AP English IV Literature and Composition Course Syllabus
Overview of AP English Literature and Composition Course
The course overview and objectives are based on guidelines established by The College Board in The AP English Course
Description. This college-level course requires high performance, a challenging work load, and commitment to extensive work
outside of the classroom. The choice of texts is representative of the authors list found in The AP English Course Description. In
addition, the state AP English IV course description requires a survey of British and World authors. Consequently, authors
chosen also fulfill this requirement. The focus of the course is on reading strategies to support critical analysis of literary texts.
Since the purpose of the course isfor students to “ deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both
meaning and pleasure for their readers,” reading selections provide models for students’ own writing. Students are regularly
assessed on finished written product, on-demand writing, homework, tests and quizzes, and response journals. The school system
standard is a 7-pointgrading scale, ranging from an A to F. This course is taught in a one-semester block.
Recursive Strategies:
Reading and Analysis: Although there is no required reading list for the AP English Literature and Composition course, students
focus on both poetry and prose analysis. Students must read actively, deliberately and thoroughly. Selected texts require close
reading in order to understand and interpret the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for readers.
Students must learn to invest the time needed to appreciate and understand a work’s complexity, to absorb richness of meaning,
and to analyze how meaning in embodied in a particular literary form. Reflection on social and historical values underlying a
text is also necessary for in-depth interpretation and analysis. Close reading is reinforced through individual student experience,
interpretation, and evaluation of the literature. Interpretation involves analysis through close reading in order to reveal
understanding of the multiple meanings of complex texts.
Grammar and Syntax: AP standards focus on review of the conventions of language by employing appropriate grammar and
mechanics, utilizing a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of coordination and subordination in order to
demonstrate mastery of standard written English and to exhibit stylistic maturity. Instruction focuses on the authorial choices of
syntactical and stylistic devices to establish purpose, meaning and the desired effect on the reader. Grammar and syntax is
infused with analysis of literature and effective writing techniques.
Writing: Ongoing writing instruction focuses on the critical analysis of literature, teaches and requires students to write in a
variety of forms, including informational, analytical, and argumentative essays. Critical textual interpretation for theme,
style and structure is the primary writing focus of the course, with some well-constructed creative writing to facilitate
student understanding of how literature is written from the inside out. These assignments are designed to deepen understanding
and appreciation of literary artistry (imagery, figurative language, symbolism and tone), while promoting a transfer to the
student’s own development of diction and syntax to create style and voice. Writing to explain and understand a literary
work may involve textual annotation, freewriting activities, journal entries, and response/reaction papers. Students engage
in close reading of texts as stimuli to analyze and interpret in written products. Written analysis will also focus on language and
structure as employed by an author to establish purpose and a desired effect on the reader. Writing to evaluate literary texts
includes making and explaining inferences about its artistry and exploring underlying contextual social and cultural values.
Such analysis lends itself to interpretive, analytical, and argumentative writing products. Instructional strategies include
emphasis on writing as an organic process, developing and organizing ideas in logical, clear and coherent progression using
persuasive language, and providing specific textual evidence to prove student generalizations. Both formal and extended
analyses and timed in-class responses provide practice and opportunities for growth. Evaluation of process and product is
given through self-assessment, peer review, and instructor feedback. Student revision activities for development of style and
syntax are part of this organic process.
Vocabulary: Throughout the course, students draw on foundational vocabulary as they build AP-level expertise with vocabulary
related to literary and rhetorical analysis. Instructional strategies include direct instruction of college-level terminology, as well
an expectation of students’ application to analytical, argumentative, and evaluative reading and writing.
Academic Integrity
Athens Drive High School teachers, students and administrators value academic integrity, and this has always been the case.
With the collaboration among a group of teachers, students, parents, and administrators we have a clearly defined academic
integrity policy. As part of this policy, teachers and students will follow a code of conduct which deals with issues such as
cheating and plagiarism.
In our class, we will adhere to the following guidelines to promote integrity:
· Study and work in an honest and respectable manner.
· You must complete and submit your own work.
· You are encouraged to work with others only under prescribed circumstances.
· Do not copy someone else's answers in or out of the classroom.
· Do not seek unauthorized help from those outside the classroom.
· Cite all sources using correct MLA Format.
· Quizzes and tests are to be completed without assistance from any outside
source.
· Keep your eyes on your own paper during quizzes and exams.
· Protect your answers.
· Cell phones and other electronic devices are to be turned off and put away before each class.
If a violation of the honor code is suspected the student(s) will be invited to meet privately with the instructor. The behavior
discussed and necessary paperwork will be submitted according to ADHS Academic Integrity Violation Procedures. For specifics
about the policy, please go to the Athens Drive website.
Texts:
Anthologies: (in class use): Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound Sense 9th ED., Elements of Literature 6th Course,
Norton anthology of English literature 5th Ed.
Core Novels: Mary Shelley Frankenstein, Aldous Huxley- Brave New World, George Orwell -1984
Supplemental Novels: Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment, Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness, Gabriel
Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude, Albert Camus- The Stranger, Jane Austen – Pride and Prejudice,
Thomas Hardy – Tess of the D’Urbervilles (This list is not exhaustive, merely a sample of possibilities)
Drama: William Shakespeare – Hamlet, Tom Stoppard – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Molière – Tartuffe,
Note: You will be reading a novel of your choice for your independent research project.
MEDIA CENTER DATES FOR RESEARCH:
10/22-24, 10/30-31, 11/13-14, 1124-25, 12/17-19
UNIT I: APPLYING LITERARY THEORY
Essential Questions: How can psychology aid in analysis of literature?
How does gender aid in analysis of literature?
How does existentialism aid in analysis of literature?
How does historical criticism aid in analysis of literature?
How does reader response criticism aid in analysis of literature? (Other critical
approaches as applicable…)
How does understanding more than one critical approach affect
interpretation of literature?
Texts: John Green’s The Fault in our Stars and William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Beowulf
Assignments: Summer reading assignment peer critique, Timed In-Class Writing
UNIT II: IDENTITY AND CULTURE
Essential questions:

What factors determine identity?

How does culture frame identity in life and literature?

How does language frame identity?

How does an understanding of culture and identity define heroism?

Is the deflation of the heroic ideal inevitable?

What are the consequences of exclusion from society, based on “violation” of a society’s notion of normality?
Texts: Beowulf, Frankenstein Shakespeare – “Sonnet 130” M. Scott Momaday - “Prologue” from the Way to Rainy Mountain;
James Baldwin – “Stranger in the Village” from Notes of A Native Son Gabriel Garcia Marquez – “The Handsomest Drowned
Man in the World” and “A Very Old Man With Enourmous Wings” Gwendolyn Brooks “Sadie and Maud” and “a song in the
front yard”
A. The Heroic Code – A Futile Struggle Against Chaos?
Assignments: Beowulf text annotation, class discussions, comparison/ contrast of Beowulf modern hero story.
B. Magic Mirror – The Self, the Other and Scoiety
Assignments: Literary analysis of Frankenstein, pinwheel/ fishbowl literature discussion.