Instructor: Natalie Elliott Room C101 nelliott@nyos.org Conference Period & Tutorials: 7 th period Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Tutorials Monday-Thursday mornings, 7:45-8:25. Afternoons by appointment. Texts & : Falling into Theory: Conflicting Views on Reading Literature, 2 nd Edition edited by David H. Richter Antigone by Sophocles King Lear by William Shakespeare Hamlet by William Shakespeare Candide by Voltaire Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte Great Expectations by Charles Dickens A Doll s House by Henrik Ibsen Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Lit Circle Selections: No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, Light in August by William Faulkner, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, or Sula by Toni Morrison AP Literature and Composition Course Description Excerpted from the College Board An AP English Literature and Composition course engages students in the 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. The course includes intensive study of representative works from various genres and periods, concentrating on works of recognized literary merit such as texts that are frequently referenced on the AP Literature and Composition exam. Thus, reading in an AP course is both wide and deep. This reading necessarily builds upon and complements the reading done in previous English courses so that by the time students complete their AP course, they will have read works from several genres and periods from the 16 th to the 21 st century. More importantly, they will have gotten to know a few works well. In the course, they read deliberately thoroughly, taking time to understand a work s complexity, to absorb its richness of meaning, and to analyze how that meaning is embodied in literary form. In addition to considering a work s literary artistry, students reflect on the social and historical values it reflects and embodies. Careful attention to
both textual detail and historical context provides a foundation for interpretation, whatever critical perspectives are brought to bear on the literary works studied. A generic method for the approach to such close reading involves the following elements: the experience of literature, the interpretation of literature, and the evaluation of literature. By experience, we mean the subjective dimension of reading and responding to literary works, including precritical impressions and emotional responses. By interpretation, we mean the analysis of literary works through close reading to arrive at an understanding of their multiple meanings. By evaluation, we mean both an assessment of the quality artistic achievement of literary works and a consideration of their social and cultural values. All three of these aspects of reading are important for an AP English Literature and Composition course. Moreover, each corresponds to an approach to writing about literary works. Writing to understand a literary work may involve writing response and reaction papers, along with annotation, freewriting and keeping some from of a reading journal. Writing to explain a literary work involves analysis and interpretation and may include writing brief focused analyses on aspects of language and structure. Writing to evaluate a literary work involves making and explaining judgments about its artistry and exploring its underlying social and cultural values through analysis, interpretation, and argument. In short, students in an AP English Literature and Composition course read actively. The works taught in the course require careful, deliberative reading. And the approach to analyzing and interpreting the material involves students in learning how to make careful observations of textual detail, establish connections among their observations, and draw from those connections a series of inferences leading to an interpretive conclusion about the meaning and value of a piece of writing. Course Objectives Upon completing the AP English Literature and Composition course, students should be able to analyze and interpret work of literature; compose essays consisting of expository, analytical, and argumentative approaches; employ a balance of generalization with specific illustrative detail; structure writings with a logical organization enhanced by techniques like transition, repetition, and emphasis; exercise analytical command of figures of speech in poetry and imaginative writing; utilize a variety of sentence structures in their writing; demonstrate knowledge of a wide-range vocabulary used with denotative accuracy and connotative resourcefulness; employ an effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, maintaining a consistent voice, and achieving emphasis through parallelism and antithesis; appropriately synthesize text evidence and cite using MLA formatting and conventions; demonstrate understanding and mastery of standard written English as well as stylistic maturity in their own writings;
move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to interpretation, drafting, revising, editing, and review; write thoughtfully about their own process of composition; analyze image as text; and evaluate and critically engage texts as living documents in a variety of contexts, including the political, social, and historical. Course Requirements It is required that a student enrolled in an AP course at NYOS take the associated AP exam for that course to ensure that the student is as prepared for college as possible. Towards the end of January, Bethany Watts will furnish information about test registration. Updated prices will be released and communicated as soon as they are made available (the prices last year were $91 per exam, or less if you met the requirements for free and reduced lunch). Please plan accordingly. Assignment Expectations The majority of outside work assignments will be process or prepared writings. This means that, unless noted otherwise, the expectation is that these drafts will be taken through the writing process, sometimes required for in-class revision exercises. Final copies must be typed, doublespaced, and formatted consistent with MLA guidelines. These essays will be submitted via Turnitin.com. Course ID information for Turnitin.com will be communicated at the beginning of the year. Student Progress Tracking Expectations Each quarter, I will furnish you with a list of objectives that represent the College Board requirements for this course and other learning goals to prepare you for success on the AP English Literature exam. As we cover those objectives throughout the course (usually they will be clearly identified on the posted daily Agenda), I expect you to keep track of your own progress, rating what you understand and what you need more practice with, so that you can take an active responsibility in your learning. At the end of each quarter, you will confer with me oneon-one to discuss your progress and action plan for hitting all of your learning goals by the time of the exam administration. Missed Work If you are absent, check with your neighbor to see what you have missed, review the work, and then ask me any questions. It is the student s responsibility to ask for any handouts or assignments that they need to complete their make-up work. According to NYOS guidelines, for each day you are absent you will have one day to complete any missed assignments. Tests or projects will be due on the day of your return. Major papers assigned in advance of the absence are still due on the day in question unless you have requested an extension.
