2013-2014 College Prep IV Syllabus
Instructor: Michelle McCleese
mmccleese@minfordfalcons.net
As the name suggests, the College English Prep IV course has as its primary goal, college preparation. Every activity, essay,
and project will serve a specific purpose in providing you with the skills necessary to study, learn, and achieve successful
grades at the college level. English is the most comprehensive subject you take, meaning the skills you acquire through
your study of literature and language transfers to other courses, like chemistry and math because analysis forms the basis
of all study. By the end of the third nine-weeks, you will be expected to possess these skills, with the last nine-weeks
showcasing them through inquiry and analysis, culminating in a final research essay and presentation.
Your ultimate success in this class will be the result of an accumulation of individual skills, each building on the previous
one. The rules in this are simple:
1. Take your future seriously. Work for it. Improve your self-discipline.
2. Keep your trap shut and listen. You can’t learn anything when you’re talking.
3. Come to me for help if you need it.
4. Become familiar with the links and documents on my website. Check it every day or so for news and upcoming
deadlines.
5. Respect yourself and behave like the young adults you are. No cursing, hitting, or other childish attention-seeking
antics. The outcome will be less satisfying for you than you think. I promise.
Note: Seminars are simply small group discussion, wherein you address specific questions, develop opinions about
the text, and find evidence to support those opinions AS A GROUP.
OUTLINE OF COURSEWORK
I. UNIT 1 European Literature: Middle Ages – six weeks
LITERARY TEXTS
Drama
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The Summoning of Everyman (Anonymous)
Novellas
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Poetry
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The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio) (continued in Unit Two)
“Dance of Death” (“Danza de la Muerte”) (Anonymous)
“I see scarlet, green, blue, white, yellow” (Arnaut Daniel)
Inferno (Cantos I-XI, XXXI-XXXIV) (Dante Alighieri)
“Lord Randall” (Anonymous)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Anonymous)
The General Prologue in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
“The Knight’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
“The Monk’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
“The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
“The Pardoner’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” in The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
Nonfiction
Confessions (Book XI) (Saint Augustine)
Medieval Images, Icons, and Illustrated English Literary Texts: From Ruthwell Cross to the Ellesmere Chaucer
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(Maidie Hilmo)
2013-2014 College Prep IV Syllabus
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Instructor: Michelle McCleese
mmccleese@minfordfalcons.net
St. Thomas Aquinas (G. K. Chesterton)
The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade (Susan Wise Bauer)
The One and the Many in the Canterbury Tales (Traugott Lawler)
Activities & Assessments: Essays, seminars, essential question discussion, poem memorization and oral presentation, blog.
Common Core Standards:
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RL.11-12.5: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of
where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall
structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact.
RI.11-12.2: Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text,
including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective
summary of the text.
W.11-12.1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and
relevant and sufficient evidence.
SL.11-12.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such
that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the
organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range or formal and
informal tasks.
L.11-12.3(a): Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make
effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.
II. UNIT 2 European Literature: Renaissance and Reformation – six weeks
LITERARY TEXTS
Drama
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Novels
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Poetry
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Henry IV, Part I (William Shakespeare)
The Tragedy of Macbeth(William Shakespeare)
The Decameron (Giovanni Boccaccio) (continued from Unit One)
The Life of Gargantua and the Heroic Deeds of Pantagruel (François Rabelais) (Books 1 and 2)
Dark Night of the Soul (Saint John of the Cross) (excerpts)
Sonnets 29, 30, 40, 116, 128, 130, 143, and 146 (William Shakespeare) (selected sonnets)
The Faerie Queene (Edmund Spenser) (excerpts)
“The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” (Sir Walter Raleigh)
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (Christopher Marlowe)
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
Essays
 “Of Cannibals” (Michel de Montaigne)
Nonfiction
 Rabelais and His World (Mikhail Bakhtin)
 The Prince (Niccolo Machiavelli) (excerpts)
Activities & Assessments: Poem memorization + recitation, comparative essays, seminars.
2013-2014 College Prep IV Syllabus
Instructor: Michelle McCleese
mmccleese@minfordfalcons.net
Common Core Standards:
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RL.11-12.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and
connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with
multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as
other authors.)
