AP Literature and Composition
AP Literature and Composition at School of the Future its theme “The Search for Identity:
Rites of Passage and Self-Discovery in Classic and Contemporary Literature.” This topic
begins by asking students to engage with literary texts that invite critical examination of the
emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of a life well-lived. From here, students
move on to consider poetic representations of love (in all its permutations), from a range of
literary periods. The class will next consider, through a study of drama and the novel, how the
image of ourselves that is reflected in literature has shifted over time, as our perceptions of
our individual identities and our shared humanity have changed, and the artistic forms we use
to capture our essence have been revised and retooled.
This is an advanced literature course in which we will engage in close reading and analysis of
complex literary works. It is intended to provide students with an academic experience that
reflects the rigors of an introductory college-level literature class. Students will read a variety
of contemporary and classic texts from all major genres and periods not only to enhance their
appreciation of language and literary form, but also to envision themselves as beginning
scholars who have something to contribute to academic discourse. The focus of this course
will be on thoughtful, nuanced discussion and written analysis of the readings. Students will
have an opportunity to develop their critical reading and written communication skills
through discussion, group presentations, informal analytic writing, timed in-class essays, and
longer, more formal papers.
The course requires extensive reflective, critical, and creative writing, both in class and at
home, whose primary purpose will be to help students to develop confidence in grappling with
challenging, complex texts, appreciating their aesthetic merits, and producing persuasive
analytic essays that demonstrate a mastery of the elements of scholarly composition. Students
will regularly write timed in-class essays a and revise them based on my suggestions for
expansion and/or improvement. This class prepares students who conscientiously complete
all coursework for the Advanced Placement Literature and Composition Exam administered
May 8.
Course Evaluation Guidelines
Grading policy:
You should expect to receive reading and/or writing homework nightly. To hone your writing
skills and keep them sharp, you can also expect to craft regular in-class essays.
Please turn in all work on time. Late homework will not be accepted, and late papers and
projects will lose a percentage of the total value of the assignment for each day they are late. If
you are absent from class, it is your responsibility to see me about missed assignments on the
day of your return. If you know you will be out of class ahead of time (e.g., doctor’s
appointment, college visit), you must see me to get class handouts and
assignments before you leave. Your work will be due the day of your return.
Your final course grade will comprise the following elements:
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Writing (papers, smaller components of formal writing, in-class essays): 40%
Reading (notebook responses, AP-style critical reading quizzes): 30%
Discussion/speaking (class discussions, presentations, and performances): 20%
Work habits (homework, class work): 10%
Class materials:
Please bring a 2” binder to keep and organize all notebook responses, notes, course handouts,
and course readings. You should bring this to class with you every day.
Cell phone and lateness policy
Our time in class is precious. Please arrive to each class on time. Unexcused lateness or
absences will have a deleterious effect on your course grade.
Please do not allow yourself to be distracted by your cell phone in class. Students who are
texting in class will first be asked to put their phones away. If the cell phone emerges again, it
will rest comfortably in the instructor’s desk until the end of the period. If the cell phone
insists on making repeated appearances in class, its time in the instructor’s desk will extend
until the end of the school day. Parents who need to reach their children in an emergency
should contact the school office: (212) 475-8086.
I have read and understood the above class policies:
____________________________ __________________________
Your name (print)
Your signature and today’s date
AP Literature and Composition: Year-long Unit Overview and Text List
Unit 1: How should I live?
Skills focus: Sharpening close reading and analytic writing skills
Genre focus: The short story and novella
Main unit products:
Interpretive paper (one text), 5 pp.
In class essay exam: prose analysis
Text list:
Framework text:
Conclusion from Studies in the History of the Renaissance Walter Pater (excerpt)
Poetry:
“Introduction to Poetry” Billy Collins
“I Dwell in Possibility” Emily Dickinson
“The Pasture” Robert Frost
“Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” Robert Frost
“Blackberry Picking” Seamus Heaney
“Kitchenette Building” Gwendolyn Brooks
Short stories:
“The Untold Lie” Sherwood Anderson
“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” JD Salinger
“A Wall of Fire Rising” Edwidge Danticat
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” Flannery O’Connor
Novella:
The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy
Nonfiction excerpts:
“Of Kings’ Treasuries” John Ruskin
Studies in the History of the Renaissance Walter Pater
How to Read Literature Like a Professor Thomas C. Foster
Unit 2: How do we define and experience passion and love?