Late Work Per NYOS policy, late work cannot be accepted in an AP course. Deadlines can be negotiated on an as-needed basis, but conference with me beforehand is required. This would be the expectation in a college course, so it is the expectation of an AP course. Grading Scale 90 100 A 80 89 B 70 79 C Below 70 F Quarter Grade Breakdown Classwork and participation 20% Quizzes 30% Tests, essays, and projects 40% Homework and multiple-choice practice 10% Supply List 3x5 index cards Pens/pencils Highlighters College-ruled notebook paper Spiral notebook 1 Box of Kleenex Advanced Placement Examination The 2016 exam will take place on Wednesday, 4 May at 8 AM. QUARTER 1: THE PLAY S THE THING Antigone by Sophocles (Summer Reading) King Lear by William Shakespeare Hamlet by William Shakespeare Poetry Focus: Formalism Sonnet XIV by John Donne Bright Star by John Keats What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where And Why by Edna St. Vincent Millay Selected Shakespearean sonnets Sonnet 75 by Edmund Spenser Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats The Sun Rising by John Donne
The First Anniversary by John Donne The Fifth Anniversary by Joseph Brodsky Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas Perhaps it exists by Derek Walcott We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks One Art by Elizabeth Bishop Sestina by Elizabeth Bishop Prose Focus: Person vs. Society/State Patriotism by Yukio Mishima Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O Connor A Perfect Day for Bananafish by J.D. Salinger Hamlet and His Problems by T.S. Eliot Assessments: Narrative techniques close reading activities One (1) reader s notebook practice sonnet explication One (1) formal sonnet explication One (1) argumentative poetry analysis essay focusing on imagery, symbolism, and tone Poetic forms composition practice (1 of each): sonnet, villanelle, open form Descriptive and prescriptive multiple-choice question practice Three (3) reader s notebook responses to critical essays Two (2) style analysis jigsaws for close reading practice Process essay: Shakespearean character analysis rough draft Peer-editing & sentence analysis exercises Process essay: Shakespearean character analysis essay final draft One (1) timed writing: verse question Student self-evaluation and progress tracking Graded class discussions QUARTER 2: ROMANCE & DEVASTATION Candide by Voltaire Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brönte Jane Eyre directed by Cary Fukunaga (2011) Poetry Focus: Social Commentary Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus America by Allen Ginsberg Denigration by Harryette Mullen Easter 1916 by William Butler Yeats
The New World by Amiri Baraka London by William Blake The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy For the Union Dead by Robert Lowell Facing It by Yusef Komunyakaa Evolution by Sherman Alexie Prose Focus: Personal Darkness A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin The Spider's Thread by Ryunosuke Atkutagawa Shakespeare s Sister by Virginia Woolf Excerpts from The Madwoman in the Attic by Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar Assessments: Narrative techniques close reading activities Guided thesis & thematic statement practice One (1) reader s notebook practice short story explication One (1) formal short story explication One (1) argumentative Candide analysis essay Descriptive and prescriptive multiple-choice question practice Three (3) reader s notebook responses to critical essays One (1) style analysis jigsaw for close reading practice Process essay: Historical or Feminist critical analysis Peer-editing & sentence analysis exercises One (1) reader s notebook response to Jane Eyre film adaptation Two (2) timed writings: verse question, prose question Student self-evaluation and progress tracking Graded class discussions Semester exam QUARTER 3: MODERN WARFARE Great Expectations by Charles Dickens A Doll s House by Henrik Ibsen Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Poetry Focus: Loss of Faith Ode to a Nightingale by John Keats My Last Duchess by Robert Browning Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens The Plain Sense of Things by Wallace Stevens Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich
My Faithful Mother Tongue by Czesław Miłosz Finding Something by Jack Gilbert To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Triumph by Anne Sexton The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot Requiem by Anna Akhmatova The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot Prose Focus: Displacement Boule de Suif by Guy de Maupassant The Guest by Albert Camus Girl by Jamaica Kincaid A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel García Márquez Romancing the Shadow by Toni Morrison Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell Assessments: Narrative techniques close reading activities One (1) reader s notebook practice poetry explication Descriptive and prescriptive multiple-choice question practice Two (2) reader s notebook responses to critical essays One (1) style analysis jigsaw for close reading practice Process essay: Marxist or Psychological critical analysis Peer-editing & sentence analysis exercises One (1) argumentative Heart of Darkness analysis essay Two (2) peer-evaluation exercises Four (4) timed writings: verse question, prose question, open question Student self-evaluation and progress tracking Graded class discussions QUARTER 4: THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD : A Streetcar Named Desire directed by Elia Kazan (1951) Lit Circle Choices (Select one) Light in August by William Faulkner Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre Sula by Toni Morrison Poetry Focus: Nature, Time, Beauty The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold The Fish by Elizabeth Bishop First Snow by Mary Oliver