RL.11-12.6: Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text
from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
RI.11-12.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as
inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
RI.11-12.2: Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text,
including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective
summary of the text.
W.11-12.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information
clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
SL.11-12.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such
that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the
organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range or formal and
informal tasks.
L.11-12.4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades
11–12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
III. UNIT 3 European Literature: Seventeenth Century – six weeks
LITERARY TEXTS
Note: Because of the number and length of works included in this unit, the plan is to organize it around two major works,
one fiction (poetic) and one nonfiction, with other works supplementing these selections. At a minimum, students should
read one full literary work, a substantial excerpt from a philosophical or scientific work, and several shorter works of fiction
and poetry.
Poetry
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“Holy Sonnet 10” (John Donne)
“Song: Goe, and catche a falling starre” (John Donne)
“The Flea” (John Donne)
“To His Coy Mistress” (Andrew Marvell)
“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” (Robert Herrick)
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
Nonfiction
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An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (John Locke)
Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes) (excerpts) (supplemental)
Novum Organum (Francis Bacon) (excerpts) (supplemental)
Satire
 A Modest Proposal (Jonathan Swift)
Activities & Assessments: Oral presentation (memorization + presentation), seminars, research, blogs, supported theses.
2013-2014 College Prep IV Syllabus
Instructor: Michelle McCleese
mmccleese@minfordfalcons.net
Common Core Standards:
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RL.11-12.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as
inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.
RL.11-12.7: Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or
recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text. (Include at least one play by
Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist.)
RI.11-12.3: Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or
events interact and develop over the course of the text.
RI.11-12.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative,
connotative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms
over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines “faction” in Federalist No. 10).
RI.11-12.6: Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text in which the rhetoric is particularly effective,
analyzing how style and content contribute to the power, persuasiveness, or beauty of the text.
W.11-12.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate
to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
W.11-12.5: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new
approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for
conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grades 11–12 on page
54.)
SL.11-12.2: Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually,
quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed decisions and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and
accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the data.
IV. UNIT 4 European Literature: Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century – four weeks
Poetry
“Auguries of Innocence” and Songs of Innocence and of Experience (William Blake) (EA) (selected
poems)
 In Memoriam A. H. H.(Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
 “Ode on Indolence” and “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (John Keats) (excerpts)
 “The Deserted Village” (Oliver Goldsmith)
 “Tintern Abbey,” “London, 1802,” “The World is Too Much with Us,” “Ode: Intimations of Immortality”
(William Wordsworth) (excerpts)
Short Stories
 “Micromégas” (Voltaire)
 Additional Stories (TBA)
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Activities & Assessments: Oral presentation + recitation of poem, seminars, short essays, research essay.
Common Core Standards:
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RL.11-12.2: Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course
of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an
objective summary of the text.
RL.11-12.3: Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or
drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).
RI.11-12.5: Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or
argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging.
2013-2014 College Prep IV Syllabus
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Instructor: Michelle McCleese
mmccleese@minfordfalcons.net
W.11-12.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, wellchosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
W.11-12.7: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a selfgenerated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple
sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
W.11-12.8: Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced
searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience;
integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance
on any one source and following a standard format for citation.
L.11-12.2(a,b): Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English capitalization, punctuation, and
spelling when writing.
V. UNIT 5 European Literature: Nineteenth Century – eight weeks
LITERARY TEXT
Novels
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The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) (Student choice: outside
reading)
Poetry
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“The Raven” (Edgar Allen Poe)
“Annabel Lee” (Edgar Allan Poe)
“Dover Beach” (Matthew Arnold)
“Goblin Market” (Christina Rossetti)
“Love Among the Ruins” (Robert Browning)
Sonnet 43 (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
Nonfiction
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The Decay of Lying (Oscar Wilde) (EA)
The Origin of Species (Charles Darwin) (excerpts)
Activities & Assessments: poetry performance, seminars, (can begin research paper at this time), short essays
Common Core Standards:
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RL.11-12.3: Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or
drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).
