Advanced Placement (AP) English Literature and Composition Course Description: Advanced Placement English is designed for the serious, motivated student with high scholastic ability and vital interest in intellectual pursuit. It is geared to prepare students for the Advanced Placement tests in the spring and, consequently, focuses much of its time upon strengthening the students’ writing and reading skills. Students who take this course should be avid readers and writers; that it, they should be students for whom reading and writing are a daily activity, both in an academic and leisure sense. Students must also have a strong desire to listen to and actively take part in discussions of literature and philosophy. Having the skill to write, speak, and think in a unified and coherent manner is necessary if the student hopes to succeed in this course. Proficiency in grammar, mechanics, and spelling is assumed. Summer reading is required. Prerequisite: AP English and/or teacher/counselor recommendation Major Concepts/Content: AP English Literature and Composition is designed to be a college/university-level course, thus the “AP” designation on a transcript rather than “H” (Honors) or “CP” (College Prep). This course will provide the student with the intellectual challenges and workload consistent with a typical undergraduate university English Literature/Humanities course. As a culmination to the course, students are encouraged to 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. (This course is designed to comply with the curricular requirements described in the AP English Course Description.) General Text: Roberts, Edgar V. and Henry E. Jacobs. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing (8th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007. Course Objectives General: Students will understand that: 1. literature provides a mirror to help us understand ourselves and others, 2. writing is a form of communication across the ages, 3. literature reflects the human condition, and 4. literature deals with universal themes such as conformity and rebellion, parents and children, men and women, violence and its alternatives, faith and doubt. Specific: The student will: 1. read and analyze imaginative literature carefully, 2. write an interpretation of a piece of literature based on careful observation of contextual clues, 3. understand the way writers use language to provide meaning and pleasure, 4. evaluate works for multiple meanings, 5. consider a work’s structure, style, and themes, 6. reflect upon the social and historical values a piece of literature embodies, 7. interpret literature using the elements of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone, 8. write and rewrite formal, extended analyses, 9. study representative works from various genres and periods, 10. participate in timed, in-class responses, 11. know several works of literature in-depth, 12. construct analytical, argumentative essays in which he/she draws upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work’s artistry and quality, and its social and cultural values, 13. utilize a wide range of vocabulary appropriately and effectively, 14. understand a work’s complexity, to absorb richness of meaning and to analyze how meaning is embodied in literary form, 15. write using a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination, 16. develop logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis, 17. 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, 18. utilize a balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail, 19. become aware through speaking, listening, reading and chiefly writing of the resources of language: connotation, metaphor, irony, syntax, and tone, and 20. evaluate a literary criticism and write an article abstract of the article. Writing Expectations I. Throughout the course, opportunities will be given to practice individual composition skills. Composition assignments will include statements, paragraphs, timed writings (essays and short answer) and formal essays (personal, expository and argumentative). Students will be expected to use the literature throughout their writings. The teacher, as well as other Advanced Placement students, will evaluate writings for content, construction, sentence variety, vocabulary, grammar, and word choice. Feedback will be given in the format of AP scoring as well as individual comments and suggestions. Students will be expected to revise numerous written pieces. II. Rubrics will be used to evaluate course writings. Students should be careful to review the expectations for each individual assignment. III. Pieces should be interpreted based on careful analysis of textual details. Structure, style, and themes will be traditional points for analysis. In addition, social and historical implications for the literature should be considered. Tone, symbolism, imagery and figurative language will serve as preliminary points of discussion for the literature’s structural analysis. IV. Careful analysis of textual details will be the basis for poetry interpretation. Students will share their analysis by writing about selected pieces of poetry and preparing presentations for peers. Schedule of Reading and Writing Activities Advanced Placement English is taught thematically with an emphasis on preparing students to take the advanced placement testing in Literature and Composition in the spring. I. Conformity and Rebellion (7 weeks) A. Novels 1. