Course Title: Advanced Placement Literature
Instructor: Mr. McFarland
Contact information:
Email: mcmfarland@cheneysd.org
Phone: 559-4043
Best time to reach me: 7:45-8:10, 12:15-12:45, 2:50-3:10
AP English Literature and Composition
Syllabus
Course Description:
This course is designed for the college-bound student who is capable of doing college-level work while in
secondary school. It follows the curricular requirements described in the AP English Course Description.
[C1] During the year students will read extensively, analyzing elements of style and theme in a wide
variety of literary genres. The organization of the reading selections follows the chronological development
of the major ideas of western civilization, beginning with the Greeks and ending with modern writers of the
twentieth century. Through the reading, complex ideas will be discussed ranging from fate and individual
responsibility in the tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides to existential alienation of pre and post World
War II authors such as Camus. The student will expand comprehension by analyzing, interpreting, and
synthesizing information and ideas; and, the student will think critically about authors’ use of language,
style, purpose, and perspective. [C2]
Students in the class will also be required to write frequently and coherently for a variety of purposes.
Assignments include argumentative, expository, and analytical essays; short, timed in-class essays
responding to a specific literature-based prompt in preparation for the AP exam; short responses to
literature readings; and some creative writing opportunities. Students will rewrite all formal, out of class
essays using teacher suggestions as well as their own editing skills to improve their writing expertise.
Students will also learn to use a rubric in grading their own and other students’ papers. [C 3, C4, C5]
Individual student success is measured in a performance based assessment in the spring, the Advanced
Placement Exam, written and scored by the College Board. The success rate of students has been quite
good; students enrolled in AP Literature and Composition have consistently scored higher than either the
national or state averages. The real success of the class, however, is shown in the value placed on it by
individual students. Comments from former students and their parents indicate Advanced Placement
students perform very well in college, and they attribute some of that success to the Advanced Placement
curriculum
Course Content Strands:
Fall Trimester: [C2]
Classical Heritage: Antigone, Sophocles; Medea, Euripides; The King Must Die, Mary Renault; The
Medieval Period: The Inferno, Dante, Ciardi translation.
Reading Emphasis: [C2] the student will
 Understand and apply content/academic vocabulary critical to the meaning of the text.
 Apply understanding of text organizational structures.
 Analyze and evaluate the author’s use of literary devices.
 Analyze and evaluate the great literary works from a variety of cultures to determine their
contribution to the understanding of self, others, and the world.
The epic, myth theory and the tragic hero, The Iliad and The King Must Die (three weeks) [C2]
The first few days of fall trimester begin with a discussion of the ancient Greeks, the epic genre, the heroic
ideal, the hero-quest archetype, and myth theory. That discussion continues with the book, The King Must
Die, which is the story of the Greek mythic hero, Theseus. Theseus as fulfillment of the hero-quest
archetype is also part of the discussion as well as the constraints of moira and allowances for personal
freedom. The culminating assignment is an argumentative essay of three/four pages with a studentdetermined thesis relating to the heroic ideal, myth theory, or historic values of the time period. [C3,C4,C5]
Tragedy: comparison and contrast, Antigone and Medea (three weeks) [C2]
 Historical influences in the plays of Sophocles and Euripides.
 Modern use of Golden Age of Greece theatrical innovations.
 Lecture and notes from Aristotle’s “Poetics.”
 The tragic hero; Antigone, yes; Medea, no.
 Antigone: order disrupted and order restored.
 Medea: order disrupted and disorder continues.
 Women of strength in a male dominated society.
 Euripides’ Medea and The Trojan Women as protest literature.
Setting and Imagery: Dante’s Inferno (three weeks) [C2]
 Religious, historic and cultural values.
 Exploring Dante’s political and religious biases within the text.
 Exploring authorial choices in diction, imagery, sound devices.
 Setting: atmosphere, mood, and symbolic intent.
Tone: (three/four days) [C2, C3, C4]
 Worksheets on tone with examples and lists of word choices.
 Comparison of contrasting poems, “High Flight” and “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” with
discussion of tone.
 Short written analysis of tone in designated passages from The King Must Die.
Students will also have opportunities for practice in close reading and literary analysis using
AP multiple-choice exams and work sheets.
Writing Emphasis: the student will [C3, C4, C5]
 Analyze and select effective strategies for generating ideas and planning writing.
 Demonstrate understanding and appropriate use of effective structure in the essay.
 Analyze ideas, select a manageable topic, and elaborate in the text using specific, relevant details
and/or examples.
 Vary sentence structure consistent with purpose and form.
 Apply usage and punctuation rules.
 Revise text, including changing words, sentences, paragraphs and ideas.
 Demonstrate stylistic maturity.
 Develop timed writing skills focusing on careful reading, pertinent writing and rigorous evaluation
of essays.
