AP Literature Course Syllabus -- 2015-2016 Instructor: Susan Kearns Mailing Address: 1270 South Broadway, Bartow, FL 33830 Email address: susan.kearns@polk-fl.net Phone number: 863.602.9076 Course Overview: Welcome to AP Literature and Composition. I am excited to be a part of your adventure in literature spanning from the 14 th century to the present. A good grade in this course will do more than help you maintain a rewarding GPA. This course will expand your ability to think critically about complex and often controversial issues. It can teach you to analyze themes and ideas which have occupied the hearts and minds of humanity throughout history. Additionally, it will help you develop your own rich potential and allow you to become an original thinker. You will write. You will read. You will read diverse genres of literature and you will write, formally, and reflectively, analytically and imaginatively, every week. According to The College Board AP English Course description, 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. All of the skills learned in AP Literature are focused on passing the AP Literature Exam and preparing them for university courses. A rigorous course including literary analysis and creative writing forms the majority of the curriculum. Individual or group presentations, both oral and electronic allow for increased sharing opportunities. This course pushes students to write with clarity and eloquence, to challenge them to stretch beyond their current abilities, to blend creativity with structure and even beauty in their writing allowing them to better understand literary works and how it relates to their world. Course Requirements: Students will carefully read and analyze various literary texts. Students will study the way writers use language to communicate important ideas. Students will increase knowledge of literary structure, style, and themes, as well as the use of literary devices such as allusion, imagery, symbolism and tone. Students will work with various genres and time periods (from the sixteenth to the twentieth century.) While this study will be broad in scope, a few selections will be studied in depth. Students will focus on critical, rather than general, analysis and response through the writing of Narrative prose, Poetry, and Dramatic prose. There will also be opportunity for original creative writing and peer reviewing. Students will develop leadership ability by conducting literary reviews, explaining texts, and presenting their work in oral and electronic mediums. Materials: Arp, Thomas R, and Greg Johnson. Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. 11th ed., Boston, MA, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. The above source contains several pieces we will address during the year; however, because we do not have a singular, all-encompassing text book for this class, I will make copies for you to keep in your binder. You will need a 2 inch binder with 6 dividers for the different elements of this class. The benefit of this type of text is the convenience of freely annotating on your own copies, and the portability of many genres of literature in a condensed text. We will read extensively in multiple genres. Novels will often be provided for class wide reading projects, although there will be times when you must acquire your own copies; new or used is acceptable. Grading: Reading assignments and exploratory writings [25-50 points] Multiple-choice and short-answer reading questions (formatted to resemble the AP-Exam) [25-50 points] Quizzes based on textbook handouts and primary text reading [50 points] Peer reviews [50 points] Summer Reading Assignment [300 points]
Extended essay, research project, oral presentations, poems [200-300 points] In-class essays and revisions [sliding scale as noted on rubric] 40-minute in-class timed essays with revisions [100 points using sliding scale rubric] Cumulative Semester and Final Exams [School policy mandates 20% of semester grade] Keep in mind that you will have 2-3 times the amount of reading and writing to do as homework. Your success in the class depends on your practice and application of what you learned during class. Your grade in the class will predict your score on the AP exam. Although the exam is not the focus of the class, it is the culmination of the curriculum taught. If you fail to prepare yourself for class, you are failing to prepare, adequately, for the exam. The expectations will be explained to you in minute detail. Note on major writing grading turnaround. This is an extensive undertaking, and I will make the effort to get papers back to you in a timely manner. I want to reinforce being on time with my work for you, as you must have your work done on time for me. Lateness Essays and other assignments submitted after the assigned deadline will be lowered one full letter grade for each day it is late. You will be provided two passes each semester for an assignment to be turned in one day late without penalty. The Year: an Overview. Continuous Assignments: Vocabulary (weekly) Poetry Activities (bi-weekly) Multiple choice practices Writing: Each student will keep a portfolio of in-class timed writings, out of class papers, and process papers. This portfolio will serve as a record of the student s progress throughout the year, as well as provide a valuable resource to personalize instruction and remediation for each individual student. Throughout the year students will discuss participate in group writing workshops with their peers as well as hold individual conferences with the instructor to discuss the student s writing and to provide feedback and suggestions for improvement. All writing in the course will be designed to develop organizational skills, build vocabulary, and focus language and meaning to the author s specific