AP Literature & Composition SYLLABUS Welcome to the BHS learning community! 2013-2014 CHAPLIN Room: 8-09 E-mail: chaplin.christopher@mybradford.us BHS 904-966-6075 Facebook @ English Chaplin Course Website: tornadoenglish.blogspot.com For grade information: www.edline.net COURSE DESCRIPTION The Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition course is designed to teach beginningcollege writing through the fundamentals of rhetoric and follows the curricular requirements described in the AP English Course Description. Students will closely and carefully read a focused selection of plays, short stories, essays, novels, and poems from the Classical to the contemporary with an emphasis on English and American literature from the 16 th to the 20 th centuries. In response to their readings, students will record their initial understandings, explanations, and evaluations in a reader s response journal; participate in lively in-class discussions to share, clarify and deepen these responses; and practice personal, expository, and persuasive writing in timed and un-timed writings. Using the format of writer s workshop, students will receive feedback at all stages of the writing process, including teacher comments and suggestions, a peer-editing rubric, and grammar mini-lessons. Untimed writing will be revised into polished final drafts. Students will maintain a writing portfolio to record their progress. During the writer s workshops, students will become aware of their conscious choices of diction, their ability to create varied and effective syntactic structures, their capacity for clarity and logical organization, their ability to balance generalizations with specific and illustrative details, and overall, their ability to combine rhetorical processes into an effective whole. In their writings, students will draw from their knowledge base in other disciplines and explore many critical perspectives, including social, historical, psychological, moral and religious. Students will be encouraged to develop their own written voice through a study of selected writers diction, syntax, figurative language and mechanics. Students will be encouraged to share their writing with their peers. Students will also complete weekly vocabulary study. Though the kinds of writing in this course are varied, all good critical writing includes writing to understand, writing to explain, and writing to evaluate. All critical writing asks that one evaluate the effectiveness of a literary piece, but to be an effective evaluator, one must understand and explain. The essence of scholarship is the combination of these three approaches to writing. Upon completing the AP English Language and Composition course, then, students should be able to: analyze and interpret samples of good writing, identifying and explaining an author s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques; apply effective strategies and techniques in their own writing; create and sustain arguments based on readings, research and/or personal experience; write for a variety of purposes; produce expository, analytical and argumentative compositions that introduce a complex central idea and develop it with appropriate evidence drawn from primary and/or secondary sources, cogent explanations and clear transitions;
demonstrate understanding and mastery of standard written English as well as stylistic maturity in their own writings; demonstrate understanding of the conventions of citing primary and secondary sources; move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to inquiry and research, drafting, revising, editing and review; write thoughtfully about their own process of composition; revise a work to make it suitable for a different audience; analyze image as text; and evaluate and incorporate reference documents into researched papers AP EXAM DATES May 8th, 2014 @ 8 A.M. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS What arguable, recurring, and thought-provoking questions will guide inquiry and point toward the big ideas of the unit? How does literature help us understand ourselves and others? How has writing become a communication tool across the ages? How does literature reflect the human condition? How does literature express universal themes? WHAT IS AP LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION? AP English Literature and Composition is designed to be a college-/university-level course, thus the AP designation on a transcript rather than H (honors). This course will be weighted, however, on your high school transcript just like an honors course. This course will provide you with the intellectual challenges and workload consistent with a typical undergraduate university English literature/humanities course. As a culmination to the course, you will take the AP English Literature and Composition Exam given in May. A student who earns a grade of 3 or above on the exam will be granted college credit at most colleges and universities throughout the