Syllabus Advanced Placement Literature and Composition 2014-2015
East Ridge High School
Ms. Blair
blairb@lake.k12.fl.us
Course Focus/Description
Welcome to AP Literature and Composition, a class designed to be the equivalent of a college course. This course is a
year-long, and focuses on the reading and analysis of texts of literary merit, as well as the writing of analytical papers. Be
prepared to experience some of the world’s great literature; to read widely and critically; to write extensively and for a
variety of purposes; and to prepare for the AP Literature and Composition Exam, which will be given in May 2015. The
pace is lively and the expectations are high. Students are required to complete reading assignments on a weekly basis
using strategies and techniques that convey comprehension of an author’s use of rhetoric, diction, syntax, symbols,
structure, sound, repetition, imagery and irony. Students will also write to show comprehension of the author’s use of
literary elements (setting, point of view, character, symbols, structure, themes, tone and style, etc.), and the perspective
that an author brings to their work based on their background. Since poetry is a major part of the AP Literature and
Composition Exam, there will be time devoted to the analysis and understanding of poetry along with much practice in
mastering those skills. Students are required to write bi-weekly poetry responses that enable them to analyze poetry from
an objective and academic perspective. The bi-weekly poetry responses are analytical and will allow the students to
research the thematic, historical, structural, and autobiographical significance of the poetry researched. My job is to
facilitate learning, which will allow students to succeed in this class, college and life. It is the responsibility of each
student in class to keep up with the calendar of assignments, notes, and reading.
Texts:
Meyer’s The Bedford Introduction to Literature 8th Edition (provided)
Guerin’s A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature (provided)
Thomas Foster’s How To Read Literature Like A Professor (student must provide)
Novels:
J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye
Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man
George Orwell’s 1984
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
(Note: All of the above titles must be provided
by the student)
Plays:
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll House
(Note: the last title is in the text; the others
must be provided)
Poetry:
Assorted British and American authors as assigned.
Course Expectations/Elements of the course
In AP Literature and Composition, we will:
 Practice responsibility and independence in learning (arrange make up work, have all assignments and materials
ready for class, etc.)
 Read extensively, deeply, and carefully from a variety of texts, genres, and time periods in English literature
 Examine literature as a reflection of history, culture, and ideas, noting larger historical and philosophical contexts
 Utilize close reading techniques necessary for critical thinking and for AP examinations
 Practice writing under timed circumstances in the classroom
 Compose regularly, using expository, analytical, and argumentative forms of writing
 Rewrite/edit and use compositions from our class to identify strengths and weaknesses in syntax, organization,
coherence, ratios of generalization and concrete detail, diction, voice, and sentence structure
1






Research and write MLA papers longer than essay length; give oral presentations of research
Write a college application essay
Reflect on what we are reading and learning through writing, class discussion, and Socratic seminars.
Enjoy the lively and respectful exchange of ideas in our classroom
Identify literary elements through our close reading, and how the use of those literary elements add to the author’s
style and message
Grammar will be taught with bi-weekly mini lessons, and issues addressed as needed
Additional Supplies:




Laptop, iPad, or smart phone may be used during specific assignments
Notebook, pens, pencils, note cards, post it notes, highlighters in different colors
Dictionary/thesaurus as needed (online is acceptable)
Various Handouts (as assigned)
Course Assignments: A close reading and annotation of reading assignments is expected without too much teacher
direction. Quizzes on material and/or outside reading assignments are given at the teacher’s discretion; they are
unannounced. Students will write numerous timed in-class essays and some longer out-of-class papers, such as research
papers using MLA formatting. Papers are graded based on scoring guides aligned with the AP test, and will need to display:
Insight, (comprehension of the authors use of writing techniques and their effect on the novel, poem, etc.); Purpose (analysis
of author’s choices and how they relate to the whole); Support (the use of appropriate and meaningful quotes from the text
to back up student insights).
Peer evaluation will be an important tool for improvement. Often, passages from student papers will be shared with the
class (without the student’s name) and the class will analyze the paper (style, organization, diction, syntax, etc.) with an
effort to improve all students’ writing. All comments should be constructive and critical in nature, and this technique is not
done to embarrass any student. If a student does not want a particular passage peer-critiqued, he/she should note that on the
paper before it is turned in; however, this may not be allowed on all papers. Grading rubrics vary with the assignments, but
in general, rubrics for writing follow the AP nine-point scales. Other assignments may require active discussion, group
work, peer response, acting, memorization, and thinking outside of the box.
Please take advantage of the teacher’s office hours on most Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, from 2:45 -3:45, by
appointment only, please.
Grading Policy:
Grades are taken as a total point value
Letter Grade
A -------- 90-100
B -------- 80-90
C -------- 70-79
D --------- 60-69
F --------- 59-0
All assignments should be individual work unless stated otherwise (do not consult nefarious online “experts” or work
cooperatively on an individual assignment). If you are uncertain about what qualifies as individual work, please see me
before completing the assignment. All late assignments are penalized one letter grade for each day late. Some
assignments may not be accepted late and will receive a zero. All word-processed assignments should be turned in via
email before the class begins on due dates. All hard copies should be printed before you come to class. You will not be
able to print out your paper in class.
Calendar:
All assignments are posted on the classroom calendar, as well as the Calendar of Assignments on my school website. Please
visit this often, so you can schedule your assignment work around other class work and extra-curricular activities.
2
Course Content
Semester One:
Week 2-3
At the beginning of our course, annotation of text is emphasized, and our class will show learning, comprehension and
usage of elements of literary analysis and essay writing at a college level.



