COURSE SYLLABUS ADVANCED PLACEMENT LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION Michelle Hadous, Instructor Fordson High School Dearborn Public Schools Room A201 hadousm@dearbornschools.org Course Description: AP English Literature and Composition is a college level course and students can obtain up to one year of college credit and/or advanced placement in college English based on the AP Exam scores. This course will include reading a minimum of 15 literary works studied in class, 9 novels (2 of which are part of the summer reading), 1 literary guide read outside of class for the summer reading, and an intensive study of poetry. All texts used in this course are approved and recommended by the College Board. Writing will also be a very important part of this course. There will be a minimum of 6 compositions per marking period, which will reinforce critical reading skills learned across the literary genres studied. The workload of this course is college level and will include AP practice exams throughout the year. The summer reading is required and will be the first assignments entered into the gradebook. Materials: The following literary works will be used both in and outside of class and are College Board approved/recommended as part of the preparation for the AP Literature and Composition exam. This is not an exhaustive list and literary pieces may be added as necessary. Literary Resources Literary Works Novels Poets Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense, 12 th ed., Perrine and Arp How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster A Poetry Handbook, Mary Oliver Grammar and Composition, Liberty Ed., Warriner The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde Aristotle s Poetics, Fergusson Oedipus Rex, Sophocles Dubliners, James Joyce excerpts from Middlemarch, George Eliot William Shakespeare: King Lear Hamlet The Taming of the Shrew The Merchant of Venice 1984, George Orwell One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest, Ken Kesey Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad The Awakening, Kate Chopin The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini Native Son, Richard Wright The Bean Trees, Barbara Kingsolver The Namesake, Jumpa Lahiri Siddhartha, Herman Hesse The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger Geoffrey Chaucer John Milton Edmund Spenser William Shakespeare William Blake Samuel Taylor Coleridge Paul Laurence Dunbar Lord Byron John Keats Edgar Allan Poe Alexander Pope Alfred Lord Tennyson Walt Whitman William Wordsworth T.S. Eliot Robert Frost Langston Hughes William Butler Yeats Nicki Giovanni Seamus Heaney
Major Course Goals/Instructional Practice: The course readings require close, deliberate and thoughtful attention to detail and complexity. The literary works range from various genres and periods 16 th century to the 21 st century. Close consideration through class discussions will also focus on the literary, historical and social implications of such literary works especially through Socratic Seminars. Students will be introduced and work with different lenses in their study of the literature. Personal response and reaction as well as interpretive conclusions will be explored through multiple opportunities, including annotation exercises and reading/dialectical journals. Writing will be an integral focus of this AP Literature and Composition course. Critical analysis is the focus of most writing assignments and students will also have the opportunity to respond to the literature in wellconstructed creative writing assignments to offer students a deep understanding of the literary works. The following are examples of the type of writing maturity that will be expected: A strong command of the English language A variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of both subordination and coordination to create fluency A logical organization which is enhanced by the facile use of specific techniques of coherence such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis A balance of generalization with specific illustrative detail An effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, a consistent voice and achieving emphasis through parallelism and antithesis This course will include numerous opportunities for students to write and rewrite informal, exploratory, extended discourse, and timed essays with instructor feedback. In-class, timed writing will be practiced weekly through several methods to address the expectations of the personal response questions on the AP Literature and Composition exam. Essential Questions of the Course: What is the importance of comparing and contrasting literary works and how does this contribute to a deeper understanding of the texts themselves? What is morality? How do literary works help to define life s expectations or lack thereof? What is good? What is evil?
Assignments and Grading Scale: IF YOU ARE ABSENT IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO OBTAIN THE WORK YOU HAVE MISSED. If you miss the instructions given in class, refer to the class blog for further direction. The blog will be updated daily. www.iblog.dearbornschools.org/hadousm/ Formative Assessments - 20% Summative Assessments - 80% Bell work Weekly Article analysis & evaluations Weekly vocabulary Daily homework Outlines and drafts of essays Reading/Vocabulary/Grammar Quizzes Literary Works assessments Final Essays (In-class and Assigned) Active Participation in class discussions Socratic seminars Book Talks (SSR novels) Essay rewrites will be accepted for 3 essays per grading period. Students must meet with me to discuss the necessary revisions and due date. If an in-class essay, quiz or assessment is missed due to absence, students must come after school on the next Tuesday from 2:30-3:30pm for a make-up period. Late assignments will only be accepted for full credit if you were absent and they are handed in the next school day. If you hand in an assignment late, not due to absence, you will lose 50% of the grade immediately. A 93-100 A- 90-92 B+ 87-89 B 83-86 B- 80-82 C+ 77-79 C 73-76 C- 70-72 D+ 67-69 D 63-66 D- 60-62 E 59 and below **Grades WILL NOT be rounded**
Attendance Policy: Students will follow FHS attendance policies. Students are considered tardy to class if he/she is not in their assigned seat working on the bell work when the bell rings. Please keep in mind 4 tardies = 1 absence and 10 absences results in reduced credit in the class. Students that do go on attendance audit must receive a 78% on the midterm (Semester 1) or the class final (Semester 2) or reduced credit will be given. No exceptions will be made. Hall Passes: Students must have a hall pass completed in their planner by a teacher if they are in the hallways during class time. Passes are only given for emergencies or if the student is requested by an administrator. Please kindly use the bathroom during your hall passing time. Technology Policy: All cellphones must be placed in the hanging pocket organizer in the classroom for the entirety of the class period unless otherwise directed by the instructor. Laptops/iPads will be provided to you when necessary and personal laptops will not be needed during class time. Academic Integrity Statement: The English Department at Fordson High School adheres to a strict zero tolerance policy on academic misconduct. Academic misconduct is defined as any dishonest representation of academic work, including but not limited to, plagiarism, fabrication, deception, cheating, bribery, forgery, sabotage, and personating. Any student caught committing academic misconduct will receive an automatic zero on the assignment and will not be permitted to make up the grade. Teachers may assign further penalties at their discretion. This includes, but not limited to, copying another student s work, copying information from the Internet or other sources, using anyone else s work to complete your own. All students will be responsible for their own work from start to finish. Any occurrences of plagiarism, whether from a published source or classmate, will be subject to the discipline of Dearborn Public Schools. Course Requirements: 1 ½ in binder with 5 divider tabs o (Summer Work binder is acceptable to use for this) o Tabs to be labeled Tool Kit, Current Unit, Graded Work/Essays, Vocabulary/Lit Terms and Misc. Class Handouts Printed Syllabus Misc. Class handouts Paper, pens, pencils Highlighters & Post-It notes for annotations MLA Reference book Class novels Many will be provided to you those that are not will need to be purchased
Tentative Course Schedule Each unit will be approximately 4 weeks long and will contain weekly in-class essays and Socratic Seminars, quizzes, literary work reductions, complete AP Lit timed multiple choice exam, grammar reviews and vocabulary building. Unit 1: Unit 2: Unit 3: Unit 4: Unit 5: Unit 6: Unit 7: Unit 8: