AP English - Literature & Composition

Subject to change, but from the AP syllabus:

COURSE OVERVIEW

My approach to the course is thematic, although attention will be given to chronology and genre.  I feel that a thematic concentration helps to overcome the communication barrier that can occur between the work and a young reader when strict adherence to chronology or genre is observed.   Instead of exemplifying differences, thematic presentation accentuates the common ground.

I believe that close reading, analysis, and criticism are enhanced by the thematic approach and correlate most productively with my philosophy and methods. This course is designed to comply with the curricular requirements described in THE AP ENGLISH COURSE DESCRIPTION.                                                                      [C1]

My primary objective is to provide a course experience for my students which will prepare them to separate the superficial from the real text via the re-cognition which follows engagement.  The syllabus I distribute is titled, ENGAGEMENT: THE RING OF TRUTH.  Simply stated, the students will read the texts.  I will elicit their feelings, opinions, and insights.  As they respond with legitimate examples of critical theory, imagery, diction, tone, etc., we will identify it and build upon responses so that they can take something which came from inside of them and proceed logically and exponentially forward.  In this self-propelling and self-fulfilling manner, they will develop skills which will serve them when taking an AP exam or college course (in any discipline), as well as acquiring self-esteem, self-identification, and an eye for truth (sometimes versus fact).

Students discuss and write their interpretations about literature based upon its textual details. Discussions and writing must include a consideration of the work's structure, style, and themes, the social and historical values it reflects and embodies, and elements such as the use of diction, syntax, figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone.                                                                                                                    [C5]

The school year consists of four quarters of approximately nine weeks.  My syllabus is divided into seven thematic units.  However, the listed syllabus contains only the core of works studied in the course.  Additional works are studied from available text resources, supplements, and varied AP publications.  I provide all required texts or resources as well as directing students toward productive avenues for independent research, which is always encouraged and sometimes required.

CORE TEXTS:

Anthology:  Meyer,ed., The Bedford Introduction to Literature, 5^th edition

I chose THE BEDFORD READER as a primary text because it serves as a framework for writing assignments throughout the year.  Not only is it organized according to traditional rhetorical strategies but it is organized with a guide to companion pieces which aid cumulative comprehension.

 

Multicultural Non-fiction:  Verburg, Ourselves Among Other
Reference:  Hacker. A Writer’s Reference
Novels: Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
              Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Vogel & Winans, ed.,  AP English Multiple Choice & Free Response Questions in     
                       Preparation for the AP English Lit & Composition Exam, 6th edition

THE BEDFORD READER ensures a selection of literature from diverse periods, cultures, and genres and presents them in an apparent organized recognition of rhetorical strategies of narration, description, exemplification, cause/effect, definition, comparison/contrast, and argumentation.  Students are expected to recognize, interpret, and implement these strategies in their own writing throughout the course so the Bedford is a foundation.  However, other texts and resources are consistently used as listed above or accessed during the evolution of the year.  Two major novels are read, studied and analyzed as the basis of major writing assignments along with other major works.

 

Summer Reading:

Students are assigned summer reading: texts are provided:
Chopin, The Awakening
Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Shakespeare, Hamlet
Sophocles, Oedipus the King, Antigone
Instructional Handouts and Supplements

I also provide extensive packets which I have prepared of Eschatological Resources from both the Old and New Testaments and another of Mythological Resources.  Each packet contains cited listings of important characters and summaries and or excerpts of their stories.  My objective is to facilitate the students’ apprehension of allusions and enrich their interpretive perspectives.

 

Summer Meetings:

During the school year, daily classes are 45 minutes long, and I want to use the time optimally.  Summer meetings are not mandatory, but recommended; most students choose to attend.  I schedule two three hour summer meetings with AP English students during which we discuss summer readings and acclimate students to the elevated level of discourse and provide a frame of reference which will permit an immediate and comfortable entry into the practice and process expected of them.

I require students to bring written prepared notes with them.  I want them to form the habit of responding with evidence. Writing prepared notes and/or a reading journal enables students to discover what they think in the process of writing about their reading.  The summer meetings are also an opportunity for students to identify specific individual or group needs or strengths and allow me to refine my approach to meeting them.  If students need extra help, I provide it.  If they have particular interests or strengths, I respond to them. Students are instructed that they must go beyond the recognition of literary elements or devices; they must effectively use rhetorical strategies when writing. It is not enough that they can identify the author's controlling tone and voice; they must find their own as well.                                                                                                [C3]

 

Unit I – SHAPING THE INEVITABLE                                                                      [C2]
                 (all selections are from Bedford except D. H. Lawrence selection))