RL.11-12.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and
connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with
multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful. (Include Shakespeare as well as
other authors.)
RI.11-12.2: Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text,
including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective
summary of the text.
W.11-12.5: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new
approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for
2013-2014 College Prep IV Syllabus
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Instructor: Michelle McCleese
mmccleese@minfordfalcons.net
conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grades 11–12 on page
54.)
W.11-12.7: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a selfgenerated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple
sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
W.11-12.8: Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced
searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience;
integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and over-reliance
on any one source and following a standard format for citation.
SL.11-12.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such
that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the
organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range or formal and
informal tasks.
L.11-12.5(a,b): Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word
meanings.
VI. UNIT 6 European Literature: Twentieth Century – six weeks
LITERARY TEXTS
Drama
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Novels
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Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
The Limehouse Text (Will Thomas) (optional)
Poetry
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“Archaic Torso of Apollo” (Rainer Maria Rilke)
“Conversation with a Stone” (Wisława Szymborska)
“Counter-Attack” (Siegfried Sassoon)
“Dreamers” (Siegfried Sassoon)
Four Quartets (T. S. Eliot) (EA)
Poem of the Deep Song (Federico García Lorca) (selections)
“Suicide in the Trenches” (Siegfried Sassoon)
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue (W.H. Auden) (EA)
The Wasteland (T. S. Eliot)
INFORMATIONAL TEXTS
Essays
 “Crisis of the Mind” (Paul Valéry)
Nonfiction
 The Ego and the Id (Sigmund Freud) (excerpts)
 Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche)
Speeches
 “Their Finest Hour” (House of Commons, June 18, 1940) (Winston Churchill)
Activities & Assessments: seminars, research paper, informative writing, oral presentation/memorization
Common Core Standards:
 RL.11-12.3: Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or
drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).
2013-2014 College Prep IV Syllabus
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Instructor: Michelle McCleese
mmccleese@minfordfalcons.net
RL.11-12.6: Analyze a case in which grasping point of view requires distinguishing what is directly stated in a text
from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement).
RL.11-12.10: By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the
high end of the grades 11–CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
RI.11-12.5: Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or
argument, including whether the structure makes points clear, convincing, and engaging.
W.11-12.7: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a selfgenerated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple
sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
W.11-12.8: Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced
searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience;
integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance
on any one source and following a standard format for citation.
SL.11-12.1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and
teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing
their own clearly and persuasively.
L.11-12.6: Acquire and use accurately general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for
reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in
gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.
TERMINOLOGY
Unit 1
Allegory
Anonymity
Caesura
“Dance of death”
Epic
Fabliaux
Farce
Foil
Framed narrative
Hyperbole
Icon (religious art)
Miracle, mystery, and morality
plays
Perspective (art and literature)
Symbol
Unit 2
Allusion
Classicism
Divine proportion (golden ratio,
golden mean)
Divine right of kings
Eclogue
Epistle
Fate
Free will
The Great Chain of Being
Humanism
Iambic pentameter
Iambic tetrameter
Idyll
Ode
Satire
Sonnet
Symmetry
Unit 3
Aesthetics
Allegory
Allusion
Argumentation
Authorial intent
Blank verse
Conceit
