SUBJECT AREA: English
GRADE LEVELS: 11 and 12
COURSE LENGTH: One School Year
5 Periods Per Week
COURSE TITLE: Advanced Placement English: Language and Composition
DATE: 10/12/14
COURSE DESCRIPTION/OVERVIEW:
This course is designed to prepare students for college level reading, writing, and analysis. The course
is designed around the following units of studies: Poetry, Drama, Fiction (Novel and Short Story), and
Expository Prose. Students will receive in-depth instruction in: literary analysis, literary terminology,
and approaches to writing in various formats. The course will also include tips on taking the AP
English Examinations, as well as practice testing on the AP English Examinations. Students will be
required to read specific works of literary merit and to demonstrate an understanding of these works
through class discussion, book notes, quizzes, and analytical essays. The course is designed to help
students become skilled and inferential readers of poetry and prose written in a variety of periods,
disciplines, and rhetorical contexts, and to become skilled writers who can compose for a variety of
purposes. This course parallels a first-year college composition course. Students are expected to take
the AP English Test in May in lieu of a final examination.
RESOURCES/INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS/TEXT:
Novels:
The Stranger by Albert Camus
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Native Son by Richard Wright
Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawethorn
Drama:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
King Lear by William Shakespeare
Short Stories:
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
Poetry:
“Autumn Song” By Dante Gabriel Rossetti
“Spring and Fall: To a Young Child” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
“Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
“Hope” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
“Hope is a Thing With Feathers” by Emily Dickenson
“Autumn Refrain” by Wallace Stevens
“The Unknown Citizen” by W.H. Auden
“Incident” by Countee Cullen
“I, Too” by Langston Hughes
“I Will to the King” by Wilfred Owens
“Love’s Diet” by John Donne
Holy Sonnets 10 and 14 by John Donne
“Fair is My Love” by Samuel Daniel
“Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat” by Thomas Gray
Sonnets by Shakespeare: 91, 146, 73, 18, 60, 55, 30, 71, 29
“A Description of the Morning” by Jonathan Swift
“The Birds” by Emily Dickenson
“Epistle to Miss Blount” by John Donne
Essays:
“The Dark of the Moon” by Eric Severeid
“Of Superstition” by Francis Bacon
Excerpt from “Life of Savage” by Samuel Johnson
Excerpt from “Of Seeming Wise” by Samuel Johnson
SUMMER READING: Two books from AP Novel Inventory, and respond in writing to reading
response questions that will be collected during the first class meeting.
MARKING PERIOD ONE:
Literature Studies:
Review and grade reading response questions for Summer Reading Book One
Instruction on Taking an Essay Test
Essay Test on Book One
Instruction on Five-Paragraph Essay Format
Instruction on AP English Writing Assessment Rubric – per College Board Standards
Analytical Essay on Book One
Review and grade reading response questions for Summer Reading Book Two
Essay Test on Book Two
Analytical Essay on Book Two
Study of “Elements of Plot in the Novel” and concluding quiz on same
Additional Writing Assignment:
College Essay
Vocabulary: Text” Word Roots B2: Learning the Building Blocks of Better Spelling and
Vocabulary
Instruction per Latin root, prefixes, and suffixes with pertinent worksheets and quizzes.