Review the requirements of the AP Literature and Composition Exam, so they are fully prepared for the course
work that lies ahead of them.
Review annotation/close reading by using Mortimer Adler’s essay, “How to Mark a Book.” Answer questions and
review.
Practice multiple choice question sections from past exams.
Homework
1. Bedford 8th ed, Reading Fiction p13-19 and Writing about Fiction p 47-66
2. Begin our Master Vocabulary List, creating study cards for 10 words per week, and practicing sentence creation
using varied sentence types. Quizzes will occur every other week, and contain ten of the twenty words studied
over a two week period.
Week 4-7






Begin practice on text annotation using short stories and essays.
Discuss the ideas expressed in Thomas Foster’s book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, and review
student essays using the book, through peer evaluation and objective criticism.
Literary elements and their functions are used to evaluate how authors utilize these elements to strengthen writing
and give it additional depth of meaning.
Students will review several short stories and practice text annotation. Short story study will include but not be
limited to: The Story of an Hour, A&P, Barn Burning, The Lottery, A Rose for Emily, Everyday Use, Araby,
Cathedral, The Yellow Wall Paper, Sonny’s Blues, The Storm, Teenage Wasteland, A Worn Path, A Clean-Well
Lighted Place, A Good Man is Hard to Find, The Chrysanthemums, Young Goodman Brown, Happy Endings,
Dead Men’s Path, The Appointment in Samara, The Camel and his Friends, and Lust.
Students are to look at texts through various “lenses.”
Students will participate in reading and analyzing past AP test essays and multiple-choice as practice for the test.
Homework
1. Students will begin to create literary terms flash cards, first pop quiz on the A’s to occur during week 8.
2. Students will begin to read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Students will write a 4-7 page research
paper in MLA format on a social or teenage issue, such as but not limited to: depression, death of a sibling, anger
and violence, alcohol abuse, adolescent sexuality, teenage talk/jargon, lying, or feeling of loneliness and isolation.
3. Continue working on Master Vocabulary List
Week 8-9


Review Summer Reading Assignments and begin to recognize the importance to a text of the main characters
(names and descriptions), narrative point of view, setting (with attention to important imagery), main conflicts
and their resolutions, themes, significant/important passages, any shifts in narrator/significant changes in
character, important descriptions of places, literary devices (foreshadowing, symbolism, allusion, metaphor, tone,
diction, etc.) and themes and ideas from our summer reading texts in class discussion and quizzes.
Read and discuss chapter #21-22 in Bedford 8th ed. Reading poetry and Writing about Poetry
3






Begin monthly poetry essays. Students write to discover, explain, and evaluate from their current or past reading
how various literary devices function in passages and to familiarize themselves with the language/vocabulary of
literary discourse. Students provide the context, concept, and connection of the terms to passages they are
reading.
Review various grammatical and syntactical structures, especially subordination and coordination, the use of
punctuation to clarify meaning, and how to punctuate various ideas in writing (repetition, parallelism, transition,
emphasis).
Students will read pg. 829-836 in Bedford 8th ed. (Word Choice, Word Order, Tone)
In order to analyze and interpret the author’s diction, syntax, and tone students will read some of the following:
Homage to my Hips, Song of the Open Road, Siren Song, When I consider how my light is spent, Tennyson’s
Ulysses, Naming of Parts, The One Girl at a Boy’s Party, Kublah Khan, Spring and Fall, somewhere I have never
traveled, The Tyger, Daddy, My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun, On My first Son A Strange Beautiful
Woman. The list is not all-inclusive.
Student led discussions of the above listed works will occur during class time in order to ensure that students can
discuss and write about how diction, syntax, and tone add to the meaning of a literary work.
Learn to use the TPS-FASTT mnemonic device for approaching poetry with a variety of poems and poetry. TPCASTT includes:
1. Mining the title for clues about the meaning of the poem
2. Reading and paraphrasing literally the lines of the poem
3. Identifying the speaker of the poem
4. Noting all uses of figurative language in the poem
5. Determining the attitude of the speaker toward his/her subject
6. Locating any shifts in topic, point of view, tone, and structure and determining why those shifts occur
7. Re-examining the title of the poem, focusing on possible meanings after a closer reading of the poem
8. Stating a theme, or overall meaning of the poem
Homework
1. Create or print notes on poetic devises from website. (Due Week 8)
2. Begin reading Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.
3. Students will read numerous critical literary analysis essays on how diction, syntax, and tone affect poetry.
4. Continue working on Master Vocabulary List.
5. Continue flash-card creation for literary terms. Second pop quiz during week 14.
Week 10-11







