AP Literature and Composition Syllabus 1st Quarter,
Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition
Course Description
Students in an AP course in English Literature and Composition engage in the careful, deliberate reading of literary works. Through such study, they will sharpen their awareness of language and their understanding of the writer’s craft. They will also develop critical standards for the independent appreciation of any literary work, and increase their sensitivity to literature as shared experience. To achieve these goals, students study the individual work, its language, characters, action, and theme. They consider its structure, meaning, and value, and its relationship to contemporary experience as well as to the context in which it was written.
AP students in English Literature and Composition are involved in the study and practice of writing as well as in the study of literature. They learn to use the modes of discourse and to recognize the assumptions underlying various rhetorical strategies. Through speaking, listening, and reading, but chiefly through the experience of their own writing, they become more aware of the resources of language, such as figurative language, imagery, symbolism, tone, connotation, and syntax.
Writing assignments focus on the critical analysis of literature and include essays in exposition and argument. Although much of the writing in the course will be about literature, speaking and writing about different kinds of subjects should further develop their sense of how style, subject, and audience are related. Occasionally, assignments in personal narrative and the writing of stories, poems, or plays may be appropriate. The desired goals are the honest and effective use of language and the organization of ideas in a clear, coherent, and persuasive way.
Readings in translation may be included, but because the course stresses close attention to an author’s own language and style, most of the assigned reading will be in texts originally written in English. By the end of the AP course, students will have studied works from both the American and English traditions and from various periods from the sixteenth century on. They read works of recognized literary merit that are likely to be taught in an introductory college literature course, works that are worthy of scrutiny because of their richness of thought and language that challenges the reader.
Advanced Placement Literature and Composition
Introduction Notes:
Curricular Requirements and Explanation of Routine Assignments
• Curricular requirements are noted in bulleted italics.
Works Studied
• The following works will be read and studied intensively and deliberately. They represent various
genres from the sixteenth century to contemporary times with a concentration on British and American writers. The works selected require careful, deliberative reading that yields multiple meanings.
Basic text: Meyer, Michael. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Bedford / St. Martin’s,
2006.
Supplementary text: Kennedy, X. J. and Gioia, Dana. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry,
and Drama. Longman, 2002.
How To Read Literature Like a Professor
Macbeth
Brighton Rock
Frankenstein
Othello
Wuthering Height
The Stranger
As I Lay Dying
Arcadia
A Room with a View
The Importance of Being Earnest
Beowulf
Canterbury Tales
Paradise Lost
Students choose one title from the following: Glass Castle, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and Atonement
Selected poems and short stories from basic and supplementary texts
Explanations of Routine Assignments:
Asking Questions (AQ) and Responses (This discussion and inquiry method will be used with short story responses, narrative poetry, and major works.)
• Students will carefully read and critically analyze imaginative literature. They will understand the way
writers use language to provide meaning and pleasure. They will understand a work’s complexity.
• They will consider the social and historical values a work reflects and embodies. Students write an interpretation of or a response to a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details to develop an extended explanation / interpretation of a literary text.
• Students will use Bloom’s skills involving the following: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.
• Students will write to discover what they think in the process of writing about their reading.
1. Students write a one-sentence summary of the plot, the conflict of the reading, or the theme of the
reading.
2. Students submit 1 question (the answer to which they do not know) on each of the three levels:
Level 1: explicit question that can be answered by facts in the text or other resources
Level 2: implicit question requiring analysis or interpretation on specific parts of the text
Level 3: open-ended questions to provoke a discussion of extension and connection of the text
3. Students complete the page by writing a response. Options include:
(a) what a student liked or didn’t like
(b) observations that he had as he read about the way the author told the story (language, style, etc.)
(c) connections to other literature that he has read
(d) connections to personal experiences or to current events that the story prompted
(e) answers to the level #2 or level #3 question he wrote
4. The level of questioning and the response allows students to take ownership of the classroom
discussion, to apply textual support, to analyze, to criticize, to question, to explain judgments, and to
evaluate a work’s artistry and quality, its social and cultural values.
Annotated Bibliography
• Students will write to understand and to explain what they think in the process of writing about their
reading. They will evaluate the reliability of sources for use in analysis.
1. Students prepare an annotated bibliography that involves the meaning of the major work. They are
encouraged to use a college library for sources. They may also use articles from the Internet
but must be selective about the sources (articles that are linked to college or university courses written
by professors who are worthy).
