Podgorski – AP Literature and Composition
Mrs. Podgorski
Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition Syllabus 2014-2015 (adapted from Mr. Flygare)
Scope:
According to the College Board, AP Literature and Composition “engages students in the careful reading and critical analysis
of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of selected texts, students deepen their understanding of the ways writers
use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. As they read, students consider a work’s structure, style
and themes, as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone.” This is a
college-level class focusing on the skills required to analyze and discuss literature (reading, writing, and interpretive skills).
You will use writing not only as a method of measuring your growth in interpretive skills, but also as a way to respond to
readings as you develop your interpretive skills. You should be prepared to write frequently in this class, both informally and
formally, and to use that writing as a prompt for discussion as you develop your analytical and interpretative skills and apply
those skills to our study of literature. Formal essays will involve several drafts and you will have the opportunity to rewrite
rough drafts after receiving feedback.
In this class we will approach literature as a source of ideas and the access to those ideas is through questioning. In other
words, your interpretive skills are only as good as your questions. Take time to organize the questions you ask of a text.
Rigorously engage the text. Keep a reading journal this year or fill out a Major Works Data Sheet for each text you read.
Your notes and data sheets will help immensely as you prepare for the AP Lit exam in May.
Expectations:
This is a college class, not a college prep class. I assume the following:
a. You are an adult and capable of managing your time and the work that is assigned to you.
b. You have an interest in literature and wish to learn how to extend your interpretive ability beyond simple personal
response (“This piece was boring,” or “This reminded me of a time when I …”)
c. As with all college classes, your notes will be important. You are required to take and maintain good quality notes in this
class. If you fail to do this you will likely fail the class.
d. This class is learning community and as in all communities, respect is essential. There should be a free exchange of ideas
between people, and this requires respect for everyone (that includes me, folks!). Provide thoughtful, reasoned responses
during discussions. Observe the standard classroom rules of maintaining a quiet, studious atmosphere. Listen attentively to
each person speaking. Your active listening is a measure of your mature, serious attitude toward learning in this class.
Texts:
Primary Text:
Jago, Carol, et al. Literature & Composition: Reading, Writing, Thinking. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011.
Auxiliary Texts:
Hamilton, Sharon. Essential Literary Terms with Exercises. Saddle Brook, NJ: People’s Publishing Group, 2007.
Note: Although this is not a requirement, I strongly urge you to obtain a copy of Literary Analysis and Essay Writing Guide by
Colin Shanafelt, Gatsby’s Light Publications, Austin, TX, 2011. This is available in book form through amazon.com, or as
two separate apps for the iPhone or iPad.
The following are the substantial works we will look at this year. There will be numerous additional shorter works that will
be assigned, mostly out of the Jago et. al. text.
Full-Length Works Studied During the Year:
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka
To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
I strongly urge you to read ahead (these books are available at local libraries and some are free online).
Podgorski – AP Literature and Composition
Course Overview:
The following is a rough outline of the work we will do this year. This is provided only to give you an overview of the class,
and is not designed to provide due dates. Assignments will be provided in class and on my AP Lit and Comp webpage with
detailed assignment information. Throughout the year we will read a variety of works by British and American authors as
well as European and non-western works. We will sample works from a variety of genres including short stories, novels,
poetry, and drama. The works we read will span centuries from the 1600s to contemporary times.
Year-Long Glossary Project - Literary Devices:
Every discipline employs a specialized vocabulary and literature is no exception. In order to enhance our enjoyment and
appreciation of literature, it is necessary to understand the devices writers use. You will create a glossary of literary devices,
many of which you will encounter in your reading. For the most part, you will choose the devices you want to include in your
glossary and on occasion, I will ask you to include a device. We will be working primarily out of the Hamilton text (Essential
Literary Terms with Exercises). For full credit, you should submit one device per week (there are seventeen weeks, not
counting final exam week in December) for a total of 170 formative points (10 pts. possible per device). Use the format
provided (an example has also been provided) in the handout attached to this syllabus.
Vocabulary: The vocabulary program will center on words from the literature we read as well as learning and applying a
wide range of college-level diction in your own writing. VOCABULARY IS CUMMULATIVE! Plan on studying
vocabulary all year long.
