AP Literature and Composition
Ms. Sheri Kimmel
2014-2015 Syllabus
skimmel@bcps.org
Overview:
This course provides students with ample opportunities both to read literature and to write about
it. Both components require critical analysis skills which will be practiced on a daily basis
throughout the year. The College Board describes the goals for the course as twofold: Reading
and Writing.
Reading: The literature selected for the course includes a variety of genres and time periods
from American, British, and World authors. In AP English 11, students focused on American
Literature and nonfiction rhetoric. Baltimore County Public Schools’ twelfth grade curriculum
focuses on British Literature so British texts are incorporated as the main focus in AP English
12. The reading will be multilayered, both inside and outside of the classroom. While reading a
novel at home, students will focus on poetry or drama or shorter fiction in the classroom. Close
reading is the key to success in the AP English Literature classroom and as such, the essays and
discussions will be centered on it. The College Board states the following:
A generic method for the approach to such close reading involves the following
elements: the experience of literature, the interpretation of literature and the
evaluation of literature. By experience, we mean the subjective dimension of
reading and responding to literary works, including pre-critical impressions and
emotional responses. By interpretation, we mean the analysis of literary works
through close reading to arrive at an understanding of their multiple meanings.
By evaluation, we mean both an assessment of the quality and artistic
achievement of literary works and a consideration of their social and cultural
values. All three of these aspects of reading are important for an AP English
Literature and Composition course.
Therefore, the reading in the course will include a pre-reading response to works, during
reading journals and reflections upon readings, as well as post-reading discussions about
multilayered themes, settings, and characters as well as the value of the works that are
read.
Writing: Writing is the other focus of the course. This year will enable students to develop
their own voice and style in the essay, a continuation of the ideas begun in AP Language and
Composition in Grade 11. In order to achieve this, students will develop their vocabulary
through the Sadlier Workshop Level H program and through vocabulary from the literature
(contextual). Accordingly, integration of grammatical and syntactical tools will be reinforced to
increase variety in sentence structure as well as to reinforce “form equals function” in essays and
creative writing. What was begun in AP Language and Composition, an understanding of
rhetoric in writing, is fully articulated and refined in AP Literature. The writing is varied as
explained by the College Board in the Course Description:
“Some of this writing is informal and exploratory, allowing students to discover
what they think in the process of writing about their reading. Some of the writing
involves research, perhaps negotiating differing critical perspectives. Much
writing involves extended discourse in which students develop an argument or
present an analysis at length. In addition, some writing assignments should
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encourage students to write effectively under the time constraints they encounter
on essay exams in college courses in many disciplines, including English.”
Therefore, students will encounter both in-class timed writings as well as longer,
researched essays completed outside of the classroom. Students will also complete
reflective pieces of writing where they examine their writing process as well as their
thinking process. Essays will be scored and revised with feedback from both the
instructor and from peers.
Students will write every day of class in some way. Students will read every day in class
in some way. The class is truly a workshop on reading and writing and will always be
treated as a place where critical thinking and writing will be constantly encouraged and
revised according to new understandings.
Thematic units
The year will be arranged around 4 thematic units which will include novels, short
stories, poetry, and essays for readings. Works will be studied in relation to theme as
well as their historical/sociological settings. The in-class compositions will be AP-style
and scored on the AP 9-point rubric: prose analysis, poetry analysis, and open-ended
literary analysis; some will be former AP exam prompts, some will be teacher-created
AP-style prompts. Each unit will include papers to be completed outside of class. The
class will spend several days during each unit revising and editing writing.
The following list of works includes fiction, nonfiction, art, film, and poetry. Except for
the longer literature which is required, the other lists are potential options for in-class
work and research. The longer fiction will be read outside of class while students will
focus on poetry and short story analysis in class. The works have been chosen because of
their complexity in theme, character, and/or style. While students may initially discuss
teacher-generated questions for the first unit, students will then be responsible for
generating and initiating in-class discussions of their own questions. Annotation of the
texts will occur routinely in order to interact with the text and generate questions and
ideas about the novel. For this reason, I ask that students purchase their own copies of
the readings. (See letter regarding the purchase of these novels and plays). Unit
assessments will focus on the open-ended Q3 prompt from the exam.