I Remember You As You Were by Pablo Neruda Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota by James Wright The Man with Night Sweats by Thom Gunn There s been a Death, in the Opposite House by Emily Dickinson Prose Focus: Departing from the Norm The Lady with the Pet Dog by Anton Chekov The Lady with the Pet Dog by Joyce Carol Oates The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance by Dorothy Johnson The Dead by James Joyce What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver Assessments: Narrative techniques close reading activities One (1) reader s notebook evaluation of Lit Circle selection Descriptive and prescriptive multiple-choice question practice Two (2) reader s notebook responses to critical essays One (1) style analysis jigsaw for close reading practice Project: Lit Circle investigation, explication, and graded discussion Peer-editing & sentence analysis exercises One (1) argumentative Lit Circle selection essay Two (2) peer-evaluation exercises Two (2) timed writings: verse question, prose question, open question Student self-evaluation and progress tracking Graded class discussions Final exam
Essential Questions Focus Reading Writing 1 st Quarter 2 nd Quarter 3 rd Quarter 4 th Quarter Unit The Play s the Thing Romance & Devastation How do the origins of western literature manifest in present day? How does the form of a literary work impact its meaning? Classical drama, character archetypes, prosody, Shakespearean drama, New Criticism. Antigone by Sophocles King Lear by William Shakespeare Hamlet by William Shakespeare Poetry and prose selections from AP materials. Sonnets & Other Poetic Forms Poetry Analysis Shakespeare Analysis Does satire have a moral responsibility? How much must a literary work respond to its historical context? What is the impact of female writers in the western canon? Origins of the novel, social satire, Gothic themes, Romanticism, Historical criticism, Feminist criticism. Candide by Voltaire Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Poetry and prose selections from AP materials. Satire Analysis Feminist or Historical Critical Essay Timed Practice Essays Modern Warfare How are tenets of Victorian society reflected in the literature? What are the moral limitations of industrialism? What relationship do imperialism and war have with the Modernist movement? Questions of class, race, and gender, Marxist criticism, Psychological criticism. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens A Doll s House by Henrik Ibsen Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot Poetry and prose selections from AP materials. Marxist or Psychological Critical Essay Timed Practice Essays The Center Cannot Hold Do voices of the disenfranchised have a place in the canon? How does meaning and moral responsibility change in the postwar / Postmodern era? Origins of the short story, Existentialism, Postmodern and contemporary voices. Lit Circle Choices: No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre Light in August by William Faulkner Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh Sula by Toni Morrison Poetry and prose selections from AP materials. Lit Circle selection Critical Essay Timed Practice Essays Outside Reading Timed Practice Essays Selected Critical Essays Selected Critical Essays Selected Critical Essays Selected Critical Essays SCOPE & SEQUENCE, AP ENGLISH LITERATURE
Letter of Introduction Greetings Parents/Guardians: I hope that I get the chance to meet you in person, but in the event that I don t, I would like to introduce myself to you. This will be my third year working in NYOS s English department, and I am excited to have your student in my AP English Literature & Composition class. Please note that the best way to reach is me is via email. I check email frequently throughout the day, so rest assured your queries will be addressed in a timely manner. The AP English Literature course will be challenging this is a year in which students begin their transition into college-level work, and I will be incorporating more rigorous assignments and readings into the curriculum. Please know that this is done with the intent to prepare and support your students, not to intimidate them. Readings may occasionally contain mature subject matter, and discussions about hard realities of the human condition may arise. Please take some time to review the syllabus with your student, so that you are aware of the rigor, content, and expectations. I would appreciate it if you would sign this letter and have your student return it to me no later than Monday, August 17, 2015. Again, I very much look forward to collaborating with you to achieve your student s success in this course. All best, Natalie Elliott nelliott@nyos.org Your student s name: Please print your name: Phone number (best to reach you): Email address (if any): Do you give permission to be contacted via phone or email with updates about your student s grades, behavior, or performance-related information? (Yes/No): Any other emergency contact: Signature: