AP English Literature and Composition



AP English Literature and Composition

Mr. Christopher Sabolcik

ctsabolcik@wsfcs.k12.nc.us

West Forsyth High School

Course Overview and Essential Information

As the name of this course suggests, we will be spending the following year in an intensive study of the English language through the lens of imaginative literature. We will seek to develop and master skills essential to the understanding and appreciation of literature in its various forms, namely critical thinking, writing, and reading. Because of the nature of AP courses and the potential to receive college credit, students should expect a high level of academic rigor during the entire duration of the class. This means that students should expect to have homework of reading and writing every night, even during weekends and holidays. It is my hope that students will adapt to the challenging curriculum and expectations of a course like AP Literature, but it is not my intention to overwhelm students with work that exceeds that of a comparable college class. If problems or concerns ever arise, it is the student’s responsibility to inform me as soon as possible so we can come to a solution together.

The design of the AP Literature course issued by the College Board seeks to provide students with a similar experience to a Survey of Literature class at the university level. As a result, I have chosen a selection of diverse and challenging texts that students will be expected to read, annotate, think critically, and analyze in writing. Anticipate the following texts to be studied (in order): Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, and William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. I reserve the right to add or remove items from the list as the year progresses. In addition, I will assign various readings from our class textbook to be distributed in class that include poetry, short stories, criticism, and biographical information. While these works will be studied in depth in class and outside of class through assignments, students are encouraged to keep past works they have read in mind for class writings, discussions, and especially the A.P. exam.

Students are encouraged to purchase copies of the works so they can annotate in the books. However, copies of most of these selections are available for students to borrow. I would recommend perusing local used book stores or the public library for texts. Students who borrow texts will be expected to annotate them using Post-It Notes or similar methods that do not damage the physical books. Students are encouraged to purchase copies of the works so they can annotate in the books. However, copies of most of these selections are available for students to borrow. I would recommend perusing local used book stores or the public library for texts. Students who borrow texts will be expected to annotate them using Post-It Notes or similar methods that do not damage the physical books. We will recommend editions for private purchase or order student copies of books from the most reasonable source available. Ultimately, it is the student’s responsibility to obtain the books before they are due and to be prepared to read them when assigned.

Students will work in small groups to prepare a Major Works Data Sheet (MWDS) for each novel or play. This will be an essential learning tool, a resource for review before the AP test, and an opportunity to improve your skills in working with a group. We will be using GoogleDocs to collate student work in order to allow students the opportunity to learn from each other while practicing responsible and ethical Internet usage. This will require students to have a Google account. If this is an issue, please see me in the first week of class. You may send documents to the Gmail account APLitWestForsyth@

The majority of student reading will occur outside of class and may be announced on a day-to-day basis in order to allow for flexibility with a variable calendar. Students who do not read the assigned readings will be underprepared to excel during in-class assignments and hinder the progress of the learning community. Students should come into every class under the assumption that a graded assessment of some kind (quiz, essay prompt) will meet them. This may not be true, but I reserve the right to do so.

The majority of writing will consist of timed in-class essays similar to what students will see on the AP exam in May. We will also complete practice multiple choice questions in order to allow students to express their full knowledge on the exam instead of feeling intimidated.

Students will need a notebook in which to keep general handouts, supplementary readings, specific notes on selections, and copies of their own work. Students should have pens, pencils, highlighters, Post-It notes, notebook paper, and the book under study every day. Students who fail to come prepared for class will see their participation grade suffer as a result. A unit syllabus with a calendar of expectations will be provided at the beginning of every unit. Students will be held responsible for checking the day’s work on my webpage calendar.

If students are unable to be in class for an excused or unexcused reason, it is the responsibility of the student to know what we did in class and any essential information such as due dates, reading assignments, etc. The student is responsible for arranging a time to make up any missed work. The student will have two days to arrange a make-up time with me. If the student fails to come or submit work at the arranged time, the work will be considered late. All late work results in a 10% deduction from the earned grade per day. After 5 days, no work will be accepted. Please note that if I inform students that a certain late assignment will not be collected, I reserve the right not to accept it. Again, students will know these assignments when they are given.

For writing assignments, it is crucial to have a back up plan. If a student’s computer runs out of ink or crashes, the assignment should be completed in black or blue ink. All out of class written assignments must be submitted to by the time it is assigned. This does not by any means reflect a lack of trust in the student’s honor. It allows me to efficiently examine multiple components of student writing. If a student does not submit it to , then I will not give it a grade.

