English 12 AP: English Literature and Composition Spring 2013

Kelley Miller Email:

WestStokesHigh School Website: kmillerenglish.weebly.com

King, NC (or access on school page → English → Kelley Miller)

336.983.2099

Overview:

Welcome, and congratulations on accepting the challenge of AP English Literature and Composition! As you know, this is a college-level course in which you will develop skills to facilitate your own close reading, insightful analysis, and adept written examination of literature.

Course Objectives:

  1. Reading
  2. To improve student’s ability to read attentively to comprehend, interpret, and evaluate literature
  3. To improve student’s working vocabulary
  4. To further develop student’s critical thinking skills by developing strategies and techniques for close reading and analysis
  5. To strengthen student’s knowledge and use of literary terminology
  6. To develop student’s understanding of genres of fiction, drama, and poetry
  7. To enable student to read, understand, and appreciate a variety of complex texts
  8. Writing
  9. To refine the student’s understanding and use of the writing process
  10. To hone student’s ability to write about literature
  11. To improve student’s critical thinking skills by writing critical essays about literature
  12. To develop student’s ability to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate with mature readers
  13. To refine student’s own style of writing
  14. To review and minimize problems with mechanics, grammar and usage
  15. AP Examination
  16. To prepare students for this exam by familiarizing them with its format
  17. To improve student’s test-taking skills through timed drills of multiple choice and essay questions
  18. To instill confidence and enable students to successfully take the AP exam.

Texts:

Students are required to have a copy of Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing (provided by the school) and How to Read Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines. Supplemental material will often be provided using the Norton Anthology of English Literature: Major Authors,as well as other supplemental texts; however, if students prefer to have their own copies of texts, I am amenable to that preference. Some of the other texts we will be reading include, but are not limited to, Beowulf (Heaney trans.), John Gardner’s Grendel, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake; unfortunately, we do not have class sets of these texts. Students can easily find these in the local library or in a used bookstore for relatively little cost. I can recommend some sites or some stores if a student would prefer a personal copy; these can be beneficial for annotation purposes.

Dialectic Journals:

Students will be required to keep a single-subject spiral notebook where they will create dialectic journals in which they reflect upon and analyze the daily reading assignments. For most reading assignments, students should have 3 – 5 quotes per chapter; some responses will be rather lengthy while others may not be. Many of our texts will be divided into three or four “chunks,” and journals for these chunks should typically include 8 – 12 entries; notice that this number is different than the per chapter number because the chunks usually cover several chapters or a large portion of text. When I grade these, I will be looking for the in-depth discussion and consideration of the text’s meaning, relation to other texts, use of literary technique, etc. Please go to the English IV AP tab on my webpage for a sample or links to sites with examples. As an appendix to this syllabus, I have attached several “tips for critical reading” which will be helpful as students complete these journal entries. For some reading assignments, I will give more prescriptive instructions for journal entries. It is critical that students keep up-to-date reading journals; if they fall behind in their reading assignments, it will be incredibly difficult to catch up! Typically, journals written at the last minute truly lack the analysis and depth which I expect, and grades tend to suffer. So keep up with your work! All journals are due every Mondayat the beginning of class; journals not submitted on time will have 10 points deducted for each day it is late (and, yes, it is late if it is turned in at the end of class – many college professors won’t accept work AT ALL if not submitted on time, so you must get used to meeting deadlines).

Poetry Journals:

Every other Thursday, students will be required to submit a poetry journal using the TPFASTT method. In these poetry journals, they should reflect upon 1 poem of their choice from a set provided on my website (click on Poetry tab within AP tab). These journal responses are twofold; they must include a TPFASTT analysis and be followed by an in-depth paragraph about the poem. This paragraph response is a bit more open: it may be an analysis of the poem and the poetic elements used, an explication of the meaning of the poem, or a personal response reflecting feelings or memories evoked by the poem. In an effort to encourage students to respond more openly and without the fear of being “wrong,” these responses are not graded in a traditional manner. I have found that most students have the greatest amount of difficulty and the least confidence when writing about poetry, so these journals are meant to develop their confidence in reading and analyzing poetry.Responses are due at the beginning of classevery other Thursday. As with all assignments, late poetry journals will have 10 points deducted for each day they are late.

Vocabulary & Grammar:

The best way to strengthen your vocabulary is to read good, challenging literature, and – believe me – you will have plenty of opportunity for that type of growth. We will also have bi-weekly vocabulary quizzes which focus on literary terms that typically appear on the AP exam. These words will be posted on my website; be sure to study them well. You will be expected to write a well-formed sentence in which you explain the meaning of the word followed by another well-formed sentence giving an example of the term.