United States. REQUIRED TEXTS AND MATERIALS In the AP Literature and Composition course, students will create 1) a notebook with sections for primary texts, handouts, vocabulary, and portfolio; 2) a reader s response journal, and 3) notecards. Copies of novels, plays, poems, essays, and short fiction will be provided to the students. It is recommended, but not required, for you to purchase the following guide for the AP Exam: Cracking the AP English Literature & Composition Exam, The Princeton Review ISBN 978-0-375-42728-2. Preliminary list of novels, plays, critical essays, writer s guides, and anthologized material: PRIMARY TEXTS Oedipus Rex, Sophocles The Tragedy of Hamlet, William Shakespeare Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard Dr. Faustus, Christopher Marlowe The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald The Awakening, Kate Chopin 2
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka Wiseblood, Flannery O Connor Beloved, Toni Morrison The Tragedy of Othello, William Shakespeare A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger Transcendentalism: Essential Essays of Emerson and Thoreau Selections from British and American Poetry (Metaphysical - Postmodernist) Supplemental Texts: How To Read Literature Like a Professor, Tom Foster Vocabulary Power Plus Excerpts from The Psychoanalytic Theory of Personality, Sigmund Freud Samuel Johnson: Selected Essays Excerpts from Ovid s Metamorphoses READING EXPECTATIONS Students will perform close readings of each text assigned. WRITING EXPECTATIONS Students will write at lease one 40-minute essay per week, responding to AP Literature prompts. Students writing will be scored according to the AP Literature holistic rubric. As this is a literature and composition course, students will be expected to practice their best composition skills for every assignment. Composition assignments will include thesis statements, paragraphs, creative and imitative writings, timed writings in response to AP-type questions, and formal un-timed essays (personal, expository, and persuasive). We will work with various composition and syntax constructions, analysis of voice in reading and writing, MLA Format, sentence variety, word choice and written voice. Students will receive peer and teacher feedback at all stages of the writing process. WRITING ASSIGNMENTS CRITICAL Each student will write short critical un-timed papers, explicating poetry, short stories or drama, or based on a close reading of novels, including one that is research-based. Each paper will use specific and well-chosen evidence to present a critical perspective about poems, drama and fiction. Specifically, these critical essays are based on close textual analysis of structure, style (figurative language, imagery, symbolism, tone), and social/ historical/religious/moral values. Un-timed critical papers must be typed, double-spaced and proofread and will be approximately two-to-three double-spaced pages, with the research-based paper around five-to-six pages. Rough drafts will be required. All writing will be workshopped during class using peer editing rubrics and teacher comments. WRITING ASSIGNMENTS CREATIVE Students will be asked to write creative assignments poems, dramatic scenes, and short, short stories that take on the rhetorical forms and styles of the literature we re studying. These techniques include structure, theme, and style (diction, syntax, figurative language, symbolism, and tone). Students will work on rough drafts in groups in class, and these rough drafts will be workshopped. Final drafts will be typed and proofread. READER S RESPONSE JOURNAL Throughout the year, each student will log quotes, paraphrases, connections, imagery, symbols, themes, unfamiliar words, questions, and critical and personal responses 3 in a Reader s Response Journal. These journals
will be checked regularly and graded for overall content quality. These journals will serve a developmental function in the essay-writing process. Students will be encouraged to draw from their journals for Socratic Circle and for essay content. IN-CLASS WRITING, QUIZZES AND EXAMS In-class writings will primarily be based on AP examination questions; however, there will also be bellringerstyle writings to start discussion. We will have regular vocabulary and/or literary term quizzes. We will also have occasional unannounced quizzes, both simple reading quizzes and questions that ask students to engage an idea. GRADING Course Work Percent of Final Grade Classwork: Discussions and in-class activities 20% Assessments: 80% Timed and un-timed writings Vocabulary and reading quizzes Multiple-Choice Assessments Numerical Average Letter Grade -100 A -89 B -79 C -69 D Below 60 F FINAL THOUGHTS I would like students to see my role as a facilitator and a resource with my own perspectives and experiences that will be shared along with theirs. The ultimate goal is for each student to develop his or her written voice to produce college-level responses to challenging literature. College-level learning is not only about rigor although that is certainly a part of college but about responsibility and acceptance of one s self as a moremature student, reading and thinking about and writing more mature texts. The difficult texts will be a challenge for all the students, demanding that they form their own perspectives and opinions about published authors, about themselves as writers, about their colleagues as writers, about the deep and evolving questions about what it means to be a responding, thinking, and acting individual within their society. 4
