Course Description
Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition (AP) is a year-long course
designed to develop and enhance reading, writing, listening, and critical thinking skills.
Students will do close readings of a variety of genres, including literature from both
British and American writers. Writing will also be an important part of this course.
Students will do both creative and critical writing, inside and outside of class. For
creative writing, students will have the choice of writing a short story (containing a
minimum of plot, characterization, conflict, setting, point of view), a portfolio of poems
(each poem must be classified by type and have a thesis and have elements of poetry), or
a one-act play. Critical writing will include a short story analysis, poetry explication, a
vocabulary journal, timed essays, and analyses of either two novels, two plays, or a novel
and a play. Students will also complete practice AP exams throughout the year.
First Semester
Short Story Unit
This unit focuses on elements of literature including, but not limited to, tone, point of
view, theme, characterization, conflict, setting, symbolism, and irony. Possible titles
include the following:
William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”
James Joyce, “Araby”
Eudora Welty, “A Worn Path”
D.H. Lawrence, “The Rocking Horse Winner”
Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery”
Alice Walker, “Everyday Use”
Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”
Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find”
Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”
Following class discussion, students will choose one of the stories and work in pairs, or
small groups, to find criticism, historical background, social background, and cultural
background of the story. Each pair or group will present their findings to the class. As
part of this assignment, students will write an essay analyzing the historical, social, and
cultural background and how these things affect the story’s meaning.
The short story unit will conclude with a written analysis of a story of the student’s
choice.
Leading up to this assignment, we will also do daily assignments that will aid
students in writing the short story analysis. We will use Barbara Bloy’s English
Literature: Close Reading and Analytic Writing (Peoples Publishing Group, Inc., 2006)
which defines literary terms for fiction study. Another source for daily lessons will be
Nancy Dean’s Voice Lessons: Classroom Activities to Teach Diction, Detail, Imagery,
Syntax, and Tone (Maupin House Publishing, 2000). These two resources will be
utilized throughout the school year.
Additionally, prior to writing this essay, students will read chapter one from their
textbook (Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, 9th ed.). The chapter,
Writing About Literature, discusses constructing the essay as well as MLA
documentation.
Students will have the opportunity to revise their essays at least three times. A rough
draft will be brought to class and students will utilize the rubric, developed by the
students and teacher, during peer conferences. During these conferences, students should
discuss their thesis statements, support for the thesis statement with references to the text,
organization, varied sentence structure, tone, and voice. These will be discussed in class
mini-lessons prior to drafting and work shop.
Novel Units: The Catcher in the Rye and Heart of Darkness
Students read these novels outside of class. Students will keep a double-entry journal as
they read. These journals will be used for literature circles in class. Following these
discussions, we will focus specifically on characterization, symbols, tone, irony and
themes in the novels.
We will discuss the literary elements above and I will ask students to think about how
these devices, as well as any others they might discover, apply to the novel. On their own
time, students will need to make notes to bring to class discussions. These discussions
will be round table style where I will facilitate. Prior to these discussions, students will
be given a set of expectations that will have to be met in order for them to gain class
participation/discussion points.
Students will do several in-class timed writings on the novels. Following these writings,
students will look at rubrics used to score essay questions for the AP exam. We will
discuss these rubrics as a class. Students will then choose a partner and they will score
one another’s essays using one of these rubrics. They will make comments, after which I
will take the essays and make my own comments using the rubric. The students will
have a chance to make changes to the essays based on the comments given by me, and
their partners.
There will be reading quizzes throughout the units. These will consists of multiple
choice questions, vocabulary, and one short response question that requires the student to
draw on details from the text in order to infer something about the story.
The unit tests will consist of teacher-made multiple choice questions, one section excerpt
with multiple choice questions, vocabulary, and a short answer question.
Poetry Unit
During this unit, students study various poems, comparing and contrasting diction,
imagery, figurative language, structure, and speaker. Students will explicate four poems,
modeling the process used for the AP exam. Students may use the TP-CASTT (title,
paraphrase, connotation, attitude, shifts, title interpretation, and theme) method to
examine these poems.
The first explication focuses on, but is not limited to, speaker, diction, and imagery. In
this explication, students should relate elements discussed to the meaning of the poem as
they understand it. The prompt will be: Explicate the following poem. In your
explication, you should work with the specific elements that we have studied and relate
them to the poem’s meaning, as you understand it. You may also reference any other
techniques that the author uses. If you do so, you must relate these techniques to the
meaning.
Acceptable poems for this explication include Mari Evans’ “When in Rome,” William
Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in
my Brain,” Langston Hughes’s “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” and Thomas Hardy’s “Ah,
Are You Digging on My Grave?”
The second explication focuses on tone with the same prompt as above. Possible titles
for this explication are Andrew Marvell’s, “To His Coy Mistress,” William
Shakespeare’s “My mistress’ eyes,” Michael Draydon’s “Since there’s no help,” and
Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est.”
The third explication focuses on figures of speech and symbols and uses the same
prompt. Suggested poems for this explication include Emily Dickinson’s “Because I
could not stop for Death,” Langston Hughes’s “Dream Deferred,” Robert Frost’s “The
Road Not Taken,” Frances Cornford’s “The Guitarist Tunes Up,” and Matthew Arnold’s
“Dover Beach.”
