone, irony)
“Holy Sonnet 10” John Donne (tone, personification, allusions)
“she being Brand” e. e. cummings (metaphor, ambiguous language)
“Richard Cory” Edwin Arlington Robinson (irony, tone)
Critical Theory:
Students will work in groups of three to study an assigned Critical Theory from the Bedford Text, Chapter 51. Students will create a Power Point Presentation (or other media: Animoto, etc.) to be presented to the class as a formal presentation for their assigned Critical Theory. Students must also choose a piece of literature (something studied in the past few years in school) to be analyzed using their assigned critical theory. The analysis will be presented during the Power Point Presentation. After all presentations are concluded, students will choose one critical theory assigned to another group and write a personal response of 200-250 words about the theory, relating this theory loosely to previously studied works of literature. Students are responsible for gaining an understanding of each of the 10 theories presented and will be expected to apply that understanding to works throughout the school year and beyond.
Unit Three: Allusions and The Nineteenth Century Novel: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (4 Weeks)
Unit Goals: To guide students in an exploration of
- Common mythological and Biblical allusions:
- Activity/ Assignment: Mythology and Biblical allusions Jigsaw research assignment
- Activity/ Assignment: Class discussion of allusions commonly found in literature
- Activity/ Assignment: Revisit “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Coleridge, Paradise Lost, by Milton, and the myth of Prometheus as fundamental and significant allusions in Frankenstein
Two basic sources from which writers, especially poets, draw allusions and metaphors are the Bible and Mythology. Knowledge of these characters and stories aide in the enjoyment and understanding of great literature. Amazingly, you will also recognize conflicts, images, symbols and language borrowed from these sources in your reading of other pieces of literature and poetry.
- Elements of the Nineteenth Century Gothic Novel
- Close reading of Frankenstein
- Completion of double-entry journals with an emphasis on the following themes and symbols:
- The tension between individualism and social acceptance
- The tension between technology and human aspiration/ the pursuit of knowledge
- The complex relationship between the creator and the created
- Slavery/ imprisonment
- Innate human emotions: revenge/ prejudice
- Romanticism and nature
- Loss of innocence
- Symbols: light, fire
Assessment of Mastery of Goals/ Feedback: At the conclusion of the unit, students will engage in a Socratic Seminar or 4-sided debate related to major themes of the novel. Following the seminar, students will respond to a previous AP Open Question prompt in a timed classroom setting. Students will receive specific teacher feedback for an opportunity to revise and improve writing. In addition, students will take a test in which they will analyze important quotations from the novel.
Unit Four: Writing the College Essay (1 Week)
Students will study narrative techniques in preparation of and culminating in the composition of a college entrance essay of a minimum of 500 words from a list of prompts commonly found in College Admission Essay Requirements. Essays will be self and peer edited and a final evaluation will be provided by the instructor based on a four point scale rubric. Students will take part in editing and revision workshops in order to analyze and evaluate their own, as well as their classmates’, writing with an emphasis on improving the use of rhetorical devices such as tone, voice, diction, and sentence structure.