intent. Opportunities for rewrites will be given to receive a higher grade; however, the intent for a rewritten assignment is to help the student improve organization, focus, content, grammatical issues, and embedding quotations seamlessly along with revising diction, syntax, and over all writing style with verbal and written feedback from the instructor on each assignment, and on each draft, in order to create a more formal, academic level of writing. Grading Period 1: Introduction to the course. How the course and the exam work. Baseline writing: Using a released College Board Literary Analysis essay, students will write a Literary analysis essay without initial instruction. They will use a rubric to discuss the qualities of Adequate/Effective essays, assess the model essays given by the College Board and complete comparative exercises. They will then assess their own essay and write suggestions for improvement. Students will maintain all writings in their portfolio to revisit before and after each assigned essay. The Literary Eras: Beowolf to Contemporary Students will work in small groups to research the primary literary eras, create a lesson plan, and teach the class about a specific literary era. Each presentation must include three individual selections which illustrate the characteristics of the era, convey the context (historical, social, cultural) of the time, and provide practice for the class. Each group will also write a 10 question quiz using 4 different types of questions and provide an answer key. How to Annotate- How to Mark a Book by Mortimer Adler, PhD. http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/adler.html
Students will use close reading strategies to mark a text for diction, syntax, figurative language symbolism, plot elements, poetic devices and other elements to help analyze the greater meaning of a piece. Short Stories The main objective in the short story unit is to help students gain a greater understanding of how literature relates to the world from which it stems, whether they are reading a Victorian romance or a contemporary political work. Hills Like White Elephants (Communication, symbolism) students will analyze the piece from the perspective of the male character. How does the author indicate characters communication, spoken or unspoken, effectively from character to character and to the reader? The Yellow Wallpaper (gender roles, isolation, context)-- Students will write an analysis on how this piece reflects the society from which it stems. How does the author effectively convey the conventions of gender roles into this piece? How is the piece relevant today? Have the cultural or societal norms shifted to the point where the piece is no longer relevant? Why? Why not? Additional short story selections will be provided Oedipus Rex (Elements of Greek Theatre, tragic hero, tragic fault, three unities, etc.) Students will write an analysis of the tragic elements of Oedipus Rex. They must include specific examples relating to characterization, motifs, themes, dramatic devices, style and cultural beliefs. Essay topic: According to Northrop Frye, Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning that a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lighting How does Oedipus, as a tragic figure, function as an instrument of the suffering of others? Explain how the suffering brought upon others by Oedipus contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole. Poetry (purpose, poetic devices, themes, analysis) Poetry will be addressed throughout the year as isolated pieces as well as companion pieces to similarly themed visual, literary, journalistic, and musical pieces to analyze each piece and its relevance to itself and other genres of art. Students will review Literary/Poetic techniques, definitions and discuss these applications with Ode to a Grecian Urn by John Keats Students will read Norman Morrison by Adrian Mitchell, Norman Morrison by David Fergusson, Of Late by George Starbuck, and The Pacifists Time Magazine article to understand the purpose of poetry, the poet as a reporter. Later reading Out, Out by R. Frost to see similar patterns, theme and purpose. Guidelines for Analysis: Understanding close reading, the rubric, and analyzing the following, though not limited to: Thanatopsis, W.C. Bryant; To My Mother ; G. Barker, Florida E. Bishop; I, Too, Sing America, L. Hughes; Ode to the West Wind, Shelley; and Ars Poetica, A. MacLeish. Students will analyze, seeking patterns of theme, language and structure, figurative language, symbolism, and tone. Grading Period Two: Critical Approaches to Literature: Formalist, Biographical, Psychological, Historical, Mythological, Sociological: Students will assess critical analysis essays on pieces they have already analyzed and determine the type of criticism each essay most reflects. Students will then determine how they can best reflect each type of criticism to the piece. Writing Assignment: In a well written essay with properly embedded quotations from both the critical analysis essay and from the literary piece, analyze a piece of literature (of your choice) from one of the Critical Approaches to Literature. These essays will be published to the class at large for review. Frankenstein- Guiding Questions What does society owe the maimed, outcast, and rejected? What factors influence human behavior? What role does nature /nurture play? How do the ideas of Frankenstein relate to advances in today s technology? Essay Topic Free Response Question 3 from 2008, Often in Literature a foil, or a minor character possesses traits that emphasize, by contrast or comparison, the distinctive characteristics and qualities of the main character. This minor character might be used to highlight the weaknesses or strengths of the