2. The articles will be cited in MLA format.
Extension Activities for Major Works
• Students reflect their mastery in analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating a work in literature. They will demonstrate their mastery through an activity that focuses on one or more of the following:
assessment of themes, social and historical values, discrimination of ideas, value of evidence,
use of language to provide meaning.
1. Students choose an activity to reflect a theme of the work. They may choose among writings that are
formal or creative, drama or music, art, current events, audio/video. All non-print activities must be
accompanied by written explanation/analysis of activity. Students receive detailed instructions and
expectations for each option.
2. Students will present product to class.
3. Class will critique effectiveness of product to theme.
4. Students receive a score based on self-evaluation, class evaluation, and instructor evaluation.
In-class Essays (close reading)
Depending on the prompt and the focus for the essay, students will write to specific requirements for each in-class essay:
• Students will write to explain: expository, analytical essays in which they draw upon textual details to develop an extended explanation/interpretation of the meanings of a literary text.
• Students will write to evaluate: analytical, argumentative essays in which they draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work’s artistry and quality, and its social and cultural values.
• Students will write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering the work’s:
o Structure, style, and themes
o Social and historical values it reflects and embodies
o Elements such as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone
Considering the prompt and the focus for the essay, the teacher will provide appropriate instruction and feedback on writing assignments, helping students develop:
• A wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively
• Logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis
• A balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail
1. In a forty-minute period, students follow directions of a prompt to analyze a poem or an excerpt from a
major work (novel or play).
2. Students write an essay based on their analysis, interpretation, or evaluation.
3. Teacher scores essays and then returns them to class, where they are analyzed through whole class
discussion, peer analysis, or small group discussion.
Major Works Data Sheet (MWDS)
• Students will write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering the work’s structure, characters, style, symbols, themes, and the social and historical values it reflects and embodies. Students will use the following skills: knowledge, comprehension, application, and analysis.
1. Students work in groups of no more than six students both in class and out of class. They exchange
e-mail addresses and phone numbers to work at home.
2. Each group will prepare a data sheet that highlights the work’s themes and then the significance of
quotes, characters, opening scene, closing scene, historical and biographical material, and symbols to
those themes. It also includes elements of the style.
3. Groups will follow a prescribed four-page format (typed, single-spaced, 10-point type).
4. The MWDS enables students to differentiate between character analysis, plot, symbols, and themes. It
also shows students how to express the significance and not merely a plot summary or a character
description.
Objective Tests
• Objective tests will assess students’ ability to apply, interpret, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate to
confirm their understanding of a work of literature. Questions will involve structure, style, theme, social and historical values, rhetoric, figurative language, syntax, imagery, symbolism, detail, tone, and point of view.
1. Objective tests in literature will focus on the following aspects of an author’s style and how they
contribute to and affect the author’s purpose and message/theme: language (especially figurative),
imagery, syntax, structure, setting, points of view, tone, irony, and audience.
2. Objective tests will also include questions on conflicts, motifs, symbols, character development, textual
support, narrators, historical and social implications, and quotations that involve the following:
knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluations.
Out-of-Class Essays
Depending on the assignment and the focus for the essay, students will write to specific requirements for each out-of-class essay:
• Students will write to explain: expository, analytical essays in which they draw upon textual details to develop an extended explanation/interpretation of the meanings of a literary text.
• Students will write to evaluate: analytical, argumentative essays in which they draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work’s artistry and quality, and its social and cultural values.
• Students will write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering the work’s:
o Structure, style, and themes
o Social and historical values it reflects and embodies
o Elements such as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone
Considering the assignment and the focus for the essay, the teacher will provide appropriate instruction and feedback on writing assignments, helping students develop:
• A wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively
• A variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination
• A logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis
• A balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail
• An effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence syntax
1. Students will write an out-of-class essay, implementing the writing process of brainstorming,
organizing content, and creating multiple drafts.
2. Through the multiple drafts, students will edit essays in regard to content, technical aspects, and style.
3. Teacher will provide a Writing Workshop to focus on specific aspects. (See Writing Workshops on
page 3 of Introduction Notes: Curricular Requirements.)
4. Students make a final revision and submit paper for evaluation.
Poetry Analysis Processes
• Students will use the following processes to understand the way a poet uses language to provide
meaning. The processes will enable a student to analyze the poem’s structure, style, and themes, as well as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, syntax, and tone.