Year-Long Reading Journal or Major Works Data Sheets
Since you are not able to write annotations in the textbook, you will keep either a reading journal or a Data Sheet throughout
the year for the works we read (fiction, drama, poetry, short stories). Writing about your reading is a way to generate ideas for
essays, conduct class discussions, and enhance your understanding of the text. Your journal or Data Sheets will be collected
each quarter for a formative grade. Handouts for both the Reading Journal and the Major Works Data Sheet are on my AP
webpage and copies are available in class.
Writing
Frequent opportunities to write, revise, and rewrite will exist throughout the year. You will write both in class (timed
responses to AP prompts at least once a month) and outside of class (formal essays that go through revisions before a final
draft is produced). You will write analytical essays, extended interpretation essays, extended definition essays,
compare/contrast essays, and argumentative essays. During peer reviews and conferences with me, we will focus on some
aspect of your writing, perhaps diction or syntax (sentence structure and variety), or rhetorical modes (e.g. is the comparison
or contrast effectively organized?). As with all good writing, it is important to employ appropriate vocabulary (diction
choices), logical organization (depending on your purpose), transitions, evidence from the text to support your claim, and
effective rhetorical devices to persuade your readers that your claim is valid. Writing assignments include, but are not limited
to, keeping a dialectical notebook (see chp. 2 in our textbook) in which you record quotes from the reading and your personal
response to each quote; responses to the questions at the end of a chapter; informal writing activities based on your close
reading, etc. Instruction and feedback will be provided before and after you revise your formal essays so you can develop the
writing skills you need to be successful not just on the AP exam, but in college and beyond.
August, 2013:
Foundational matters: The definition and aims of the study of literature; essential literary terms; elements of fiction; critical
approaches to literature (e.g. historical, biographical, formalist, feminist, etc.). Literary terms exam.
Style analysis – the “heart and soul” of what we do – this builds a basic method for responding to and evaluating literature.
We will study diction, syntax, tone, voice (narrative perspective) throughout the year, starting immediately. We will focus
on chapters 1-3 of the Jago et. al. text and move from analysis to interpretation (making an argument about the text and
supporting it with evidence). Activity on p. 121 – write an interpretive essay using one of the prompts.
September, 2013:
Chapter 4 – Entering the Conversation (topic = being an American). Read Amy Tan’s short story “Two Kinds” and Langston
Hughes’s poem “Let America Be America Again” in addition to one other work in the “Conversations” section (pp. 124-146).
You will practice writing an analysis essay using multiple texts.
Chapter 5 – Home and Family – “The Dead” by James Joyce; “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. You will write an
extended definition using at least two rhetorical modes (e.g. compare/contrast, narrative, classification, etc.) of the idea of
family.
October, 2013:
Chapter 6 – Identity and Culture
Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness paired with Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart. After you read Heart of Darkness, read
Chinua Achebe’s essay “An Image of Africa” (pp. 549-58) and evaluate whether his claim of racism in Conrad’s text is
Podgorski – AP Literature and Composition
supported by the evidence. Lastly, you will write a 3-5 page comparative essay in which you evaluate how one of the
characters in each story reflects the values of his/her respective country.
November, 2013:
Chapter 7 – Love and Relationships. The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde. You will write an analysis of irony
in drama which you will present in class. You will then have an opportunity to rewrite your essay using any feedback you
receive to improve your argument.
December, 2013:
The magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Years of Solitude
Semester Final Exam – You will complete a timed in-class Q3 Practice essay (free response) using One Hundred Years of
Solitude as your chosen text.
Second Semester
Note: For each of the works we read during second semester, you will deepen your close reading and style analysis skills
with attention to selected passages from the text, as well as broaden your vision of the entire work through emphasis on the
methods of thematic analysis. You will write often during your study of each of these works. Throughout the third quarter
our writing focus will shift (dramatically) to timed in-class writing in response to AP essay prompts.
January, 2014:
Chapter 8 – Conformity and Rebellion
Franz Kafka – The Metamorphosis
Extended analysis essay (prompts provided) addressing theme, structure, or humor in The Metamorphosis.
February, 2014:
Chapter 9 – Art and the Artist
William Shakespeare - Hamlet – Your analysis will include response to daily reading assignments, close reading analysis,
practice AP-style multiple-choice questions, and a final AP-style essay in class in a timed setting.
March, 2014:
Chapter 10 – Tradition and Progress – Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”
Poetry project (see assignments page for details) – analyze and write responses to the questions after each poem; write an
argument essay, with support from the text, on Elizabeth Bishop’s “In the Waiting Room” – of what is the speaker in the
poem afraid? Peer review and edit your analysis essay.
