AP Literature and Composition
Period 2
North Dorchester High School
Mr. Stephen Willey, Instructor
Email: willeys@dcpsmd.org
Room: B-5
Planning Period: 7
Phone: 410-943-4511
Introduction:
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 “CCP” (Career/College Prep). This course will provide
students with the intellectual challenges and workload consistent with a typical undergraduate university
English literature/humanities course. In May, students will be encouraged to take the Advanced Placement
English Literature and Composition Exam. A student who achieves a score of 3 or higher on the AP Exam will
be granted college credit at most colleges and universities in the United States.
Essential Concepts:
 Literature provides a mirror to help us understand ourselves and others.
 Literature deals with universal themes that help us understand truths about the human condition and
the world in which we live.
 Writing is a form of communication across the ages.
Course Goals:
 To engage in close analytical reading of works of literature
 To consider a work’s structure, style, and themes
 To understand how authors use diction, figurative language, syntax, imagery symbolism, and tone to
communicate meaning
 To study representative works from various genres and periods
 To focus on a few major works in depth in order to understand the work’s complexities
 To write analytical, argumentative essays in which students draw upon textual details to make and
explain judgments about a work's artistry and quality.
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To write analytical, argumentative essays in which students draw upon textual details to make and
explain judgments about a work's social, historical and/or cultural values.
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Grading Policy:
AP English is a year-long one credit course that includes fifty minute classes. Each semester grade will be
composed of two term grades and a final exam grade that counts ten percent of the overall semester average.
Grades will include the following:
 Content based exams on the literature selections
 Timed writings and sample objective tests modeled from public release AP exams
 Major individual research project
 Periodic quizzes on the assigned reading
 Various creative response options, including student-led seminars
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Required Materials
Notebook: three-ringed plastic binder with one inch spine
Spiral notebook for journals
Flash Drive
NDHS Agenda
Highlighter, post-it notes (3x3 or 3x5), pen, pencil
3x5 and 4x6 index cards
Separate Writing Folder kept in room (provided by teacher) where major pieces of writing will be filed
Guidelines for Success
1. You must arrange your notes and handouts in a very organized and retrievable fashion. These materials are
also very helpful for college-bound honors students. Decide on a system that works for you and stick to it! You
may use a binder with specific sections or separate folders for each unit.
2. You will need a notebook to use as a journal for daily warm-ups and nightly homework assignments. This
must be an 8 ½ by 11 notebook that is separate from your binder because it will be collected and graded at
unannounced times. You do not need to skip lines in your journal, and you may write on the back of the
pages, but you must write in ink. Be sure to date and title each entry. You may complete your nightly journal
assignments on a computer, as long as you keep everything together neatly, and you have the printed entries
in class each day.
3. Be prepared every day with your required books, notebooks, journals, or handouts needed for class. When
in doubt, check the syllabus or my website.
4. All formal out of class written work should follow MLA format and be typed.
5. Late assignments will be penalized one full letter grade for each day they are late.
 Be mindful of Dorchester County’s homework and late policies.
 Because homework is a valuable component to the course work, it is expected to be done on time.
 You must be prepared to make up tests, quizzes, or assignments on your own time. You may not
complete these during class.
 I will be more than glad to help you with your assignments and deadlines during the process if you are
struggling; however, I cannot help after the fact, on the due date. It is your responsibility to be sure
your computer, printer, email, and other technologies are up to date when a deadline arrives.
Computer problems are not legitimate excuses for lateness. Do not leave work on my desk. If I am
not available, give the work to one of the secretaries to place in my mailbox.
6. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to get the work you have missed. You may pick it up during my
planning period, retrieve it in your missing work folder during class, or pick it up after school. If you know you
are going to be absent from class, see me in advance, and I will provide the work for you. When possible, I will
email the assignments to you.
7. For each major work (novels, plays, major poems), you will read at least one critical essay. In some events,
you will be encouraged to search and to retrieve your own critical literature.
8. Expect to have reading quizzes, daily vocabulary words, weekly vocabulary quizzes, unannounced writing
assignments, marginal notes, and nightly homework assignments.
9. AP English will be challenging and include a lot of work, but I hope you find it enjoyable! The main goals of
this course are to broaden your knowledge of literature and your analytical thinking and writing skills.
10. Remember these keys to success:
 Faithfully keep up with your reading and daily assignments,
 Actively think about and react to the literature, and
 Consciously work on your writing skills by learning from your mistakes and successes.