• Students will use their analysis to write both formal, extended analyses and timed, in-class responses
to develop an extended explanation/interpretation of the meaning of a poem or to write an argumentative essay about the poem’s artistry and quality and its social and cultural values.
1. TPCASTT: process enabling students to understand techniques/devices a poet employs to express the
meaning of a poem. Students:
a. examine the title and brainstorm possible meanings
b. paraphrase the lines/units in own language
c. examine diction to find the effect of connotation/figurative language
d. use the findings from a, b, & c to discover the attitude of the speaker/tone of the poem
e. look for shifts in the flow of the poem to discover focus of theme
f. reexamine title, adding new meanings
g. understanding of the theme, based on steps a-f
*Note: the process is not linear; students will move from one step to the other, revisiting them.
2. DIDLS: process enabling students to understand techniques/devices a poet employs to relate the
tone (leading to the meaning) of a poem. Students examine:
a. the connotation of the diction.
b. the imagery to gain understanding through the senses.
c. details, facts that are included or omitted
d. the overall use of language, such as formal, clinical, jargon
e. how sentence structure affects the reader’s attitude
3. Students address a series of questions they might ask about a poem as they read. The questions involve
The following aspects:
a. meaning
b. antecedent scenario
c. a division into structural parts
d. the climax
e. the other parts (how one part differs from another)
f. the skeleton (the emotion / the changes in tone)
g. games the poet plays with the content genre
h. tone
i. main agent in the poem (subjects of the verbs)
j. roads not taken (why the poem might have wanted these agents, these verb tenses, these pieces in this
order instead of different ones)
k. speech act (attention drawn to manner of expression more than to content)
l. outer (meter, rhyme, and stanza-form) and inner (sentences, person, agency, tenses, images or
sensual words) structural forms
m. imagination (that which is striking, memorable, or beautiful)
Poetry Responses
• Students write an interpretation, a subjective response, or a combination of both to poetry by considering the poem’s structure, style, themes, figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone.
They will do one or several of the following: analyze, apply skills and knowledge, synthesize with other
works of literature, and evaluate the meaning and relevance
• Students have frequent opportunities to write through informal, exploratory activities that enable students to discover what they think in the process of writing about their reading.
1. Each week (unless otherwise noted) students will be given one poem to write a response. The response may be an analysis or reader response. Due date for each class is indicated at the beginning of each quarter’s syllabus.
2. Students may write an analysis of the poem and the elements of the poem or an explication of what
the poem means. They may also write how the poem makes them feel or discuss a memory the poem evokes. Usually the responses are a combination.
3. All responses receive full credit if they are the required length and are of substance. (The only response
not accepted is the one in which a student writes a page about how he could not understand the poem,
ending with a series of questions directed to me for explanation.) By the time of the AP Exam in May,
my students have responded to approximately 25 poems and have read over 100.
4. In addition, students receive a handout on fundamentals of poetry for reference in poetry
responses and for use in more formal study. The handout includes information on metrical feet and
lines, verse forms, devices of sound, figures of speech, and stanza forms. It is expected that students are
familiar with this information; if they aren’t, they should study the handout to be able to master the
terms for use in analysis. Students will take a test in the spring on these fundamentals.
Prose Passage Reading Tests/Poetry Reading Tests (close reading)
• Students will focus on understanding, applying knowledge, critically analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating. They will examine the selections of literature in regard to structure, style, theme,
social and historical values they reflect, language (figurative language, imagery, and connotative
words), syntax, symbolism, tone, point of view, and the effect of details.
1. Before the first prose passage or poetry reading test, students receive a handout on how to read a
literary passage closely. Students address 24 questions on first impressions, vocabulary and diction, discerning patterns, point of view and characterization and symbolism. The class practices responding
to these questions with several passages and whole-class discussion.
2. Students are given an excerpt from a major work or a poem for close reading and analysis (from
previous AP exams or other reliable sources).
3. They are given 20 minutes to read, analyze, and answer multiple choice questions.
4. They turn in an answer sheet for a grade but keep the excerpt and the questions with the answers
marked.
5. We analyze the passage / poem as a class immediately after the test, and critically examine our answers.
6. For one variation, as the students are taking the test, I will place a slip of paper on a student’s desk,
telling him he has the correct answer for a particular question. Then I will tell him to be prepared to
defend his answer or to pretend to have an incorrect answer and defend that one. For another variation,
the entire class debates the answers and comes to a consensus for a composite grade.