Reading & Writing Schedule Note: This schedule is tentative and may change due to unforeseen circumstances and/or student need. SEMESTER 1 Dates Focus Major Text(s) 10/14-10/18 Close Reading, Introduction to Course, Writing Cathedral and The Chrysanthemums 10/21-10/25 Close Reading, Introduction to Course, Writing Excerpts from How to Read Literature Like A Professor 10/28-11/08 Classical Tragedy, Analytical Essay Oedipus Rex, Civil Disobedience 11/12-11/22 Modern Dramatic Tragedy, Analytic Essay The Tragedy of Hamlet, Selected Poetry, The Preface to Shakespeare 12/02-12/06 Existentialism, Synthesis Essay Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead 12/16-12/20 Synthesis Essay, Exam Preparation N/A 1/07-1/10 Modern Dramatic Tragedy, Analytic Essay Dr. Faustus, Selected Poetry 1/13-1/24 Gothic Novel, Synthesis Essay The Picture of Dorian Gray, Selected Poetry SEMESTER 2 Dates Focus Major Text(s) 1/07-1/10 Modern Dramatic Tragedy, Analytic Essay Dr. Faustus, Selected Poetry 1/13-1/24 Gothic Novel, Synthesis Essay The Picture of Dorian Gray, Selected Poetry 1/27-1/31 Modernist Novel, Analytic Essay The Great Gatsby, Selected Poetry 2/03-2/14 Bildungsroman, Synthesis Essay The Awakening, Self-Reliance, Selected Poetry 2/17-2/21 Short Story/Novella, Absurdism, Analytic Essay, Synthesis Essay The Metamorphosis, Selections from Ovid s Metamorphoses 2/24-3/07 Southern Gothic Novel, Analytic Essay Wiseblood 3/17-3/21 Historical Fiction, Analytic Essay Beloved, Selected Poetry 3/24-4/04 Modern Dramatic Tragedy The Tragedy of Othello, Selected Poetry 4/07-4/11 Bildungsroman, Synthesis Essay The Catcher in the Rye 4/14-4/18 Realist Drama, Synthesis Essay A Raisin in the Sun, Selected Poetry 4/21-4/25 Poetry, Analytic Essay Selected Poetry 4/28-5/02 Exam Preparation N/A 5/05-5/07 Exam Preparation N/A 5
14 October 2013 Dear Parent/Guardian: Please take a few minutes with your student to review the course description for AP Literature and Composition and, especially, the following quote from The AP English Literature and Composition Teacher s Guide: In an ongoing effort to recognize the widening cultural horizons of literary works written in English, the AP English Literature Development Committee will consider and include diverse authors in its representative reading lists. Issues that might, from a specific cultural viewpoint, be considered controversial, including references to ethnicities, nationalities, religions, races, dialects, gender or class, are often represented artistically in works of literature. The Development Committee is committed to careful review of such potentially controversial material. Still, recognizing the universal value of literary art that probes difficult and harsh life experiences and so deepens understanding, the committee emphasizes that fair representation of issues and peoples may occasionally include controversial material. Since AP students have chosen a program that directly involves them in college-level work, the AP English Literature and Composition Exam depends on a level of maturity consistent with the age of 12th-grade students who have engaged in thoughtful analysis of literary texts. The best response to a controversial detail or idea in a literary work might well be a question about the larger meaning, purpose or overall effect of the detail or idea in context. AP students should have the maturity, the skill and the will to seek the larger meaning through thoughtful research. Such thoughtfulness is both fair and owed to the art and to the author. In other words, even though the AP Literature course may introduce your student to controversial texts, it never seeks to indoctrinate them. The nature of the course assumes that its students will approach diverse texts and analyses with thoughtfulness and maturity. I create a positive learning environment in my classroom for all students. I set high standards, but I also provide support and encouragement. If your student has difficulty with behavior or grades in my class, I will contact you by email or a letter home. If you wish to contact me, please email me: chaplin.christopher@mybradford.us or at the course s Facebook page English Chaplin. Please sign below, indicating that you have read this letter. I look forward to exploring British and American literature with your student! Best, Chris Chaplin Parent/Guardian Signature: Date: 6