A.P. Literature and Composition
2012-2013
Mrs. Erin Braune
Henryville High School
Room 512
Phone: (812)2942455
Email: emccartin@wclark.k12.in.us; mccartine@gm ail.com
Office Hours: before or after school; Gold 4
The course overview and objectives for the course are taken from the AP ® English Course
Description published by the College Board. The choice of texts is based on the representative
authors list found therein. All authors chosen for the course come from that particular list. This
course will provide you with the intellectual challenges and workload consistent with a typical
undergraduate university English literature/Humanities course. As a culmination of the course,
you will take the AP English Literature and Composition Exam given in May. A grade of 4 or 5 on
this exam is considered equivalent to a 3.3–4.0 for comparable courses at the college or
university level. A student who earns a grade of 3 or above on the exam will be granted college
credit at most colleges and universities throughout the United States.
Course Description
Course Overview and Objectives:
Students will:
· carefully read and critically analyze imaginative literature.
· understand the way writers use language to provide meaning and pleasure.
· consider a work’s structure, style, and themes as well as such smaller scale elements as
the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone.
· study representative works from various genres and periods (from the sixteenth to the
twentieth century) but to know a few works extremely well.
· understand a work’s complexity, to absorb richness of meaning, and to analyze how
meaning is embodied in literary form.
· consider the social and historical values a work reflects and embodies.
· write focusing on critical analysis of literature including expository, analytical, and
argumentative essays as well as creative writing to sharpen understanding of writers’
accomplishments and deepen appreciation of literary artistry.
· become aware of, through speaking, listening, reading, and chiefly writing, the
resources of language: connotation, metaphor, irony, syntax, and tone.
Primary Texts:
The school will provide you with certain novels, plays, and hand outs used for this course, as
well as the primary textbook.
· Atwood, Margaret. The Hand maid’s Tale. New York: O. W. Toad, 1986. Print.
· Aufses, Robin, et al. Literature and Composition. Boston: Bedford St. Martin’s,
2011. Print.
· Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. London: Puffin, 1991. Print.
· Ellison, Ralph. The Invisible Man. New York: Random House, 1947. Print.
· Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Clayton: Prestwick House, 2005. Print.
What you need to succeed:
1. Students need a notebook or binder for in and out of class notetaking.
2. Students need to bring their text book every day.
3. Students will need a zip drive or floppy disk to save their work.
4. Access to the internet and a word processing program (Microsoft Word) is crucial
because most final drafts will be typed. Please let me know if this is a problem.
5. See me for help. If you don’t ask me, I won’t be able to help you. I am available before
and after school and during IRP.
6. Date to Remember : The AP Exam for 2011 is on May 5 at 8am. More information
about testing and scheduling can be found on this website www.collegeboard.com
7. Students must read two Reading Counts books each quarter and pass quizzes on
them.
Fall Semester
The course will begin with an introduction to the AP exam, with focus on types of
multiple choice questions and close reading of texts. Annotating and close reading techniques
will be taught early in the semester as these are skills necessary for success. Also, early in the
semester, we will become familiar with literary terms and other vocabulary necessary for
success.
Following with the introductory chapters of the textbook, we will read a variety of
genres and styles, including but limited to poetry, drama, short stories, essays and excerpts from
various novels, to give students a solid foundation for the remainder of the year. We will read
and evaluate a variety of essays, including analytical, argumentative, and expository; these
essays will come from student sample answers from past AP exams and from professional
writers in our text book. Additionally, we will read student sample essays in order to judge the
quality of their arguments based on the text. We will do the same but with more detail using
pieces from our text book to determine the merit of the authors’ claims.
W e will use the textbook’s writing practice sections to improve. W e will practice
integrating quotations and citations into our writing, writing compound/complex sentences,
correcting misplaced modifiers, and identifying poetic elements in writing.
Once we are comfortable evaluating and explaining judgments on a work and after
completing a thorough introduction, we will read Jane Eyre with the whole class, and Pride and
Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Wuthering Heights in groups of four. For each of
these works, students will create Book Cards, which will include details on the authors’ life, time
period, symbols, themes, and other literary devices. The Book Cards will contain details on the
importance of the work to social and historical values, whether the work reflects, defies, or
offers commentary on the values.
Additionally, students will read two books outside of class per quarter. The books need
to be approved by me and need to be of an appropriate level for AP. Any book that has been
short listed for a major prize, such as the Man Booker or the PEN/Faulkner, is well-suited for this
course.
Texts
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
Emma , Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
“To an Athlete Dying Young,” A. E.
