Folsom Cordova Unified School District



AP Literature Course Overview

|Duration |Description and |Texts |Skills Learned and/or |Assessments |

| |Essential Questions | |Concepts Explored | |

|Week 1 |Portrayals of Home and other |The Joy Luck Club |Close reading |Summer reading assessment: (essay 2.5-4 pgs) |

| |student-selected themes |Frankenstein |Interpretation |“You can leave home all you want, but home will never leave you.” —Sonsyrea Tate|

| |What are the strengths and |The Kite Runner |Critical Thinking | |

| |weaknesses of Victor, the monster, | |Informed Discussion | |

| |Amir, and the eight voices in The | |Reflective Listening |Sonsyrea Tate’s statement suggests that “home” may be conceived of as a |

| |Joy Luck Club? How do the | |Review elements of plot, character, setting, |dwelling, a place, or a state of mind. It may have positive or negative |

| |characters’ childhoods and | |point of view, symbolism, allusions, etc. and how|associations, but in either case, it has a considerable influence on an |

| |adolescences compare and contrast | |those elements develop meaning |individual. Choose a single character from each of these texts who leaves home |

| |and develop their conceptions of | | |yet finds that home remains significant. Write a well-developed essay in which |

| |“home” as children/teens/adults? | |Introduce Writer’s Workshop |you analyze the importance of “home” to this character and the reasons for its |

| |How does vantage point (telling the| | |continuing influence. Explain how the character’s idea of home illuminates the |

| |story in the moment or reflecting | |Revision techniques: mini-lessons on style, |larger meaning of the work. Do not merely summarize the plot. |

| |upon it years later) affect the | |sentence variety, voice, using appropriate | |

| |meaning/purpose of the “home”? | |evidence, etc. |Socratic Seminar (student led)—develop a series of discussion/literary analysis |

| | | |(these will begin here and continue throughout |questions, multiple choice exercise, and a writing prompt. |

| | | |the Term based on class and individual needs) | |

|Weeks |The Nature of Justice |Short texts/Poetry: |Conventions of Greek drama & Aristotelian |Class and small group discussion |

|2-7 |Which laws are more important: |--Trifles |definition of tragedy |Reader response journals |

| |governmental or personal? Why? |--“Killings” | | |

| |When someone is wronged (for |--“Prayer for the Man Who |Elizabethan world view and theater |Quiz on Language/Literary Terms for prose/drama |

| |example, cheating, assault, rape, |Mugged My Father, 72” | |Write tightly crafted introductions for Trifles and “Killings.” Revise until |

| |homicide, etc.),what is the best |--Excerpt from Les Misérables|Mini-Lessons: |mastery is achieved. |

| |way to “right” the wrong? |--O’Connor story |Attacking the Prompt |Timed Writing Topics: |

| |Are there certain crimes that |--Excerpt from In Cold Blood |Crafting Thesis Statements |--Write an essay in which you show how the author uses literary devices to |

| |deserve death as a punishment or |Plays: |Pre-writing strategies |achieve his purpose. |

| |certain individuals who cannot be |Antigone |Annotation of texts |--Taking into consideration the title of the poem, analyze how the poetic |

| |rehabilitated? |Hamlet |Revision strategies |devices convey the poet’s attitude toward revenge. |

| |Which is more important: justice | | |-- In a novel by William Styron, a father tells his son that life “is a search |

| |or mercy? Why? | | |for justice.”Choose a character from a novel or play who responds in some |

| | | | |significant way to justice or injustice. Then write a well-developed essay in |

| | | | |which you analyze the character’s understanding of justice, the degree to which |

| | | | |the character’s search for justice is successful, and the significance of this |

| | | | |search for the work as a whole. |

| | | | |Revised essay: Best of Three (one of the timed essays) |

| | | | |2 rounds |

| | | | |Final project: Exploration of Justice project |

|Weeks |What is a Classic? |Texts vary and are chosen |Small Group Discussion |Classic Lit. Project--read a companion text, write a 5-8 page research paper |

|8-16 |What is the literary Canon? What |from those cited on the Open |Introduction to literary criticism—formalist, |using literary criticism (to comment upon its artistry and arguing for/against |

|(first week |works should be included? How |Question Prompt each year. |biographical, historical (New & Old), |its inclusion in the Canon. |

|focused; |should we deal with works by |They must be written within |sociological, feminist, Marxist, structuralist |Research Process Skills: |

|intermittent |minority writers and modern works? |the last 30 years. |strategies, etc. |--list of sources |

|attention in the |(“Liberal” vs. “conservative” views|Commonly chosen: |Research using scholarly journals and critical |--Annotated Bibliography |

|remaining weeks) |on the Canon) |A Handmaid’s Tale |sources, MLA citing, creating works cited pages, |--Detailed Outline |

| | |Never Let Me Go |annotated bibliographies, outlining, drafting. |--Rough draft with Works Cited Pg. |

| | |The Things They Carried |Presentation skills |--Final draft with Works Cited Pg. |

| | |The Namesake | |Group presentation sharing research and taking listeners into the “world” of the|

| | |Atonement | |novel and its themes |

| | |The Road | | |

| | |Cold Mountain | | |

| | |Push | | |

| | |A Thousand Splendid Suns | | |

|Weeks 10-12 |Love… and Marriage? |Short Texts/Poetry: |Poetic Devices: |Class and small group discussion |