Skills focus: Literature explication and comparative analysis (exploring a poetic form, a poetic
movement, and a single poet’s body of work in depth)
Genre focus: Poetry
Main unit products:
Comparative paper on multiple works by your choice of poet, 7 pp.
Poem explication paper, 3 pp.
Original Sonnet
In-class essay exam: poem explication
Text List:
Framework text: Excerpt from The Four Loves C.S. Lewis
Poetic movement: Romanticism (and related poems on the relationship between
natural world, passion, and the divine):
“The world is too much with us” William Wordsworth
“My heart leaps up when I behold” William Wordsworth
“The Lamb” and “The Tyger” William Blake
“To Autumn” John Keats
“When I have fears that I may cease to be” John Keats
“Bright Star” John Keats
“The Daffodils” William Wordsworth
“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer” Walt Whitman
“I taste a liquor never brewed” Emily Dickinson
“Birches” Robert Frost
“The Snow Man” Wallace Stevens
Poems about or related to love in its many forms:
“Dover Beach” Matthew Arnold
“The Soul Selects Her Own Society” Emily Dickinson
“Sorting Laundry” Elisavietta Ritchie
“Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds” Shakespeare
“The Broken Heart” John Donne
“The Clod and the Pebble” William Blake
“Wild Nights! Wild Nights!” Emily Dickinson
“Living in Sin” Adrienne Rich
“Invitation to Love” Paul Lawrence Dunbar
“Briefly it Enters, Briefly it Speaks” Jane Kenyon
“A History of Sexual Preference” Robin Becker
“Promises Like Pie Crust” Christina Rosetti
“On Her Loving Two Equally” Aphra Behn
“To His Coy Mistress” Andrew Marvell
“Break of Day” John Donne
“Elegy for Jane” Theodore Roethke
“Stop all the Clocks” W.H. Auden
“French Toast” Anya Krugovoy Silver
“Nothing Gold Can Stay” Robert Frost
“They Flee from Me” Thomas Wyatt
“Clocks and Lovers (As I walked out one evening)” W.H. Auden
“Turbidophilia: Love of Trouble” Peter Pereira
Poetic structure: The Sonnet
“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” Shakespeare
“Death Be Not Proud” John Donne
“Ozymandias” Percy Bysshe Shelley
“Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” William Wordsworth
“How Do I Love Thee? Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“God’s Grandeur” Gerald Manley Hopkins
“Into My Own” Robert Frost
“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” Edna S.V. Millay
“We Must Die” Claude McCay
From 21 Love Poems, Adrienne Rich
“Smell” William Carlos Williams
Unit 3: How do I define myself? Who am I? (Part I: Drama)
Skills focus: analysis of ambiguous texts, analysis of the elements of tragedy and comedy
Genre focus: Drama
Main unit products:
Filmed scene from Hamlet, with accompanying explication paper 3-5 pp.
In-class essay exam: Prose analysis
Text list:
Framework text: “Song of Myself” (excerpt) Walt Whitman
Tragedy:
Hamlet William Shakespeare
Comedy:
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead Tom Stoppard
Film excerpts:
Hamlet, three versions:
1. David Tennant
2. Kenneth Branagh
3.Mel Gibson
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Tim Roth and Gary Oldman)
Unit 4: How do I define myself? Who am I? (Part 2: The novel)
Skills focus: Genre analysis, application of gender theory
Genre focus: Novel
Main unit products:
Ekphrastic poem (poem paired with image)
Comparative paper that focuses on genre and theme
In-class essay exam: Open-response essay
Text list:
Framework text: “Song of Myself” (excerpt) Walt Whitman
Nonfiction (excerpts):
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens Alice Walker
Poetry:
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” TS Eliot
“Portrait of a Lady” William Carlos Williams
“I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” Emily Dickinson
“Theme for English B” Langston Hughes
“A Completed Portrait of Picasso” Gertrude Stein
Ekphrastic Poetry (poetry that responds to art):
“Girl at a Sewing Machine” Edward Hopper (poem by Mary Leader)
“Mona Lisa” Leonardo Da Vinci (poem by John Stone)
“Nude Descending a Staircase” Marcel Duchamp (poem by XJ Kennedy)
Novels and short story:
The Awakening Kate Chopin
Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston
“A Rose for Emily” or “Barn Burning” William Faulkner
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight Vladimir Nabokov
Unit 5: Test prep and review
AP Literature and Composition Exam Date: Thursday, May 8