The fourth explication focuses on irony and paradox, with the same prompt. Acceptable
works are Dudley Randall’s “Ballad of Birmingham,” Marge Piercy’s “Barbie Doll,” and
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias.”
First Semester Parallel Assignments
Students will have four parallel assignments first semester.
1.
2.
3.
4.
personal or argumentative essay
short story analysis
poetry explication
creative writing project
 The personal or argumentative essay gives the students a chance to do
an assignment they should be by now be comfortable with. Students
are free to write about whatever they wish as it applies to this
assignment.
 The short story analysis turns the process over to the student. They
choose the story that they want to analyze, but it cannot be one that
we read in class or during summer reading. If the story is not in the
textbook or other anthology that I have available for use, students
must check with me before using the story. Students must analyze
how the author uses literary devices to the author’s meaning or
purpose.
 The poetry explication also gives the process over to the student.
They choose a poem or song that we have not read in class and do a
full explication. This explication should include a line-by-line
analysis of what the poem means, what the tone is, and have
references to the text. Students must also discuss literary devices that
develop meaning or are significant to the author’s purpose.
 The creative writing assignment allows students to apply some of the
techniques we discuss in class to their own creative selves. Students
have the option to write a short story or a portfolio of poems.
o The short story must contain at least the following elements:
plot, characterization, conflict, setting, and point of view.
The grade for this assignment relies mostly on effort and
revision, not creativity.
o Students who choose the portfolio of poems option must
write a thesis for each poem. The thesis should state the
type of poem, what their purpose is, and how they hope to
achieve this purpose. Students should “prove” this thesis in
the poem. The grade for this assignment relies mostly on
effort and revision.
For parallel essays, students will receive feedback to make improvements in their writing.
Students must submit a rough draft prior to the final due date. I will do in-class
conferences with students prior to the final due date to clarify any questions students
might have on the comments that I make. Students will have the opportunity to do a
rewrite or revision and submit a final copy for the grade.
Additional Exercises
In addition to the above units and assignments, I will do various other activities to
improve student writing. I will do grammar exercises to focus on specific needs.
Transitions are usually troublesome in student writing, and I will do mini-lessons to focus
on these. I will also do a lesson on writing effective conclusions, since I have found
students struggle with these also.
Students will become familiar with the layout of the AP exam during first semester. We
will spend time looking at and discussing released tests, focusing on the types of
questions asked.
AP Multiple Choice Questions
Throughout the year, students will do practice AP Exams. Theses exams include the
released exams from 1982, 1987, 1991, 1994, 1999 and 2004.
AP Essay Prompts
Students will respond to various released AP essay prompts throughout the semester. In
addition, students will look at sample essays and notes/scores assigned to these essays.
First Semester Examination
On this exam, students explicate a teacher-chosen poem, using the full
analysis/explication process that they have practiced throughout the semester. The
prompt for this assignment reads: Using the full process, explicate the following poem:
The poem will be one the students are not familiar with.
Second Semester
Second semester will focus on longer works to be done in concert and independently. As
the AP exam date approaches, students will have more opportunities to do practice exams
of released AP exams. They will also have more opportunities to analyze the types of
multiple choice questions on these released exams and will look more closely at the
wording of essay prompts used on the released exams. Test taking tips and strategies will
be a focus during this semester.
Drama Unit
This unit will begin with a reading of Hamlet. Students will become familiar with the
terms tragedy, tragic hero, tragic flaw, irony, iambic pentameter, blank verse, foil
characters, syntax and couplet. Class discussions will deal with how these relate to this
play.
Additional activities will include the following:
o round table discussion
o double entry journal responses
o analysis of characters and motivations
o multiple choice quizzes
o essays using previously released essay items or open questions
Novel Unit: Pride and Prejudice or A Farewell to Arms
This unit will focus on plot, character, setting, style (diction, syntax, imagery) epiphany,
foreshadowing, and suspense.
The following is a list of activities and expectations for the novel:
1. understand the historical context of the novel
2. read actively noting stylistic aspects including diction, imagery, and syntax
3. understand the story as a satire
4. vocabulary study similar to that of the Heart of Darkness unit
5. pre-reading anticipation guide and comparison to feelings after reading the novel
6. reading journal in which students annotate the text using post it notes (following a
mini-lesson on annotating texts)
7. one in-class timed writing based on the open question from the 1991 AP exam
8. unit test consisting of multiple choice questions, vocabulary, and a short answer
question
Second Semester Parallel Assignments
In addition to the novels and plays read as a class, students will read one novel and write
an analytical essay about it. Students will also complete a Spark Notes-like project for
the novel and present it to the class. These essays will require a rough draft with
opportunities to revise and edit before the final copy is due.
AP Essay Prompts
Students will respond to various released AP Essay Prompts throughout the semester. In
addition, students will look at sample essays and notes/scores assigned to these essays.
The AP Exam will count for the second semester exam. Students are required to take this
exam as part of the class. No alternate exam will be given and if the AP Exam is not
taken, the student will receive a 0 for the final exam grade.