AP Literature & Composition Syllabus 2011-2012 Henderson Unit I: Entering the conversation Approximate dates: 9/12 – 10/28 Unit II: Poetry analysis as a foundation for critical reading/ introduction to transcendentalism Approximate dates: 10/31 – 11/23 Essential questions: What is the relationship between author, text, and audience? Why is it fair to say that there is no truly original story? How does a work communicate the anxieties of its age? Concepts, terms, and themes: Archetypes, voice, paradox, rhetorical devices, tragedy, fortune’s wheel, corruption, redemption Texts: Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible Foster, “A Still, Small Voice (or a Great, Galumphing One)” Wainaina, “How to write about Africa” Shakespeare, King Lear Smiley, A Thousand Acres Smiley, “The Circle of the Novel” Additional resources: Film, King Leopold’s Ghost PowerPoint, Booker’s Seven Basic Plots Supplement, “Rhetorical Devices in the Poisonwood Bible” Supplement, “Muntu” Supplement, “Voice: the slipperiest of all elements” Supplement, “Dramatic terms for King Lear” Assessment* 9/9 Comparative essay on King Lear and A Thousand Acres (100 pts) _____ In-class essay on The Poisonwood Bible (50 pts) _____ In-class essay, AP Prompt 3 (50 pts) _____ In-class essay, AP Prompt 2 (50 pts) _____ Lear/Acres role play (20 pts) _____ AP exam practice (NFG) Essential questions: Why and how should poetry be approached as art? What can poetry especially achieve through its compact form and structural demands? How can reading poetry improve our overall critical reading skills? How does reciting poetry enrich the experience? Concepts, terms, and themes: Poetry movements and genres, SOAPStone analysis, meter and rhyme, devices of sound, figurative devices Texts: Poems from The Academy of American Poets (www.poets.org) Poems from The National Endowment of the Arts (www.poetryoutloud.org) Emerson, “The Over-Soul” Emerson, “The Poet” Whitman, “Song of Myself” Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” Johnson, “The Black Man’s Burden” Additional resources: Supplement, “Poetry Handbook” AP Literary terms Wiki (student-generated glossary) Assessment* _____ AP Wiki entry (20 pts) _____ Poetry Symposium (50 pts) _____ In-class essay, AP Prompt 1 (50 pts) _____ AP exam practice (NFG) _____ Emerson responses (100 pts) _____ Song of Myself (50 pts) 12/8 Poetry Out Loud classroom competition (50 pts) * All due dates are tentative and subject to change. AP Literature & Composition Syllabus 2011-2012 Henderson Unit III: Hawthorne Approximate dates: 11/28 – 12/21 Unit IV: The Modern American Approximate dates: 1/3 – 4/5 Essential questions: How can “The Custom House” act as a key to The Scarlet Letter? How does Hawthorne’s self-consciousness pervade his works? What is the relationship between internal and external conflicts? Essential questions: What is the nature of our American mythology? Can we define, defend, and cultivate morality? What are the challenges facing modern man? What is the relationship between the natural and mechanized worlds? How does style affect tone and meaning? Concepts, terms and themes: Symbolism, semiotics, dual identities; heresies, blasphemies, and witchcraft; Puritanical influences, American identity, reactions to perceived authority, hypocrisy, relationships between the demonic and the divine Texts: Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter Hawthorne, “The Minister’s Black Veil” Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown” Hawthorne, “The Birthmark” Concepts, terms, and themes: Modernism, point of view, disillusionment, syntax and style, The Lost Generation, castration and impotence, waste lands, indulgences, narcotics (real and metaphorical), Grail quests Texts: Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Foster, “Never Trust a Narrator with a Speaking Part” Neuhaus, “Gatsby and the Failure of the Omniscient I” Eliot, The Waste Land Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath Ellison, Invisible Man Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (tentative) Additional resources: Film, The Scarlet Letter Supplement, excerpts from The New England Primer Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” Prezi, “Transcendentalism” Assessment*: _____ Comprehension test on The Scarlet Letter (50 pts) _____ Hawthorne Short Story Fishbowl (50 pts) 12/22 Analysis Essay on The Scarlet Letter (100 pts) _____ AP Exam practice (NFG) Additional resources: PowerPoint, “The Grapes of Wrath” Supplement, “Grapes, Grapes Everywhere” Supplement, “The Bible and the Grapes of Wrath” Supplement, “You Might be a Christ Figure If…” Supplement, “Jim Crow Stereotypes” Assessment*: _____ Composite analysis essay on the unit’s novels (150 pts) 1/6 In-class essay, The Great Gatsby (50 pts) 2/6 In-class essay, The Grapes of Wrath (50 pts) 3/5 In-class essay, Invisible Man (50 pts) _____ In-class essay, AP Prompt (50 pts) _____ AP Exam practice (NFG) * All due dates are tentative and subject to change.