Dissent
Doubt
Dramatic irony
Enlightenment
Ethics
Fate
Free will
“In medias res”
Inductive reasoning
Metaphysical poetry
Paradox
Personification
Rationalism
Satire
Tragic flaw
Unit IV
Allegory
Allusion
Assonance
Defamiliarization
Digression
Elegy
Grotesque
Metaphor
Moral imperative
Narrative devices
Pastoral
Satire
Science fiction
Sturm und drang
Supernatural
Tall tale
Unreliable narrator
Unit 5
2013-2014 College Prep IV Syllabus
Antihero
Adventure
Caste systems
Decadence
Edwardian
Feminism
Foreshadowing
Framed narrative
Gender
Gothic
Horror
Narrator
Romanticism
Scientific rationalism
Social satire
Sprung rhythm
Symbol
Victorian
Worldview
Unit 6
Absurd
Affirmation
Instructor: Michelle McCleese
mmccleese@minfordfalcons.net
Anxiety
Dystopia
Existentialism
Free verse
Modernism
Negation
Neologism
Postmodernism
Rhetorical device
Satire
Totalitarianism
Understatement
RESEARCH REQUIREMENTS & PROCESS/COMMON CORE STANDARDS
A. Students conduct a study/survey of primary sources and critical secondary sources on a teacher-selected topic area
(e.g., the Scientific Revolution). Scholarly sources should serve as models for students as they develop an understanding of
the structure and depth of the formal research paper, as well as the research methods and writing techniques required for
producing them. The topic area should be of enduring interest, not ephemeral in nature. (RL.11-12.1, RL.11-12.2, RL.11-12.3,
RI.11-12.1, RI.11-12.2, RI.11-12.3, W.11-12.8)
B. Students develop a research question for independent study. The question may be related to ELA or to another content
area, such as art, history, or science (e.g., ―How did the Scientific Revolution in sixteenth-century Europe affect the
literature and literary nonfiction of seventeenth-century Europe?‖ ―What roles did Ptolemy and Copernicus play in
sparking the Scientific Revolution?‖ ―The Scientific Revolution in Art? The Case of Leonardo da Vinci‖). If the question is
related to another content area, students should work with both an ELA teacher and a teacher from the other content area
to develop the topic. (W.11-12.7, W.11-12.8)
C. Students submit a research question for the instructor’s approval. (W.11-12.7, W.11-12.8)
D. Students conduct research, putting a priority on using primary sources and learning effective methods to mine such
sources for information. When secondary sources are needed, teachers may instruct students in the use of academic data
sites. Teachers can stress the difference between periodicals and encyclopedic sources that can provide background
information and publications and books that are academic in nature. It is important to underscore the importance of
analyzing as many primary sources as possible (versus relying uncritically or solely on secondary sources). (RL.11- 12.1,
RL.11-12.2, RL.11-12.3, RI.11-12.1, RI.11-12.2, RI.11-12.3, W.11-12.7)
E. While reading the sources, students take notes. (Teacher-directed appropriate method for their students, such as note
cards, etc.) (W.11-12.7, W.11-12.8)
F. Students submit notes (note cards or an annotated bibliography) for review. (W.11-12.7, W.11-12.8)
G. Students, with their instructor’s help, categorize their notes and identify areas where more research is needed. (W.1112.7)
H. Having refined the research question as necessary, students write a preliminary thesis statement and draft outline.
(W.11-12.4, W.11-12.5, W.11-12.6)
I. Based on discussions with their teacher, students refine their thesis statements and outlines. (W.11-12.5, W.11-12.7)
2013-2014 College Prep IV Syllabus
Instructor: Michelle McCleese
mmccleese@minfordfalcons.net
J. Students compose the first draft of their papers. The rough draft should include:
a. Title Page
b. Abstract
c. Table of Contents
d. Introduction, including thesis statement
e. Body, including details that support the thesis statement
f. Conclusion
g. Endnotes
h. Illustrations (optional)
i. Appendices (if necessary)
j. Bibliography
(W.11-12.1 or W.11-12.2, W.11-12.4, W.11-12.5, W.11-12.6, W.11-12.7, W.11-12. 8, W.11-12.9W.11-12.10)
Students revise their work after soliciting feedback from their teacher and peers. Students may wish to ask a teacher from a
related content area for further input. (W.11-12.1 or W.11-12.2, W.11-12.4, W.11-12.5, W.11-12.6, W.11-12.7, W.11-12. 8, W.1112.9W.11-12.10)
K. Students edit their final drafts. (W.11-12.5, L.11-12.1, L.11-12.2, L.11-12.3)
L. Students submit final drafts. (W.11-12.1 or W.11-12.2, W.11-12.4, W.11-12.5, W.11-12.6, W.11-12.7, W.11-12. 8, W.11-2.9W.1112.10)
M. Students develop a speech, PowerPoint, or other kind of presentation in which they summarize their findings and answer
questions from their classmates or other panel members (i.e., parents or community members). (W.11-12.6, SL.11-12.4, SL.1112.5, SL.11-12.6)