We will also have Daily Grammar practice (“DGP”) which will provide an opportunity for you to hone your grammar skills. These activities will be quick, but challenging at times. You will need to take them seriously to get the most benefit from these activities. These bi-weekly quizzes will alternate with vocabulary quizzes. As you work to understand the structure of sentences, I will expect you to incorporate this knowledge into your own writing as well as into your analysis of literature – the way in which we express our ideas is crucial in conveying meaning, tone, emphasis, etc.

Context Presentations & Major Works Data Sheets:

During the course of the semester, you will each pair with another student to present research-based background and context information. This information may focus on literary movements, particular authors or time periods, etc. For each of these presentations, you will be expected to provide a basic outline, which your classmates should complete as you present your findings, and properly-cited source information.

Also, you will work with another student to complete key sections of the Major Works Data Sheet for key works that we read during the semester. These packets work incredibly well as a study tool when you begin to review for the AP Exam in May. As I know that these packets can be very overwhelming, you and your partner will complete the required sections for oneor two (depending on class size) that will be distributed to your classmates. If you all do your parts well, this should provide you all with a good compilation of review material. Of course, we have no idea what reading selections may appear on the AP Exam; nevertheless, these packets help quite a bit when preparing for the open-ended essay question, and the thought processes you will use while completing these will certainly prove beneficial practice for the other portions of the test. (I also like to think that these can be helpful if you have to read any of these texts for any college classes.)

Evaluation and Credit:

Essays35

Reading Checks, Timed AP Practice, Poetry Journals20

Summer-reading & Context Presentations15

Dialectic Journals30

Vocabulary & Grammar Work 5

Grading Expectations:

All writing assignments must be submitted on time; late assignments will have 10 points deducted per day late. Assignments will be scored with the following expectations:

  • An A paper is SUPERIOR and will exhibit the following traits:
  • Outstanding word choice, organization, and sentence with a variety of sentence patterns
  • Maturity of thought and language
  • Clear purpose with detailed development, supported by examples, quotations, and indirect references
  • No major errors in grammar, spelling or punctuation
  • No more than one or two minor errors, depending on length
  • A B paper is EXCELLENT and will exhibit the following traits:
  • Good word choice, sentence structure, organization
  • Good maturity of thought and logic
  • Stated purpose with less development, examples, details than the superior paper
  • No major errors in grammar, spelling or punctuation
  • Few minor errors, depending on length
  • A C paper is AVERAGE and will exhibit the following traits:
  • Average word choice
  • Adequate organization
  • Good sentence structure but often simple and without variety
  • Fair logic, clear enough to convey purpose
  • Average maturity of thought but lacks adequate development
  • Only one major error in grammar, spelling and punctuation and / or several minor errors
  • A D paper is BELOW AVERAGE and will exhibit the following traits:
  • Poor diction, misuse of words, non-standard expressions
  • Some attempt at organization
  • Garbled, fragmented, or unclear sentence patterns
  • Little thought, resulting in poorly conceived, expressed, developed ideas
  • Serious errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation and mechanics
  • An F paperis INADEQUATE and, honestly, should not appear in a course such as this.

NOTE: Major errors include comma splices, lack of subject-verb agreement, lack of pronoun-antecedent agreement, unjustifiable fragment, run-on or fused sentences, five misspelled words, and / or misuse of to, too, their, there, its, it’s, ; and / or ‘. I have also placed a copy of the rubric used on the AP exam on my website because I use this rubric when grading all essays; students will receive a copy of this rubric with each graded essay.

Attendance Expectations:

I am a firm believer that you must attend class to truly develop your skills and understanding; there is no replacement for the discussions we will have and the activities we will do in order to strengthen your abilities to read critically, analyze and discuss literature. Please pay close attention to the school’s exam exemption policy.

Furthermore, if a student is absent on the date an assignment is due, that assignment MUST BE turned in as soon as the student returns to school. I have often had students email an assignment to me, and that effort is much appreciated. Please be sure to contact me via email if you are absent so that I may make you aware of assignments; there is a heavy reading and writing load in this class, and it is incredibly difficultto catch up if you fall behind.

Note: Please make sure you enter the correct email address (look at the spelling of my name), and if you do not hear back from me within the day, please call the school and ask to speak with me.