Intro to the Course:
College Essay
“Marginalia” (Billy Collins), “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (T.S. Eliot), and
discussion of the Literary Canon (short readings)
Diagnostic SSR test
Diagnostic Open-Ended Q3 Timed In-Class Essay on summer reading (The Unlikely
Pilgrimage of Harold Fry or The God of Small Things)
The Nature of Good and Evil (Heaven and Hell):
This unit is a study of the universal ideas of good versus evil. Through a study of this
theme, the students will meet an epic hero, biblical allusions, a vicious king, and yet
another tragedy (add to the list from Grade 10…). The class will be engaging in Socratic
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Seminars, close readings, poetry analysis, and, of course, many writing opportunities.
Students will focus primarily on poetry analysis using TPCASTT and other AP strategies
(Q1 on the AP Lit exam)
 Beowulf (Heaney translation; summer reading)
o Socratic Seminar based on the reading questions
 Paradise Lost (John Milton) Biographical/historical criticism
o Epic conventions (epic similes, invocation of the muse)
o Structure
o Allusions
o Rhyme scheme (blank verse)
o Connection to Dante’s Inferno (punishment for sin)
 Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) Sociological, psychological criticism
o Frame story
o Close-reading passage analysis
o Allusions
o Dialectical journals which focus on AP literary devices
o Connection to Greek Tragedy (Oedipus the King = hubris; tragic hero)
 Othello (William Shakespeare) Sociological, formalistic criticism
o Archetypes
o Tragic hero connection to Macbeth and Oedipus
o Symbol of handkerchief
o Racism and prejudice
 Shorter works:
o “The Open Boat” by Stephen Crane
o “I’m a Mad Dog Biting Myself for Sympathy” by Louise Erdrich
o “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato (connection to Frankenstein)
 Poetry:
o “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Coleridge
o “On His Blindness” by John Milton
o “The End and the Beginning” by Wislawa Szymborska
o “Ballad of Birmingham” by Dudley Randall
o “The Ballad of Rudolph Reed” by Gwendolyn Brooks
o “The Lamb,” “Holy Thursday,” and “Marriage of Heaven and Hell” by William Blake
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“Champion of the World” by Maya Angelou
“When I Was One-and-Twenty” and “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman
“Funeral Blues” by W.H. Auden
o “Sonnet CXXIX” by William Shakespeare
o Revelation, ch. 20, King James Bible
o "Frankenstein" by Alexander Anderson
 Miscellaneous:
o “Garden of Earthly Delights” (Hieronymous Bosch) – painting
o “Young Frankenstein” (movie clips)
o “Hunch on Mary Shelley Pays Off” by Herb Mitgang (New York Times)
o “Lake Geneva as Shelley and Byron Knew It” by Tony Perrottet (New York Times)
 Essay:
o Excerpts from Samuel Johnson’s The Lives of Poets: Milton
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Keep on laughing! Satire, humor, and irony:
In this unit, we will revisit the concept of satire which you saw last year in Jonathan Swift’s “A
Modest Proposal.” The focus will be on techniques and forms of satire as well as comedy. An
analysis of how the time period affects the satiric commentary will take place at the end of the
unit through a mini-research paper and we will spend time focusing on using close reading skills
on Prose Analysis (Q2 AP Lit Exam) essays.
 The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer) Historical, sociological criticism
o Criticism of the Church and social values
o Characterization
o Allegory
 The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) Sociological, formalistic criticism
o Social criticism during the Victorian time period
o The role of “textuality” in the play (letters, diaries, etc.)