main character. In Frankenstein a minor character serves as a foil for Victor. Write an essay in which you analyze how the relation between the minor character and Victor illuminate the meaning of the work. OR 2006, Mary Shelley used a country (Pastoral) setting to establish values within the novel, Frankenstein. For example, in some novels, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. How does the countryside setting play a significant role in Frankenstein and how do the settings function in the work as a whole. Pygmalion- (ideal of beauty, maimed and outcast) Possible Essay Topics: Shaw explores the artificiality of class distinctions throughout Pygmalion. Trace this theme throughout the play. What classes are represented in the play? On what factors is membership based? Which characters strive to move above their class? Which wish to stay as they are? What are their reasons? Discuss how Class is defined today. How does our society determine class distinctions? Is Pygmalion relevant today? What thematically similar contemporary pieces convey your definition or societal determinations? Compare and contrast similar motifs and themes. Or 2003 FRQ #3 Form B, Novels and plays often depict characters caught between colliding cultures national, regional, ethnic, religious, institutional. Such collisions can call a character s sense of identity into question. In Pygmalion, how does the protagonist respond to such a cultural collision? How does the character respond to this collision and explain its relevance to the work as a whole. Macbeth- (ambition vs Greed, husband wife relationships, wife vs mother, occult) Possible Essay Topics: Edith Wharton quote, At every stage in the process of his tale the novelist must rely on what may be called the illuminating incident to reveal and emphasize the inner meaning of each situation. Illuminating incidents are the magic casements of fiction, its vistas on infinity. In a well-organized essay, describe an illuminating episode or moment and explain how it functions as a casement, as window that opens onto the meaning of the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary. OR According to Northrop Frye, Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning that a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lighting How does Mac Beth, as a tragic figure, function as an instrument of the suffering of others. Explain how the suffering, brought upon others by Mac Beth, contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole Grading Period 3 Pride & Prejudice (pastoral, Feminism, New Historicism, Historicism) Possible Essay Topics 2006 Question: A country (Pastoral) setting often establishes values within a novel. For example, in some novels, the country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and ignorance. How does the countryside setting play a significant role in Pride and Prejudice and how do the settings function in the work as a whole? Analyze similar motifs and themes of the pastoral in Frankenstein and in Pride and Prejudice. How do the authors illustrate the same pastoral themes and motifs in each piece to different effects? Death of a Salesman (American Dream, Marxist theory, symbolism, Themes) Possible Essay Topics Trace the themes of reality and illusion throughout the play? Discuss whether Death of a Salesman fits our definition of a tragedy from earlier in the year. Discuss examples of irony in the play. Importance of Being Earnest (comedy, hypocrisy, archetypes) Possible Essay Topics Discuss elements of comedy. How do archetypes play a part in comedy? What misconceptions are emphasized to create the comedic effect?
A Doll s House (New Historicism and Feminism) Students will trace the figurative language, symbols and motifs throughout the piece. How do these elements convey the theme as a whole? Trace patterns of characters personalities. How does image vs. reality play a part for each character in the play? How does hypocrisy play a role? Grading Period 4 (Southern Literature) A Rose for Emily, William Faulkner (tradition, death, motifs, symbolism) A Good Man is Hard to Find, Flannery O Connor (tradition, motifs, symbolism) Students will trace the similarities between Faulkner s tradition and holding on to the old ways with that of O Connor s. They will write an Analysis of the theme of how nostalgia and tradition are emphasized in Southern Literature Glass Menagerie (Characterization, Symbolism, Memory, Abandonment, Reality vs. Illusion) Students will research the Play, the playwright, and the context of the era in order to write a full character analysis essay on one of the principal characters. This research paper will be a full process research paper with ample opportunity for individual guidance from the instructor (at several steps in the writing process) revision workshops, and peer reviews, with an emphasis on organization, focus, varied sentence structure, effective and specific vocabulary, well introduced quotations from critical analysis essays and quotations from the piece, and MLA documentation. Possible Essay Topics Choose one above piece and discuss how embodies the characteristics of southern literature. Review for AP Exam Elements of Drama Poetry every Period Focusing on Themes, Characterization, Motifs, Use of Language and Rhetoric Detach below and return to Mrs. Kearns by Monday August 31, or Tuesday September 1, 2015 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I understand the information in the syllabus above and that I (the student) am responsible for any assignments or tasks noted in the syllabus. Student Name (printed) Student Signature Date Student email Cell phone I have read the syllabus and I understand that my child/student is responsible for the assignments or tasks noted in the syllabus. Parent Name (Printed) Parent Signature Date Parent email Cell Phone