AP Literature and Composition
Ms. Sheri Kimmel
Overview:
2015-2016 Syllabus skimmel@bcps.org
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 and composition 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. Most units 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)
How to make meaning
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 )
Discussion of summer reading ( A Farewell to Arms or The Poisonwood Bible)
Novel Cards
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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
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)
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Beowulf (Heaney translation; excerpts) o Epic hero, epic poetry
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Paradise Lost (John Milton) Biographical/historical criticisms 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)
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Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) Sociological, psychological, gender roles criticisms 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)
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Othello (William Shakespeare) Sociological, formalistic criticisms o Archetypes o Tragic hero connection to Macbeth and Oedipus o Symbol of handkerchief o Racism and prejudice
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Shorter works: o “I’m a Mad Dog Biting Myself for Sympathy” by
Louise Erdrich o “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato (connection to Frankenstein )
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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 “The Lamb,” “Holy Thursday,” and “Marriage of Heaven and Hell” by William Blake o “When I Was One-and-Twenty” and “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman o “Sonnet CXXIX” by William Shakespeare o Revelation, ch. 20, King James Bible o "Frankenstein" by Alexander Anderson o “XIV” (AP 2015 exam)
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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) o “Return to Paradise” by Jonathan Rosen (
New York Times)
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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.
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The Canterbury Tales ( Geoffrey Chaucer) Historical, sociological criticisms o Criticism of the Church and social values o Characterization o Allegory
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The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) Sociological, formalistic criticisms 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 religion o Characterization o Allusions
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Fiction:
 excerpts from The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry (Rachel Joyce) (summer reading)
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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 o “The War Works Hard” by Dunya Mikhail
 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 ) o Excerpts/articles from The Onion and other satirical pieces
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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 main characters, while appearing to be so different, actually contain many similarities. During
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this unit, students will continue practicing poetry and prose analysis in addition to multiplechoice questions in preparation for the AP Literature exam.
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Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) Formalistic, sociological (feminist) criticisms o Importance of setting (Wuthering Heights versus Thrushcross Grange = how these houses reflect their inhabitants) o Characterization/foils o Narrative voice/ point of view (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 o Tie to summer reading A Farewell to Arms
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Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) Formalistic, sociological criticisms o Marriage and the role of love o Importance of social class o Comparison of heroines from Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre and Wuthering
Heights
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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
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Poetry o “Spinster” by Sylvia Plath o “Woman Work” by Maya Angelou o “Wuthering Heights” by Sylvia Plath
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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 o Excerpts from The Art of Fiction by David Lodge o Excerpts from Ways of Reading by Montgomery, et al. o “What o the Women Do?” by Susan Zlotnik
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Miscellaneous o “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush (music) o Clips from “Clueless” (movie) o Illustrations from Wuthering Heights o Clips from “Pride and Prejudice” (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.
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Hamlet (William Shakespeare) Psychological, formalistic criticisms o Madness and Hamlet: is he pretending?
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o Indecision and inaction and injustice o Revenge
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Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad) Philosophical, historical criticisms o Discussion of nihilism with a connection to Crime and Punishment o Fatalism (tie to Oedipus the King) o Response to novel by Chinua Achebe (tie to Things Fall Apart from GT 10) o Tie to summer reading The Poisonwood Bible (point of view) o Post-colonial literature o Racism and tie to Othello
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The Collector (John Fowles) Formalistic, psychological, sociological criticisms 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 and Miranda
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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 “The Child by Tiger” by Thomas Wolfe o “Zaabalawi” trans. by Denys Johnson-Davies
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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
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Essays: o “Vessel of Last Resort” by Jeffrey Tayler
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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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