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (summer read) 2. Dubliners by James Joyce 3. Notes from the Underground or Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky B. Supplemental Works 1. Everyman and Other Morality Plays 2. “The Story of An Hour” – Kate Chopin 3. “The Allegory of the Den” – Plato 4. “From Skepticism to Conviction” – Rene Descartes 5. “Belief” – William James C. Required Text 1. “Paul’s Case” – Willa Cather 2. “The Unknown Citizen” – W. H. Auden 3. “Life Cycle of Common Man” – Howard Nemerov 4. “London” – William Blake 5. “Richard Cory” – Edwin Arlington Robinson 6. “Naming of Part” – Henry Reed 7. “Eating Poetry” – Mark Strand 8. “Miniver Cheevy” – Edwin Arlington Robinson 9. “We Real Cool” – Gwendolyn Brooks 10. “The Road Not Taken” – Robert Frost 11. “Auschwitz” – Salvatore Quasimodo D. Writing II. Parents and Children (7 weeks) A. Novels 1. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner 2. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan 3. King Lear by William Shakespeare B. Supplemental Works 1. “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter” – D. H. Lawrence C. Required Text 1. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” – Flannery O’Connor 2. “I Stand Here Ironing” – Tillie Olson 3. “The Planned Child” – Sharon Olds 4. “35/10” – Sharon Olds 5. Am I Blue – Beth Henley 6. “My Papa’s Waltz” – Theodore Roethke 7. “The Author to Her Book” – Anne Bradstreet D. Writing III. Women and Men (7weeks) A. Novels 1. The Awakening by Kate Chopin 2. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg B. Supplemental Works 1. “Blackberry Picking” – Seamus Heaney 2. “I’m Wife, I’ve Finished That” – Emily Dickinson C. Required Text 1. Before Breakfast – Eugene O’Neill 2. A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare 3. Trifles or Jury of Her Peers – Susan Glaspell 4. “The Yellow Wallpaper” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman 5. “Taking Care” – Joy Williams 6. “All Gone” – Stephen Dixon 7. “To My Dear and Loving Husband” – Anne Bradstreet 8. “How Do I Love Thee” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning 9. “The First Rate Wife” – Cornelius Whur 10. “Song” – C. Day Lewis 11. “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” – Christopher Marlow 12. “The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” – Sir Walter Raleigh 13. “Night Sounds” – Carolyn Kizer 14. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” – Emily Dickinson 15. “Sonnet 29: When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes” – William Shakespeare 16. “Sonnet 55: Not Marble, Nor the Gilded Monuments” – William Shakespeare 17. “Sonnet 146: Poor Soul, the Center of My Sinful Earth” – William Shakespeare 18. “Preludes” – T. S. Eliot 19. “Upon Julia’s Voice” – Robert Herrick D. Writing IV. Violence and Its Alternatives (9 weeks) A. Novels 1. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 2. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 3. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller B. Supplemental Works 1. An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” by Chinua Achebe C. Required Text 1. “I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died” – Emily Dickinson 2. “The Things They Carried” – Tim O’Brien 3. “The Curse” – Andrew Dubus 4. Mulatto – Langston Hughes 5. “Do Not Weep, Maiden, for War is Kind” – Stephen Crane 6. “The Fury of Aerial Bombardment” – Richard Eberhart 7. “Because One Is Always Forgotten” – Carolyn Forche 8. “Anthem for Doomed Youth” – Wilfred Owen 9. “Ballad of Birmingham” – Dudley Randall 10. “The Second Coming” – William Butler Yeats 11. “Auschwitz” – Salvatore Quasimodo 12. “Exit, Pursued by a Bear” – Ogden Nash D. Writing V. Faith and Doubt (6 weeks) A. Novels 1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 2. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett B. Supplemental Works 1. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll C. Required Text 1. “Young Goodman Brown” – Nathaniel Hawthorne 2. “A Supermarket in California” – Allen Ginsberg 3. “Dover Beach” – Matthew Arnold 4. “Easter Wings” – George Herbert 5. “The Lamb” – William Blake 6. “The Tyger” – William Blake 7. “Spring” – Gerard Manley Hopkins 8. “The Sun Rising” – John Dunne 9. “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” – Robert Frost 10. “Harlem” – Langston Hughes 11. “Siren Song” – Margaret Atwood 12. “Ode on a Grecian Urn” – John Keats 13. “The Canonization” – John Dunne D. Writing GRADING SCALE: O 100-94% A 93-86% B 85-80% C 79-70% D 69-60% F 59-0% Evaluation: Course grades will be based on the following: - reading quizzes - in-class short writings - written essays (both in-class and out of class) - class presentations - class discussions