o Importance of setting
 Cat’s Cradle (Kurt Vonnegut) Sociological, philosophical, formalistic criticism
o Modern criticism of the church
o Characterization
o Allusions
o Connection to Canterbury Tales (middle ages versus postmodern writing)
 Fiction:
 excerpts from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce) (summer reading)
 excerpts from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
 Poetry:
o “The Rape of the Lock” by Alexander Pope
o “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Herrick
o “The Flea” by John Donne
o “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” by Shakespeare
o “To His Coy Mistress” by Andrew Marvell
o “Coy Mistress” by Annie Finch
o “To His Importunate Mistress” by Peter De Vries
o “My ugly love” Sonnet XX by Pablo Neruda
 Essay/Nonfiction:
o Charlotte Bronte’s letter to Robert Southey
o “On novels and the art of writing” and “On English novelists of the present day” and
other pieces by Anthony Trollope (connection to Jane Eyre)
 Miscellaneous:
o “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt
o “This Importance of Being Earnest” (movie clips)
o “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin (music)
Women in Literature: Sex, Love, and (Playing by or Breaking) All of the Rules
This unit focuses on literature by women about women (and men). The readings explore the
roles of females, specifically during the late Romantic – early Victorian periods in England. The
two novels in the unit offer two different looks at this society and students will examine how the
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main characters, while appearing to be so different, actually contain many similarities. During
this unit, students will continue practicing poetry and prose analysis in addition to multiplechoice questions in preparation for the AP Literature exam.
 Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) Formalistic, sociological (feminist) criticism
o Importance of setting (Wuthering Heights versus Thrushcross Grange = how these
houses reflect their inhabitants)
o Characterization/foils
o Narrative voice (use of 2 outsiders in the telling of the story and how that affects the
interpretation of the story)
o Use of the vernacular and Bronte’s comment on social class
 Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) Formalistic, sociological criticism
o Marriage and the role of love
o Importance of social class
o Comparison of heroines from Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre (read in GT 10) and
Wuthering Heights
 Short Stories:
o “The Storm” by Kate Chopin
o “Roman Fever” by Edith Wharton
o “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell
o “Tick” by Joyce Carol Oates
 Poetry
o “Pathedy of Manners” by Ellen Kay
o “Spinster” by Sylvia Plath
o “Woman Work” by Maya Angelou
o “Wuthering Heights” by Sylvia Plath
 Essay
o from The Madwoman in the Attic by Susan Grubar
o from “A Room of one’s own” by Virginia Woolf
o “A Vindication on the Rights of Woman” by Mary Wollstonecraft
 Miscellaneous
o “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush (music)
o Clips from “Clueless” (movie)
The Darkness Within
The final unit in the year requires students to recall the first unit on good and evil in their
analysis of the characters in each of the pieces of longer literature. The essential questions in this
unit include: Do all people have darkness within themselves? Psychological and philosophical
approaches to these novels will assist students in comprehending the universality of human
nature, a theme that students have been analyzing since GT 9.
 Hamlet (William Shakespeare) Psychological, formalistic criticisms
o Madness and Hamlet: is he pretending?
o Indecision and inaction
o Revenge
 Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad) Philosophical, historical criticism
o Discussion of nihilism with a connection to Crime and Punishment
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o Fatalism (tie to Oedipus the King)
o Response to novel by Chinua Achebe (tie to Things Fall Apart from GT 10)
o Post-colonial literature
o Racism and tie to Othello
The Collector (John Fowles) Formalistic, psychological, sociological criticism
o Tie to Catcher in the Rye and “The Tell-Tale Heart”
o Use of diary entries as a means of story-telling (point of view)
o Symbols (butterflies)
o Psychological study of Fredrick Clegg
Short stories:
o “Where Are Going? Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
o “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
o “Greasy Lake” by T. Coraghessan Boyle
o “The Child by Tiger” by Thomas Wolfe
o “Zaabalawi” trans. by Denys Johnson-Davies
Poetry:
o “The Hollow Men” by T.S. Eliot
o “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” by Langston Hughes
o “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot
o “The Relic” by John Donne
o “The Stranglehold of English Lit.” by Felix Mnthali
Essays:
o “Vessel of Last Resort” by Jeffrey Tayler
Miscellaneous:
o Clip from “Apocalypse Now” dir. Coppola (movie)
o Clip from “King Kong” dir. by Peter Jackson (movie)
o “Key to the Fields” by Magritte (painting)
The year will end with the Capstone Reading and Writing projects after the AP exam.
* Special note to parents: In AP Literature, some of the books that we read may contain mature
themes. These are the kinds of books that your student will be reading in college. Your signature
below indicates that you approve that your student may read texts which focus on mature issues
and may view movie clips that may by rated higher than PG. Should you have any questions
about the content, you may contact me at skimmel@bcps.org.
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