Housman
“Bright Star, would I were stedfast as
thou art,” John Keats
“Slam, Dunk, & Hook,” Yosef
Komunyakaa
“Fast Break,” Edward Hirsch
“One of These Days,” Gabriel Garcia
Marquez
Andre’s Mother, Terrence McNally
Trifles, Susan Glaspell
“Let American Be American Again,”
Langston Hughes
“In Response to Executive Order 9066:
All American of Japanese Descent Must
Report to Relocation Centers,” Dwight
Okita
“Immigrants,” Pat Mora
“The Latin Deli,” Judith Cofer Ortiz
“Two Kinds,” A my Tan
“The New Colossus,” Emma Lazarus
“Two Ways of Belonging in America,”
Bharati Mukherjee
The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar
Wilde
Writing
Each week students will be given a section from past AP Literature and Composition
examinations. Every other week (each Friday we have class), students will be given 40 minutes
to respond to an essay in order to prepare them for the exam in May. The essays will be related
in topic or style to what is being covered in class. Once a month, students will revise and rewrite
timed essays to better their understanding. Before our first timed essay, we will discuss the
topic, annotate the excerpt, and create an outline together as a class to ensure students feel
more ready to tackle their first timed essay.
Beyond this, students will write longer analytical essays on both Jane Eyre and The
Importance of Being Earnest about themes and symbols. These essays will be written in stages
with outlining, rough draft writing, revising/editing, and rewriting for final drafts. Before
beginning these essays, we will discuss how to ensure an appropriate level of diction, syntax,
and organization in our essays. Furthermore, at each stage of the writing process, students will
get feedback from the teacher and from a peer on how to improve detail, vocabulary, sentence
structure, and organization. Graphic organizers will be provided for these major papers to help
us direct our organization; graphic organizers include dialectical journal templates, Venn
diagrams, and others.
Winter Semester
This semester will continue in the same vein as the previous. W e will use the textbook’s
thematic chapters as guides. Using excerpts from novels, entire novels, short stories, and
poems, the class will continue close reading and analysis, incorporating many literary devices
and their effects. Furthermore, we will use, dissect, and create our own multiple choice
questions to prepare students for the exam in May. Later in the semester, we will practice close
reading, annotating, and writing within time constraints.
We will continue our evaluation of essays, both student samples and from our textbook,
but we will narrow our focus to understand the values of a work and how they reflect and affect
the societal values. In particular, students will write analytical essays on the cultural ideals in
either The Handmaid’s Tale or Invisible Man.
We will use the textbook’s writing practice sections to improve. We will maintain our
practice of integrating quotations and citations into our writing, writing compound/complex
sentences, correcting misplaced modifiers, and identifying poetic elements in writing. W e will
add writing to identify satire, irony, and paradox in various forms.
Additionally, students will read two books outside of class per quarter. The books need
to be approved by me and need to be of an appropriate level for AP. Any book that has been
short listed for a major prize, such as the Man Booker or the PEN/Faulkner, is well-suited for this
course.
Texts
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Midsummer Night’s Dream, William
Shakespeare
“Woman Hollering Creek,” Sandra
Cisneros
“Love in L.A.,” Dagoberto Gilb
“The flee from me,” Sir Thomas Wyatt
“The Flea,” John Donne
“To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,”
Robert Herrick
“She walks in Beauty,” Lord Byron
“Love is not all,” Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Siren Song,” Margaret Atwood
“One Art,” Elizabeth Bishop
“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the
sun,” William Shakespeare
“Mi fea,” Pablo Neruda
The Art of Courtly Love, Andreas
Capellanus
“To His Coy Mistress,” Andrew Marvell
“Coy Mistress,” Annie Finch
“Is Arranged Marriage Really Any Worse
Than Craiglist?” Anita Jain
“Young Good man Brown,” Nathaniel
Hawthorne
“A & P,” John Updike
“In Cuba I was a German Shepherd,”
Ana Menéndez
“The Quiet Life,” Alexander Pope
“I’m Nobody! Who are you?” Emily
Dickinson
“Fern Hill,” Dylan Thomas
“Babylon Revisted,” F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Daddy,” Sylvia Plath
“Mother to Son,” Langston Hughes
Writing
In the second semester, our writing will include the criteria from the previous semester,
but we will add a particular focus on establishing and maintaining tone and voice of each piece.
Each week students will be given a section from past AP Literature and Composition
examinations. Every other week (each Friday we have class), students will be given 40 minutes
to respond to an essay in order to prepare them for the exam in May. The essays will be related
in topic or style to what is being covered in class. Once a month, students will revise and rewrite
timed essays to better their understanding.
This semester, students will write brief essays in which they analyze the author’s
argument in order to critique the quality of the piece. Students will write these essays over
various poems and other works including, but not limited to, “My mistress’s eyes are nothing
like the sun” and “Mi fea.”
Beyond this students will apply literary analysis and research to write longer essays over
a poem of their choice and each of the longer works from this semester. These essays will be
written in stages with outlining, rough draft writing, revising/editing, and rewriting for final
drafts. Before beginning these essays, we will discuss how to ensure an appropriate level of
diction, syntax, and organization in our essays. Furthermore, at each stage of the writing
process, students will get feedback from the teacher and from a peer on how to improve detail,
vocabulary, sentence structure, and organization. As previously stated, students will write
analytical essays on the cultural ideals in either The Handmaid’s Tale or Invisible Man.
There will be no graphic organizers provided this semester because we need to apply
the techniques previously learned to aid our writing.