Reading Guides and Annotations
• Reading Guide: students will intensively study works of literature that require careful, deliberative reading that yields multiple meanings. Throughout the year, the guides will assist students in understanding a work’s complexity by critically analyzing and evaluating the following aspects: structure, style, theme, character, social and historical values, figurative language, imagery, symbolism, tone, point of view, effect of details.
• Annotations: students will write to understand and to explain what they think in the process of writing
about their reading.
1. Students are given a reading guide that covers aspects of the major work, including plot, structure,
language, textual support, conflict, climax, narrators, character development, motif, doubling of roles
(plot & subplot), symbols, irony, tone, language (especially figurative), poetic devices, structure, and
themes. It includes questions along with commentary, especially with historical perspectives and
explanations.
2. Students are not required to turn in any work but are expected to use the guide in their reading. Part of
class discussion each day will reflect the students’ mastery of the material.
3. Students are also expected to annotate their reading materials. During 1st quarter they receive
instructions on effective annotation. They receive a grade periodically for their annotations.
Writing Workshops
• The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students’ writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop: a wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively; a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination; logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis; a balance of generalization and specific illustrative detail; and, an effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure.
1. Each time students write essays outside of class, they bring paper copies to class on the due date. The
teacher determines the focus for each assignment, and students spend a period in writing workshop
“fixing” what is wrong or making better what is weak. The workshop will occasionally involve peer
editing. The students take the essays home, make corrections, and bring revised copies the next day for
assessment.
2. Students will receive individual feedback on content, structure, and mechanics of the final essay, with
a concentration on the focus of the workshop.
3. The foci for the workshops will include the following over the course: effective organization (thesis,
introductions and conclusions, topic sentences, a balance of generalization and specific, illustrative
detail, commentaries/explanations, and transition); controlling tone and maintaining voice;
unnecessary expletives; ineffective adverbs; unnecessary use of the verb “to be”; wordiness; syntax
(variety of sentence length; sentence structure and combining, such as coordinating, subordinating,
etc.); wide-ranging vocabulary (specific, connotative nouns and strong verbs).
Grade Distribution
Response Notebooks/Tests 50%
Quizzes/In-Class Activities 30%
Out of Class Writing Assignments 20%
Work is expected on the day it is due.
AP Literature and Composition 1st Quarter 2009-2010
Hunger and Helplessness: Mischief, Mayhem and Magic Realism
How to Read Literature like a Professor
Frankenstein
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Glass Castle
Atonement
Macbeth
Brighton Rock
“Hills like White Elephants”
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
“The Yellow Wallpaper”
“The Story of an Hour”
“Ozymandias”
“What I Said”
Excerpts from “The Prelude”
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94
AP Exam Practice
AP Literature and Composition 2nd Quarter 2009-2010
Covetousness and Vengeance: the Green-Eyed Monster Attacks
Othello
Wuthering Heights
“A&P”
“The Cask of Amontillado”
“The Broken Heart”
Excerpt from The Life of Samuel Johnson
“Eleven”
“To Helen”
“Helen”
“The Author to Her Book”
Assorted poetry by Plath
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29
“A Modest Proposal”
AP Exam Practice
AP Literature and Composition 3rd Quarter 2009-2010
Esoteric Vindication: Death and a Journey
The Stranger
As I Lay Dying
Excerpts from A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Excerpt from Jewett’s “A White Heron”
“A Good Man is Hard to Find”
“Young Goodman Brown”
“Dog’s Death”
“Richard Cory”
“Death Be Not Proud”
“Death of a Toad
“Janet Waking”
“Thanatopsis”
“Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”
“Death of a Ball Turret Gunner”
“To an Athlete Dying Young”
Assorted poetry by Donne, Frost, Keats, Yeats, and Dickinson
Literary Criticism
The Humanities/Connections between literature and the arts
AP Exam Practice
AP Literature and Composition 4th Quarter 2009-2010
Paradoxes and Puzzles: the Duality of Man, Time and Place
Arcadia
A Room with a View
Excerpts from The Things They Carried
“The House of Asterion”
“The Whore’s Child”
“London”
“What It’s Like to be a Black Girl (for those of you who aren’t)”
“London, 1802”
“The Shield of Achilles”
“Musee des Beaux Arts”
“Landscape with Fall of Icarus”
Assorted poetry by Frost and Dickinson
AP Exam Practice
The Importance of Being Earnest
Canterbury Tales
Beowulf
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