Grading will consist of the following categories:

In-Class Writings, Out-of-Class Essays 30%

Tests, Quizzes, PRJ 30%

Classwork, Homework, MWDS, Other 30%

Participation 10%

Please note that disruptive or otherwise unproductive behavior will be documented and lead to a deduction from the student’s participation grade. The use of electronic communication devices (cell phones, iPods, telegraph) will not be tolerated. During a graded assignment, I must assume the device is being used in order to cheat, thus it is punished accordingly.

An AP English Literature student should expect to be able to successfully do the following by the completion of the course:

GENERIC

- Be knowledgeable in the following areas (which may overlap): novels, short stories, plays, and poetry from the 16th Century through today.

WRITING

- Write any of these types of compositions: response to literature, compare/contrast essays, and literary/style analysis for prose, drama, and poetry

- Write both process multi-paragraph essays and timed writing/on-demand essays.

- Write a well-focused thesis sentence that identifies the subject and clarifies the direction of the essays; it does not copy the prompt.

- Show mastery of concrete detail (examples, devices, support, plot references, evidence) and commentary (analysis and interpretation), sentence variety, parallel structure, figurative language, integrating/embedding/incorporating quotations smoothly, subject openers and non-subject openers, and college-level literary vocabulary.

- Write mature and insightful commentary to complement concrete details gleaned from the text.

READING

- Analyze any element of style analysis, whether or not the devices are given in the prompt.

- Read and understand prose/poetry from early modern English to the present.

- Answer multiple-choice questions efficiently and quickly, using the “eliminate and narrow” approach.

- Have a working knowledge of the literature terms we have studied, not just the “fling and sling” approach to using terminology in an essay.

- Show a grasp of major trends and periods in literature, from the Greeks to the present.

- Analyze any poem, showing an understanding of the poetic form and the specific devices that differentiate it from prose.

And most importantly, students should be able to seek out a work of literature and become profoundly moved by it in some way.

Information.

2013 AP Lit – Class 4A – 6754285 password: sabolcik

2013 AP Lit – Class 4B – 6754301 password: sabolcik

Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition

Explanation of Exam

The AP English Literature and Composition Exam is divided between a multiple choice section (60 minutes) and an essay portion which requires students to answer three prompts. The “essay” section allows for 120 total minutes to construct a response for the three prompts. One of the essay prompts asks students to analyze a piece of prose; another prompt asks the students to analyze a poem. Analysis in these essays means more than explain what is happening or identify literary devices; it means to probe how the author “uses language to produce meaning” (). The last prompt is an “open question” will allow a student to discuss a work of literature they have studied.

Students and parents should know that the AP English Literature and Composition Test is taken in May and results are reported to both the student and the school before the end of the summer break. Students may designate that certain colleges (that are of interest to the student) receive the test scores as well. College credit is usually given for high grades on the actual AP exam. In the case of AP English Literature and Composition, the student will usually receive credit for a prerequisite English survey course. Scores for the exams range from a 1 to 5 and are briefly described as follows (from ):

5  Extremely well qualified*

4  Well qualified*

3  Qualified*

2  Possibly qualified*

1  No recommendation**

*Qualified to receive college credit or advanced placement

**No recommendation to receive college credit or advanced placement

Performance on the multiple-choice part of the exam counts for 45 percent of the student’s exam score. The essay portion counts the other 55 percent. As always, the essay portion of the exam is scored by both college and high school educators trained specifically for the tasks given.

Each essay is graded according to a rubric that awards individual essay scores ranging from a “-“(no-score) to a 9 (highest). Even number scores are usually considered to be the anchor cut scores for performance. The odd numbered scores actually allow for raters to assign a range of grades to a paper. For example, if a paper is scored as “Adequate” but possesses some of the characteristics of an “Effective” paper, then the score would be a 7 instead of a 6. Another way of explaining the scores is that a 7 is considered a “high 6” or a “low 8.”

|“-“ |0 |1 |2 |

|sp |spelling |Case/Number |error with case, number |

|awk |awkward |AP |apostrophe |

|cap |capitalization |FS |fused sentence |

|c |comma |WC |word choice |

|dev |details needed |WW |wrong word |

|FR |fragment |tense |tense of verb |

|CS |comma splice |??? |What are you talking about? |

|S/V |subj/verb agreement |paragraph mark |start new paragraph |

|P/A |Pronoun agreement | | |

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