Specific Writing Tasks, Fall Trimester:
 Literature comparison essay on The King Must Die
 Literature based paragraphs of literary analysis
 In-class responses to analytical prompts in preparation for the AP exam.
 Academic/Research: Group production of a newspaper from the Golden Age of Greece.
 Journals in response to the literature.
Winter Trimester: [C2]
The Short Story /50 Masterpieces
Writing About Literature, Roberts
Drama, selection from the Elizabethan period, Hamlet
Age of Enlightenment, Candide, Voltaire
Poetry, Sound and Sense
Reading Emphasis: [C2] The student will
 Apply comprehension strategies for complex narratives, and synthesize ideas from selections to
make inferences.
 Analyze story elements.
 Evaluate authors’/poets’ use of literary devices.
 Analyze web-based, print, and other resource materials (including primary and secondary sources)
for relevance in answering research questions.
 Analyze recurring themes in literature.
 Analyze and evaluate literary works from a variety of cultures to determine their contribution to
the understanding of self, others, and the world.
 Make intelligent comparisons between authors, themes, and time periods.
 Demonstrate understanding in a variety of genres: poetry, short stories, novels, and drama.
The Short Story: “Barn Burning,” William Faulkner; “The Egg,” Sherwood Anderson; “Sonny’s
Blues,” James Baldwin; a search for theme, meaning, and insight. (two weeks) [C2]
A group of modern short stories is interjected into the normal chronological development of the course
allowing students to work with shorter pieces of fiction to achieve a better understanding of meaning/theme
in a work of fiction.
 Students read “Writing About an Idea or a Theme: The Meaning and the Message in Literature,”
in Writing About Literature, by Edgar Roberts.
 Students read the three short stories, taking discussion notes.
 Student directed Socratic seminars discussing the stories.
 Class discussion of the three short stories focusing on how plot, characterization, imagery, and
figurative language contribute to understanding of meaning.
 Student essay of three/four pages using textual details of one of the stories to discuss theme or
meaning. [C3,C4, C5]
Hamlet: study of character, motivation, tragedy, and the “poisoned kingdom.” (Four/five weeks)
[C2]
 Daily reading assignments with double-entry journal quotations/questions for each day’s
discussion.
 Written analysis of a designated soliloquy. [C2. C3]
 Character web.
 “The readiness is all”: the Hamlet/Theseus connection.
 Discussion/comparison Aristotle’s definition of tragedy with structure of the play, Hamlet.
 A one-day field trip will be scheduled at the local university academic library for students to do
research for the critical essay they will write on the play.
 Socratic seminars discussing motivation and character.
Voltaire, the Age of Reason, Candide, and satire. (two weeks) [C2]
 Voltaire, the age, and the motivation for the writing of Candide: class notes and discussion.
 Candide and the picaresque hero: comparison with Huckleberry Finn and Forrest Gump
 Definition/ discussion of satire and explanation of Addison’s Rule.
 Teacher given examples of modern satire.
 Student generated examples of modern satire, discussing the “reform” intended, the effect of the
humor, and whether it follows Addison’s Rule.
Poetry unit: Sound and Sense (four-five weeks) [C2, C3,C4]
The individual chapters of Sound and Sense are used as an organizing device for this unit. The first
assignment is a creative, descriptive, timed-write that the student will eventually turn into a six-line poem.
It is designed to help answer the question posed in the book, “What is Poetry?” The poems listed with each
of the following section are just some of the poems used.
Poetry as a communication of experience using language that is compressed and highly charged:
 “Dulce Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen
 “Winter” by William Shakespeare
 “The Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall
Speaker/voice, setting, occasion, central purpose
 “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy
 “Is my team plowing” by A.E. Houseman
 “The Mill” by Edward Arlington Robinson
 “When in Rome” by Mari Evans
Denotation/Connotation: What do the words mean?
 “Naming of Parts” by Henry Reed
 “The Naked and the Nude” by Robert Graves
Imagery: the poet’s choice of sensory details.
 “A Late Aubade” by Richard Wilbur
 “Living in Sin” by Adrienne Rich
 “To Autumn” by John Keats
With the study of “To Autumn” a figurative device is discussed as well, apostrophe.
Figurative Language: “saying one thing and meaning another” (Robert Frost as quoted in Sound and
Sense, 60). simile, metaphor, personification, metonymy.
 “Bereft” by Robert Frost
 “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” by John Donne
 “Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes
Allusion and symbolic meaning.
 “’Out, Out—’” by Robert Frost
 “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot
Rhythm and Meter: a brief look at what moves the poem along.
 Foot, line, and stanza.