Start Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
April, 2014:
Finish To the Lighthouse
Write rough draft of extended analysis – analyze the relationship between subjective and objective reality in a section of To the
Lighthouse particularly in terms of imagination and memory (e.g. does our recollection of events shape the reality of those
events?)
Review for national AP exam
May, 2014:
AP Exam (anyone who does not take the national AP Literature and Composition exam must take an alternative final exam
during the scheduled exam time for your class. Write final draft of extended analysis essay.
Final Exam:
There will be a final exam at the end of each semester. In second semester this will consist of a past AP national test. The
final exam at the end of second semester will be waived if you take the national test. Therefore, while I cannot require you
to take the national test, you are strongly urged to do so.
Class Policies:
Assessment: The grading system I use is directly tied to 3 “essential learnings” for AP English Literature and Composition:
1. AP Literary Analysis. The learner is able to analyze, interpret and evaluate texts in a variety of genres, in a variety of
literary periods, 16th to the 21st century.
2. AP Writing. The learner creates clear, cogent and persuasive essays analyzing, interpreting, and synthesizing the literature
studied in class.
3. Vocabulary. The learner understands and is able to apply the terminology of literary analysis.
(See supplemental handout for a detailed break-down of these essential learnings based on a 4-point proficiency scale and
how that scale roughly converts to a letter-grade system).
Podgorski – AP Literature and Composition
Throughout the semester you will have many formative assessments which will be used to adjust teaching and learning
activities as needed. Formative assessments include informal responses to the readings, evidence of close reading and
annotating (reading journals and/or Major Works data sheets), vocabulary quizzes, writing assignments from the textbook, inclass timed writes, participation in class discussions, entries in your year-long glossary project, etc. I will also give several
summative assessments each semester including, but not limited to, out-of-class writing assignments (formal essays with
rough drafts, peer reviews, and revised drafts), Book Talk book reports (based on your independent reading), individual and
group projects, and presentations.
Formative Assessment: Scores/Assignments that are low-risk practice for summative assessments; they are recorded, but
carry 30% weight in the grade book; they inform the teacher, parent, and student about progress toward meeting standards.
Summative Assessment: Scores/Assignments which reflect mastery of content and skills; they carry 70% weight in my grade
book; they measure the degree of a student’s mastery of objectives (the essential learnings) and skills.
A grade is awarded based on the following scale:
90%-100% = A
80%-89% = B
70-79% = C
60-69% = D
00-59% = F
Attendance: Colony High School has a strict policy regarding attendance. After ten absences, a student may be withdrawn
from school. Being tardy and/or absent will adversely affect a student’s grade. This is a face-to-face class, not an online
class, thus attendance is important. If a student is late to my class, he/she will be marked tardy in accordance with school
policy. Please be on time, prepared to participate and learn.
AP Lit Course Page and Assignments Page Online:
Find our AP Lit course on Colony High School’s home page by clicking on my name from the Language Arts Department
page. Be sure to click on our specific class as I teach several sections, and check both the AP Lit General Info page and the
Assignments page. Here you will find the current homework assignments and links to many resources.
If you are absent, it is your responsibility to find out what you missed (make sure you have the email and/or phone number of
at least one classmate) and complete any assignments in a timely manner. It is essential that you check the class webpage
which I update frequently.
Plagiarism is not just cheating, it is a crime (stealing the intellectual property of someone and passing it off as your own
property). I do not tolerate plagiarism and will not write any letters of recommendation for students who plagiarize. Be
aware that if you plagiarize in college, you get an F for the course, no refund of tuition, and are sometimes expelled.
AP Literature and Composition
Mrs. Podgorski
Nancy.Podgorski@matsuk12.us
Colony High School
Parent/Guardian Agreement
Please read, sign, and return by Friday August 22, 2014
I have read and understand the course syllabus and all requirements of this class (AP Literature and
Composition).
I expect my student, _________________________to adhere to the class rules and requirements.
(Student Name)
________________________
Parent Signature and Date
Note to Parent/Guardian:
Please provide your phone number (and the best time to contact you) and email address so that I may
keep you informed of your student’s progress.
_____________________________________________________
Parent phone # and/or email address
Student Agreement
I have read and understand the course syllabus and all requirements of this class. I agree to adhere to
the class rules and requirements.
________________________
Student Signature and Date