Read and annotate poems weekly. Continue monthly poetry analysis essays.
Among the poems discussed and analyzed are The Winter Evening Settles Down, The Fish, A Route of
Evanescence, Pied Beauty, The Runner, El Hombre, Silos, Poem, Cavalry Crossing a Ford, Dover Beach, Heat,
What It’s Like to Be a Black Girl, To Autumn, The Panther, Home-Baked Bread, Shall I Compare thee to a
summer’s day?, Macbeth Act V, Scene V, My Life Had Stood – A Loaded Gun, Flower in the Crannied Wall,
Metaphors, Simile, The Silken Tent, The Secret Sits, The Flea, Oh, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose, You Fit into
Me, Mirror, To a Wasp, Schizophrenia, A Valediction, Forbidding Mourning, Marks, Chess, and The Joy of
Cooking.. List is not all inclusive.
Students exposed to poetry response questions from AP Literature and Composition exams.
Student led discussions through the use of Socratic Seminars.
Participate in the oral tradition of these poems by reading some passages aloud in class.
Learn about poetic meter and literary devices used in epic poetry.
Student will read Robert Frost’s The Importance of Poetic Metaphor and Searle’s Figuring Out Metaphors
Homework
1. Students will complete their reading of The Metamorphosis, and begin the Metamorphosis project.
2. Continue working on Master Vocabulary List.
3. Continue flash-card creation for literary terms.
4
Week 12-14









Presentation of Metamorphosis Projects to the class.
Work first together as a class, in pairs, and then, individually, to analyze poetry using TP-CASTT handouts and
other methods.
Use the analytical essays in class to discuss textual analysis, interpretation, and use of detail paying particular
attention to use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone.
Participate in an optional individual writing conference after I have graded papers with the AP nine-point rubric.
Continue to write daily (or nearly daily) in our class journal assignment, Voice Lessons.
Continue to evaluate our own writing using a 9-point rubric.
Students examine how symbol, allegory, and irony add to the meaning and interpretation of poetry.
Students will read, analyze, and present on the following poems: Acquainted with the Night, The Boston Evening
Transcript, The Road not Taken, The Haunted Palace, The Cop and the Anthem, Good Country People, and
Richard Cory. List of poems are not all inclusive.
Students will read Ezra Pound’s On Symbols
Homework
1. Students will begin reading Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison.
2. Continue working on Master Vocabulary List.
3. Continue flash-card creation for literary terms. Third pop quiz during week 15.
Week 15-16
 Students read Some Principles of Meter p981 and Suggestions for Scanning a Poem p985 in Bedford’s 8th ed.
 Students will scan poems for their rhythm and meter. Among the poems scanned are The Lamb, The Tyger, Fox
Trot, Fridays, Delight in Disorder, My Papa’s Waltz, We Real Cool, Break, Break Break, Smell, Slow, Slow
,Fresh Fount, Keep Time with my Salt Tears, and Because I could not stop for death.
 In-class essay on “Blackberry Picking” (AP prompt).
 Peer evaluation of in-class essay on poetry #2 including analysis of poem and review of samples from College
Board; compare with previous poetry prompt essay; determine best written product.
Homework
1. Students continue reading and analyzing Ellison’s Invisible Man.
2. Continue working on Master Vocabulary List.
3. Continue flash-card creation for literary terms.
Week 17-18




Students finish reading Ellison’s Invisible Man and complete the final assessment on the novel.
Students conduct an in-depth study of the Sonnet, Villanelle, Sestina, Ode, Elegy, Epigram, and other closed
forms of poetry.
Partners paraphrase and analyze importance of structure in Shakespearean sonnets – “That Time of Year” and
“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day.”
Students will read How Do I Love Thee, Joy Sonnet in a Random Universe, Let me not to the Marriage of True
Minds, What my Lips Have Kissed, and Where and Why, Of Treason, This Englishwoman, Prayer, Epigram
Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness, Ozymandias, Epitaph on Elizabeth, Stop
all the clocks, Sestina, Ode on Grecian Urn, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, Traffic Jam, Ballad of Billy
the Kid, After Making Love We Hear Footsteps, Emily Dickinson’s Defunct, The Hyphenated Man, and Rite of
Passage. List of poems is not all-inclusive.
5