 Blank verse
 Free verse
The teaching/learning in this unit takes place in a variety of ways. Students participate in individual and
group analysis of designated poems after a concept has been taught. Some all-class discussion is used as
well. Students also have an opportunity to individually or with a partner teach a poem to the class. Within
that teaching experience they are required to do research on the poem, involve the class in some way with
the teaching (such as a Socratic seminar), and then have some kind of assessment to “test” the learners. In
addition, students have opportunities for written analyses of poems. Several free response/poetry questions
from past AP exams are used as well. The culminating assignment is a poetry “test” in which the student
will analyze Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” demonstrating his/her ability to write a short paraphrase of the poem
and to discuss figurative language, allusion, tone, sound devices, and the central purpose of the poem. [C2,
C3, C4]
Writing Emphasis: the student will [C3, C4, C5]
 Analyze and select effective strategies for generating ideas and planning writing.
 Demonstrate understanding and appropriate use of effective structure in the essay.







Analyze ideas, select a manageable topic, and elaborate in the text using specific, relevant details
and/or examples.
Vary sentence structure consistent with purpose and form.
Apply usage and punctuation rules.
Revise text, including changing words, sentences, paragraphs and ideas.
Demonstrate stylistic maturity.
Develop timed writing skills focusing on careful reading, pertinent writing, and rigorous
evaluation of essays.
Demonstrate ability to use appropriate documentation in using primary and secondary sources.
Specific Writing Tasks, Winter Trimester:
Academic/ Research: Critical analytical essay, Hamlet, using primary and secondary sources.
 Discussion/instruction, handouts, MLA format in preparation for the formal essay. [C5]
 In-class conferences on student writing/planning for the essay. [C5]
 Post first draft activity as shown in Fall Writing Emphasis.
Literature based argumentative essay; essay on theme or meaning in a designated short story.
 Students in peer groups discussing theme/meaning in short stories in preparation for the essay.
 In-class conferences on student writing/planning for the essay.
 Post first draft activity as shown in Fall Writing Emphasis.
Literature based paragraphs of analysis for both prose and poetry
Creative writing opportunities with some of the poems.
In-class response to analytical prompts in preparation for the AP exam.
Journals in response to the literature.
Spring Trimester: [C2, C3, C4, C5]
Twentieth Century (Modernism)
Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy; Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad; The Stranger, Camus; short
story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place,” Ernest Hemingway; Lord of the Flies, William Golding; Obasan, Joy
Kogawa.
Eight Modern Essayists (non-fiction)
Writing About Literature, Roberts
Reading Emphasis [C2]
Apply comprehension monitoring strategies for informational materials and complex narratives: synthesize
ideas from selections to make inferences.
Analyze story elements.
Evaluate the author’s use of literary devices.
Analyze text to generalize, express insight, or respond by connecting to other texts or situations.
Analyze and evaluate the great literary works from a variety of cultures to determine their contribution to
the understanding of self, others, and the world.
Modernism and the author’s voice: Tess of the D Urbervilles (two and a half weeks for in-class work.
The book will be assigned for out of class reading toward the end of winter trimester) [C2, C3, C4]
 Cultural and historical values.
 A changing world: imagery and figurative devices.
 Fate, chance, or an unfriendly universe: inferences that illuminate Hardy’s world view.
 Essential Question: Hardy’s “tragic figure.” Class and group discussions
 In-class response to analytical prompt from previous AP exam using Tess as chosen novel.
Symbolic landscapes: Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies: comparison/contrast (four weeks for
in-class work) [C2, C3,C4,C5]
 Cultural and historic values.
 Setting and characters as symbols.
 Marlow: the examined life.
 Student-generated symbolic map of Marlow’s journey.





“The horror! The horror!” Class discussion/Socratic seminar.
Symbol and meaning in Lord of the Flies.
Marlow’s “surface necessities” and Piggy’s civilizing “necessities.”
The ultimate epiphanies: Marlow in Heart of Darkness and Ralph in Lord of the Flies.
“Writing about Setting: . . .Place, Objects, and Culture in Literature” (Roberts, Writing about
Literature), in preparation for an essay on setting using either Heart of Darkness or Lord of the
Flies.
Obasan: narrative techniques, recurring symbols and motifs (two and a half weeks) [C2]
 Cultural and historic values
 Narrative: fragmented memories, shifting time periods.
 The rooting of characters’ lives in changing times through family and tradition.
 White chickens, yellow chickens, recurring symbols.
 Dream motifs.
 The “Objective Correlative” project: a creative project in which the student designs something
concrete such as a reader’s theater, story board, a letter protesting human rights violations, etc.
correlating the emotion felt from reading the novel with a concrete, sensory, created object.
Existentialism: “I can say No, therefore I exist” (Bigelow 172). [C2]
This unit is included only if it fits within the confines of a busy trimester. It is out of order chronologically
because I want students to experience Lord of the Flies and Obasan before the AP exam. If we do not
have time to read The Stranger, we will read a short story instead; “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” by
Ernest Hemingway.