Aristotle, On Tragic Character
Bedford,  A Study of Sophocles, Theatrical Conventions of Greek Drama, Tragedy,     
               Psychological Strategies
Muriel Rukeyser, On Oedipus the King
D. H. Lawrence, The Rocking Horse Winner
Donald Hall, My Son, My Executioner
Seamus Heaney, Digging
Galway Kinnell, After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
Thomas Hardy, The Convergence of the Twain

Unit I provides ample opportunity for students to examine the universal questions which literature explores with a diversity which exemplifies their inescapability.  The writing assignments which originate from these selections provide an opportunity for students to challenge and hone their skills for argumentation and support.  It allows ample opportunities for me to identify pitfalls and offer feedback to avoid and correct them.  Students are given multiple opportunities to respond to weaknesses in their papers and work to anticipate vulnerable arguments in order to either identify them as flawed or restructure them with effective strength.                                                                   [C2]

 

Unit II – Deceit, Dishonor, and Discontent                                                             
                   (unless otherwise cited, all selections are from Bedford)

Shakespeare, Othello
Gardner, On Freedom in Hamlet and Othello
Bradley, On Iago’s Intellect and Will
Adamson, On Desdemona’s Role in Othello
Levertov, The Ache of Marriage
Piriz, Marriage by Pros and Cons, (Ourselves)
Hughes, Ballad of the Landlord, Dream Deferred

Unit II allows for further development of students' thinking and writing skills with themes that are cohesive and directed but broader in possibilities.  The Units continue to progress in that breadth.  Units IV and V include major novels and writing assignments as indicated under headings WRITING ASSIGNMENTS and TEACHING THE NOVEL.

 

Unit III – FACING DEATH AS A FACT                                                                                                             
                    (all selections are from Bedford)                                                               [C2]

Robert Morgan, Mountain Graveyard
Dylan Thomas, The Hand That Signed the Paper
Janice Townley Moore, To a Wasp
Stephen Crane, A Man Said to the Universe
Theodore Roethke, The Waking
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, What is an Epigram
A. R. Ammons, Coward
David McCord, Epitaph on a Waiter
Thomas Hardy, Channel Firing, The Voice

Unit IV – BUT, IT WAS DIFFERENT THEN…                                                       [C2]
                (except for novel and otherwise cited reading, all selections are from Bedford)

Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter  (including theories and essays)
Bedford, Critical Strategies of Reading
Simone de Beauvoir, Woman as Other (Ourselves)
Sharon Olds, The Elder Sister
Edna St. Vincent Millay ,I Too Beneath Your Moon, Almighty Sex,
                                        What Lips My Lips Have Kissed

Toni Cade Cambera, The Lesson
D. H. Lawrence, The Horse Dealer’s Daughter
Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birthmark
Bob Dylan, Times They Are A-Changing 
John Donne, The Canonization  

Unit V – OBSESSION                                                                                                  [C2]
                  (except for novel, all reading is from Bedford)

Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights and theory
John Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci
Margaret Atwood, You Fit into Me
                              Dreams of Animals
Jane Kenyon, Thinking of Madame Bovary
Robert Browning, My Last Duchess
                             Porphyria’s Lover
Sylvia Plath, Daddy
Joseph Conrad, The Lagoon
Jane Martin, Twirler

Unit VI – RULES, ROLES, REASONS                                                                                                      

                (except for readings otherwise cited, all are from Bedford)                           [C2]

Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House
Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie
Flannery O’Connor, Good Country People
                                 Everything That Rises Must Converge
                                 A Good Man is Hard to Find

 Gail Godwin, A Sorrowful Woman
Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing
Ved Mehta, Pom’s Engagement, (Ourselves)
Marjorie Shostak, Nisa’s Marriage (Ourselves)
William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour
Gwendolyn Brooks, The Mother
Adrienne Rich, Living in Sin
May Swenson, The Centaur

Unit VII – YES or NO?                                                                                                                          (except for selections otherwise cited, all are from Bedford)              [C2]

 Kataryn Machan Aal, Hazel Tells Laverne
E. E. Cummings, she being Brand
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Never May the Fruit Be Plucked
Stevie Smith, How Cruel is the Story of Eve, Valuable
W. B. Yeats, Adam’s Curse
Leonard Cohen, Suzanne
William Blake, The Sick Rose
Albert Rios, Seniors
A. E. Housman, When I Was One and Twenty
Sharon Olds, Sex Without Love
Meatloaf, Paradise by the Dashboard Light (from album Bat Out of Hell)
Sidonie Garielle Colette, The Hand

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