| |How do you define the words “love” |excerpt from Daniel Deronda |Syntax |Analysis/Interpretation and presentation of a poem studied in class (focusing on|

| |and “marriage”? |or Middlemarch |Diction |the devices covered in class, the functions of those devices, theme, and |

| |How have our attitudes toward these| |Imagery |connection to the EQs) |

| |two concepts changed over time? |“9” or “since feeling is |Speaker | |

| |What do our attitudes about these |first” |Denotation v. connotation |Timed Essays: |

| |definitions and attitudes say about|“One Art” |Ambiguity |--Analyze the literary techniques the poet uses to convey the speaker’s attitude|

| |gender roles? |“Sestina” |Tone |toward love. |

| | |Shakespearean sonnets |Meter |--Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of a conflict in a |

| | |“Break of Day” |Rhyme |relationship and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the |

| | |“The Victims” |Annotating/Analyzing Poetry |work. Avoid plot summary. |

| | |“A Slice of Wedding Cake” |Presentation/Discussion Skills |-- Write an essay in which you analyze Gwendolen’s complex character as Eliot |

| | |“Why Should a Foolish | |develops it through literary techniques such as tone, point of view, and |

| | |Marriage Vow” | |language. |

| | |“Mad Girl’s Love Song” | |Revision of a timed essay into a final draft (Best of Three) |

| | |“Funeral Blues” | |AP Multiple Choice Quizzes on poetry |

|Weeks 13-18 |Reality & Perception |Short texts/poetry: |Understanding colonialism—roots, causes and |Class and small group discussion |

| |How do we know what’s “real”? |Plato’s “Allegory of the |effects, and legacy | |

|FALL TERM |Is there one reality or more than |Cave” | |Reading Quizzes/Annotation |

| |one reality? |“The Big Disconnect” |Comparing literature | |

| |Who determines “truth”? How? |“Much Madness…” | |Timed Writing: |

| |How does human perception |“Mirror” |Symbolism |--Write an essay in which you discuss how such elements as imagery, structure, |

| |complicate our understanding of |“Richard Cory” |Significance of titles in literature |and point of view convey the central meaning of Plath’s poem. |

| |reality? |“The White Man’s Burden”/”The|Evaluating bias in literature |-- The significance of a title such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is so |

| |Where do “illusions” come from? |Black Man’s Burden” | |easy to discover. However, in other works (for example, Measure for Measure) |

| | |“The Second Coming” |Test taking skills |the full significance of the title becomes apparent to the reader only |

| | |“How to Write about Africa” |Time management |gradually. Focusing on Heart of Darkness, show how the significance of its |

| | | | |title is developed through the author’s use of devices such as contrast, |

| | |Novels: | |repetition, and metaphor. |

| | |Heart of Darkness | |-- Each of the two poems below is concerned with the European drive to colonize.|

| | |Things Fall Apart | |Read the two poems carefully. Then write a well-organized essay in which you |

| | | | |compare and contrast the poems, analyzing the poetic techniques, such as point |

| | | | |of view and tone, that each writer uses to make his point about colonialism. |

| | | | | |

| | | | |Revision of timed essay into a final draft (Best of Three) |

| | | | |Structured class debate on “An Image of Africa: Racism in Heart of Darkness.” |

| | | | |Evaluate the validity of Achebe’s argument against Heart of Darkness. |

| | | | |Practice AP tests (full length) |

| | | | |Final project: Individual or group analytical, reflective, and creative |

| | | | |presentation of a work, theme, or moment of our class. |

|Weeks 13-18 |Tradition v. Progress |Short texts/poetry: |Differences between utopian and dystopian fiction|Class and small group discussion |

| |What is the perfect world? Are our|“U-District Incident |Writing as social commentary |Reading Quizzes/Annotations |

|SPRING TERM |attempts to improve our world steps|Report”/”Sci-Fi” |Methods of satire |Timed Writing: |

| |forward or steps backward? What |excerpts from Herland and |Comparing literature |-- In the two poems below, the poets reflect on similar concerns. Read the poems|

| |role do our traditions play in our |Looking Backward | |carefully. Then write an essay in which you compare and contrast the two poems, |

| |efforts to progress? |“Harrison Bergeron” |Test taking skills |analyzing the poetic techniques each writer uses to explore her vision of the |

| | | |Time management |future. |

| | |Novels: | |-- Analyze how Gilman uses elements such as point of view, selection of detail, |

| | |1984 | |dialogue, and characterization to make a social commentary. |

| | |Brave New World | |-- One of the strongest human drives seems to be a desire for power. Write an |

| | | | |essay in which you discuss how a character in a novel or a drama struggles to |

| | | | |free himself or herself from the power of others or seeks to gain power over |

| | | | |others. Be sure to demonstrate in your essay how the author uses this power |

| | | | |struggle to enhance the meaning of the work. |

| | | | | |

| | | | |Revision of one into a final draft (Best of Three) |

| | | | |Practice AP tests (full length) |

| | | | | |

| | | | |Structured class debate on humanity’s future. Are we headed in a positive or |

| | | | |negative direction? What forces are taking us in this direction? |

| | | | |Final project: Individual or group analytical, reflective, and creative |

| | | | |presentation of a work, theme, or moment of our class. |

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