Semester One Reading and Writing Schedule
Week 1: The Epic as the Literary Foundation of a Culture
Texts: Excerpts from Beowulf (Anonymous)
“The Seafarer” (Anonymous)
Assessment: Objective/essay test and creative response options
Evaluative Essay 1
Weeks 2-4: Foundations of the Western Tradition
Texts:
The Frame Narrative—Excerpts from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Ballad—“Sir Patrick Spens”
“Bonny Barbara Allan”
“Get Up and Bar the Door”
Codes of Honor—Excerpts from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Anonymous)
Excerpts from Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
Assessment: Objective/essay test- Evaluative Essay 2
AP timed writings
Weeks 5-6: The Emerging Identity Part I: Renaissance Themes and
The Pastoral Tradition
Texts:
“The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe
“The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd” by Sir Walter Raleigh
Selected Elizabethan and Petrarchan Sonnets
Assessment: AP timed writings
Weeks 7-9: The Emerging Identity Part II: Fate and the Tragic Hero
Texts: Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Assessment: Objective/essay test – Analytical Essay 1
Creative response options
Weeks 10-11: Truth and Beauty: Man and Nature
Texts: Selected poetry from the following authors: William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy
Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth
Assessment: AP timed writings - comparative analysis of two or more poems
Evaluative Essay 3
Weeks 12-16: The Emerging Identity Part III:
The Individual in a Changing Society
Texts: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
2nd Novel is upcoming
Assessment:
Objective/essay test
Analytical Essay 2
Creative response options
Weeks 17-18: Emerging Identity Part IV:
Encounters with Crisis
Texts:
Selected Short Stories—“Araby” by James Joyce
“The Rocking-Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence
“The Lagoon” by Joseph Conrad
Selected Nonfiction—From A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
“Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell
Assessment: Final examination, comprehensive content-based written examination on literature from semester one
Evaluative Essay 4
Semester Two Reading and Writing Schedule:
Entry Reading Requirement
Before entering the second semester of this course, students must select and read one of the following works:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
House Made of Dawn by N Scott Momaday
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Silas Marner by George Eliot
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
Students will complete a Written Response Journal/Quote Project for the work they select and submit the journal on
the first day of second semester. The first major unit of the second semester will culminate in a research paper based
on some particular aspect of the chosen work.
Week 1: Literary Criticism and Analysis: Seven Approaches to Literary
Criticism
Texts:
“Critical Strategies for Reading.” The Bedford Introduction to Literature.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005.
“Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
“Eveline” by James Joyce
Assessment:
Cooperative group application/presentation of various critical strategies
Weeks 2-4: Independent Literary Research and Critical Analysis
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Instruction in location, retrieval, and use of information from various sources as applied to a writer’s thesis
Instruction in documentation of primary and secondary source information – MLA format
Completion of a literary analysis research paper
Texts: Selected novels (see previously cited entry reading requirements)
Assessment: Student research papers assessed using rubric and student checklist; ongoing process assessment
through note card submissions and draft thesis statement
Weeks 5-8: The Enigma
Texts: Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Various critical analysis essays
Film: Kenneth’s Branaugh’s Hamlet
Assessment:
AP timed writings from Hamlet’s soliloquies
Objective/essay tests
Analytical Essay 3
Student pairs report on selected essays
Weeks 9-11: Literary Techniques: Connotative Language and Literary Devices
Texts: Selected works from poets Frost, Yeats, Donne, Blake, Plath, Wordsworth, Walcott, Hughes, Keats, Coleridge, and
Shelley
Assessment: Written analysis of literary devices such as allegory, allusion, conceit, irony, metaphor, paradox, simile, and
symbol in the context of selected poems
Weeks 12-13: The Absurdity of Existence
Texts: The Novella--Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville
Assessment: AP timed thematic essays
Analytical Essay 4
Week 14: AP Examination Review
Teacher and student groups report on significant concepts from the literature and discuss ways to achieve success on
the AP examination.
Assessment: Practice objective tests and writing assignments
**AP Examination will be administered during the second week of May**
Weeks 15-18: Post AP Examination Unit: The Novel
Texts: Students will select a classic or modern novel from the AP list of recommended works.
Assessment: Thematic analysis of individual novels
Final Examination - comprehensive content-based on semester two
literature
Student Texts:
 Arp, Thomas R., ed. Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
1987.
 Chin, Beverly Ann et al. Glencoe Literature: The Reader’s Choice – British Literature. New York:
Glencoe/McGraw Hill, 2000.
 Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1995.
 Meyer, Michael, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005.
 Perrine, Laurence and Thomas R. Arp. Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry. Orlando: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 1992.
 Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1963.
 Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. ***various editions***
Supplemental Resources:
 “College Board – AP Central.” http://apcentral.collegeboard.com.
 College Board. AP English Course Description. New York: The College Board, 2006.
 Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: The Modern Language Association of
America, 2003.
 Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1994.