Peer evaluation of in-class essay on poetry #2 including analysis of poem and review of samples from College
Board; compare with previous poetry prompt essay; determine best written product/
Revise essays, noting techniques for better logical organization.
Homework
1. Students begin reading and analyzing The Things they Carried.
2. Continue working on Master Vocabulary List.
3. Continue flash-card creation for literary terms. Third pop quiz during week 19.
Week 19-20
 Students will discuss elements of the multiple-choice exam and strategies for taking the exam.
 Working in small groups students will analyze the kinds of questions that appear on an AP Literature exam using
an actual exam from the past.
 After analyzing the questions, students will group questions in to similar categories.
 Students will now read a passage that has no questions and then write questions for the passage using the
categories they established from the earlier work. Each question must address a different skill.
 Students will use their knowledge and practice to take a practice multiple-choice test.
 Introduction to Macbeth: assign parts; introduce characters, themes, and motifs in Macbeth.
 Begin reading Macbeth Act I. Read, discuss, and answer questions.
Homework
1. Students continue reading and analyzing The Things they Carried
2. Students will complete Macbeth Webquest from home and turn in for credit.
3. Continue working on Master Vocabulary List.
4. Continue flash-card creation for literary terms.
Week 21-22
 Macbeth: read, analyze, discuss, and answer questions.
 Begin Macbeth Writing: In this assignment, we keep a log with various options for writing assignments (asking
questions, summarizing, imaginative conversations with characters, explication of text, discussion of word choice,
analysis of character/ relationships/decisions, analysis of dramatic technique, etc.), due each Friday during our
study of the play.
 In-class AP essay prompt (poetry).
 Complete Act I discussion and analysis; answer questions on worksheet.
 Macbeth Act II– Read, analyze, discuss, and answer questions.
 AP multiple-choice
 Macbeth Act III discussion and analysis; view video clip.
Homework
1. Students continue reading and analyzing The Things they Carried
2. Continue working on Master Vocabulary List.
3. Continue flash-card creation for literary terms. Last pop quiz during week 23.
Week 23-24
 Read, discuss, and analyze the motifs, symbols, and themes in Macbeth
 Exam on Macbeth; final project due for The Things They Carried
 Students respond to an AP essay prompt
 Students complete Shakespeare’s Macbeth and complete final assessment
Homework
1. Students begin to read and analyze 1984.
2. Students begin project using modern day comparisons to Orwell’s 1984. Final project will be presented in class.
6
3. Complete Master Vocabulary List.
Week 25-28





Introduction to Ibsen’s A Doll House.
In-class reading and analysis of A Doll House
Analysis of the main characters in A Doll House (characterization)
Analysis of the motifs in A Doll House
Students complete Ibsen’s A Doll House. and complete final assessment
Homework
1. Students begin webquest and presentation using modern day comparisons to Orwell’s 1984. Final project
will be presented in class.
Week 29-32 Exam boot camp













Review the importance of insight, support, and purpose in analyzing literature and writing about it.
Review how to analyze diction, attitude, and tone.
Review how to recognize and analyze satire, irony and humor.
Review multiple-choice test taking strategies.
Students will evaluate the timed practice AP exam administered week 29-30.
Students will calculate their own score through the results of the Multiple Choice test and three essays.
Students will determine predicted score from 1 – 6.
Students will evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses. Review materials in their weak area(s) will be
provided. Students may work with a trusted peer to allow them to look at their own writing objectively.
Prepare note cards on our favorite literary works. This may include poetry, novels or plays, which we have
studied this year, or those you have studied in the past. These must all be of literary merit to be considered for
essay writing on the AP exam.
Review time management techniques for test taking.
Review testing procedures and materials.
Practice prose passage analysis.
Practice poetry passage analysis.
Review any areas of weakness as prompted by students.
Homework
1. Continue to read and analyze 1984, and work on presentation due week 34.
2. Rest and get ready for the exam.
Week 33-34
 Begin in class reading and analysis of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.
 Students will begin researching the college application process
 Students will learn about and write numerous Personal Statement college admissions essays
 Students will create their own personal data inventory
 Students will list their academic records and accomplishments
 Students will present 1984 project to the class.
Week 35-36: Final Exam Preparation
 Students will create study guide for final exam
 Students will create study groups to prepare for final exam
 Students will complete and submit College Portfolio Assignment
7
Syllabus Disclaimer: Information contained in this syllabus is, to the best knowledge of this instructor, considered
correct and complete when distributed to the student. The instructor reserves the right, acting within policies and
procedures of the Lake County School District, to make necessary changes in course content or instructional techniques
without prior notice or obligation to the student.
8