 Students will read and discuss excerpts from “A Primer of Existentialism.”
 The Stranger: existence before essence, alienation and estrangement, the encounter with
nothingness.
 “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” fear, angst; the encounter with nothingness.
The year ends with a unit on the personal essay. Using the book, Eight Modern Essayists, each student will
make an essay “his/hers,” by reading a chosen essay, researching the author, and then reporting on both to
the class. The student will briefly summarize the essay, discuss the most important/interesting parts, read a
few interesting lines, and discuss purpose or theme. This is in preparation for their final written paper in the
class, the student’s own personal essay. [C2,C5]
Writing Emphasis: the student will [C3,C4,C5]
 Analyze and select effective strategies for generating ideas and planning writing.
 Demonstrate understanding and appropriate use of effective structure in the essay.
 Analyze ideas, select a manageable topic, and elaborate in the text using specific, relevant details
and/or examples.
 Vary sentence structure consistent with purpose and form.
 Apply usage and punctuation rules.
 Revise text, including changing words, sentences, paragraphs and ideas.
 Demonstrate stylistic maturity.
 Develop timed writing skills focusing on careful reading, pertinent writing, and rigorous
evaluation of essays.
 Demonstrate understanding of audience, purpose, and form.
Specific Writing Tasks, Spring Trimester:
Literature based analytical essay on the effects of setting in a novel using either Heart of Darkness or Lord
of the Flies.
 Read and discuss chapter, “An Essay on Setting” in Roberts’ Writing About Literature.
 In-class conferences on student writing/planning for the essay.
 Post first draft activity as shown in Fall Writing Emphasis.
Personal reflection: personal essay
 Discussion of designated personal essays read in class in preparation for student’s own essay.
 Discussion/review of voice, purpose, and audience.
Academic: in-class response to analytical prompts in preparation for the AP exam.
 Journals in response to the literature.
Student Evaluations:
The following assessment options will be utilized in this course:
 Multiple-choice questions
 Short answer questions
 Extended-response questions
 Writing assignments in which a concept is explained in detail
 Group and individual projects
 Comprehensive assessments in which a variety of responses are used in combination to assess a
number of concepts
 Class discussion eliciting oral response
 Small group discussions
 Socratic seminars
 Individual response to teacher’s questions
 Performance assessment writing assignments showing argumentative, expository, and analytical
constructs/modes.
Formal and informal essays and writing assignments:
Tests, quizzes and projects:
Daily work, notes, discussions, etc.
Grading Scale: A 93-100%
A- 90-92.99%
B+ 88-89.99%
B 83-87.99%
42%
45%
13%
B- 80-82.99%
C+ 78-79.99%
C 73-77.99%
C- 70-72.99%
D+ 68-69.99%
D 60-67.99%
F 0-59.99%
Texts:
Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno. New York: Penguin, 1982.
Anderson, Sherwood. “The Egg.” The Short Story: 50 Masterpieces, ed. Ellen Wynn. New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1983.
Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Signet Classics, 1989.
Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” The Short Story: 50 Masterpieces, ed. Ellen Wynn. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983.
Camus. Albert. The Stranger. United States of America: Vintage Books, 1954.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: New American Library, 1950.
Euripides. Medea. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, fifth edition. Maynard
Mack, et. al., eds. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1985.
Faulkner, William. “Barn Burning.” The Short Story: 50 Masterpieces, ed. Ellen Wynn. New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983.
Golding, William. Lord of the Flies. New York: Capricorn Books, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959.
Hemingway, Ernest. “A Clean Well-Lighted Place.” The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway.
United States of America: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966.
Hosseini, Khaled. The Kite Runner. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2003.
Payne, Lucille Vaughn. The Lively Art of Writing. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1975.
Perrine, Laurence and Thomas R. Arp, eds. Sound and Sense, An Introduction to Poetry. Fort
Worth: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1992.
Renault, Mary. The King Must Die. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet, eds. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, New Folger Edition.
New York: Washington Square Press, 1992.
Smart, William, ed. Eight Modern Essayists, Fifth Edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990.
Sophocles. Antigone. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces, fifth edition. Maynard
Mack, et. al., eds. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1985.
Voltaire. Candide. London, England: Penguin Books, 1992.
Teacher Resources:
Bigelow, Gordon E. “A Primer of Existentialism.” College English. December, 1961.
Fleming, Margaret, ed. Teaching the Epic. United States: National Council of Teachers of
English, 1974.
Gibaldi, Joseph and Walter S. Achtert. MLA Handbook. New York: Modern Language
Association of America, 1988.
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. Boston, Massachusetts: Little, Brown, and Company, 1969.
Payne, Lucille Vaughn. The Lively Art of Writing. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, 1975.
Pipher, Mary. Writing to Change the World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.
Thrall, William Flint, Addison Hibbard, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. New
York: The Odyssey Press, 1960.