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AP

Literature and Composition

Course Description:

 

This course is a college-level class regarding literature and composition. Through this course students will have the opportunity to do college-level work and possibly gain college credit. Students will be expected to use careful reading skills and critical analysis of literature. Students will deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to craft literary works. Additionally, students will be honing their own composition skills marked by style, voice, wide-ranging vocabulary, variety of sentence structure, logical organization, and effective use of rhetoric. Students may be asked to attend test preparation sessions during Targeted Study Time (TST) and outside of school hours.

 

Level: 12th grade, 11th grade with instructor’s permission

Two Trimester Class

 

Course Goals:

  • To carefully read and critically analyze literature

  • To analyze the way writers use language to provide meaning and pleasure

  • To 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

  • To study representative works from various genres and periods from the 1500s to the present

  • To analyze a work’s complexity, to absorb richness of meaning, and how the meaning is embodied in literary form

  • To consider the social and historical values a work reflects and embodies

  • To write, focusing on critical analysis of literature including expository, analytical, and argumentative essays as well as creative writing

  • To become aware of, through speaking, listening, reading, and chiefly, writing, the resources of language: connotation, metaphor, irony, syntax, and tone

 

Performance Tasks:

  • Timed essays based on past AP prompts

  • Essay questions as required of college-level writers

  • Reading, responding to, and analyzing novels, drama, fiction, non-fiction, and poetry

  • Original compositions of creative writing

  • Literary analysis papers, both expository and persuasive with revisions to hone composition skills

  • Graphic organizers, reading journals, paragraph response, and multiple choice questions

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Writing Expectations:

  • Complete sentences are expected even in reading journals or discussion boards.

  • Reading journals are to give evidence of active or close reading. This requirement can be fulfilled in several ways.

    • If the text is digital, you may use Kami or a similar program to annotate. Make sure you can save it and that you can share it with me.

    • If the text is hard copy but not yours, you may use sticky notes for close reading purposes.

    • If the text is a personal hard copy, you can highlight and write on the text.

    • These reading journals are due each Monday by the end of the day.

  • Occasionally, I will post a discussion question on google classroom. You are expected to respond to the questions or other comments. These are also graded.

  • All formal papers will be graded using a specific rubric. The rubric will be explained along with the writing assignment. Students should always consult the rubric before submitting work.

  • Timed essays will be scored using guides developed for the AP Literature & Composition exam.

  • Students will revise larger papers and literary analyses after they receive feedback from the instructor.

  • Students are expected to have a good command of Standard Written English.

  • There will be mini-lessons during the course to address complex grammar and usage issues, sentence construction, and diction.

 

Preliminary List of Texts:

  • Frankenstein—Mary Shelley

  • King Lear or Othello—William Shakespeare

  • Pride and Prejudice—Jane Austen

  • Gulliver’s Travels—Jonathan Swift

  • Antigone—Sophocles

  • Importance of Being Earnest—Oscar Wilde

  • Short Fiction and essays as selected

  • Young Goodman Brown– Nathaniel Hawthorne

  • Rembrandt’s Hat– Bernard Malamud

  • Poetry as selected (Norton Anthology)

  • I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings— Maya Angelou

  • Black Boy—Richard Wright



 

Units:

 

Trimester 1

 

Foundations of the Course: (2 weeks)

  • What is literature?

  • Critical reading

    • Inference

    • Purpose & function

    • Vocab

    • Analysis vs. summary

  • Decoding questions

  • Rhetorical Situation

  • Assignments and Assessments to include, but are not limited to:

    • Formative assessments on rhetorical terms

    • Smaller writing assignments to focus on identification, analysis, explanation, and interpretation of rhetorical terms as they are use in assigned reading passages.


 

Poetry (6 Weeks)

  • Identification, discussion, and analysis of the following rhetorical devices as pertaining to the genre of poetry:

    • Tone, speaker, language, imagery, symbolism, rhythm, mood, sound, allusion, figurative language, and shift

    • Beauty and structure

      • Stanzas/ how to chunk a poem

      • Sonnet, epigram, villanelle, sestina, ode, elegy, and epic

  • Assignments and assessments to include, but are not limited to:

    • Reading Journals

    • Graphic Organizers

    • Online discussions

    • Timed writings

    • Formal essays

    • Original poetry

 

Drama (5 weeks)

  • Identification, discussion, and analysis of the following rhetorical devices as pertaining to the genre of drama:

  • Theme, structure, character, plot, soliloquy, tone, mood, allusion, plot points, shift

  • Assignments and assessments to include, but are not limited to:

    • Reading Journals

    • Graphic Organizers

    • Online discussions

    • Timed writings

    • Argumentative essay using textual evidence to explain the social, cultural, and historical significance of a work of drama.


 

Trimester 2

 

Short Story (5 Weeks)

  • Identification, discussion, and analysis of the following rhetorical devices as pertaining to the genre of short story:

  • Theme, character, setting, structure, setting, character, plot, dialogue, point of view, style, voice, tone, mood, narrator reliability, tension in a text, and shift

  • Assignments and assessments to include, but are not limited to:

    • Reading Journals

    • Graphic Organizers

    • Online discussions

    • Timed writings

    • Formal analytical essay of a short story using specific textual details to critique the quality of the work. There will several drafts and revisions. We will combine these critiques into a class literary review e-magazine. Students will have the chance to refute arguments about their chosen work before the published draft.


 

The Novel (5 Weeks)

  • Identification, discussion, and analysis of the following rhetorical devices as pertaining to the genre of the novel:

  • Theme, character, setting, structure, setting, character, plot, dialogue, point of view, style, voice, tone, mood, narrator reliability, tension in a text, shift

  • Assignments and assessments to include, but are not limited to:

    • Reading Journals

    • Graphic Organizers

    • Online discussions

    • Timed writings

    • Analysis essay to include an extended discussion of the text including the  historical context. Revising based on instructor feedback will also be required.


 

Test Prep (2 Weeks)

  • Terms review

  • Multiple Choice strategies and practice

  • Poetry analysis practice

  • Prose analysis practice

  • Open ended question practice

  • Timed Essays

Syllabus Example

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