Total Pageviews

SYLLABUS

AP English Literature and Composition: Literature is Life
World Journalism Preparatory School, Flushing, NY 11358 (NYCDOE 25Q285)
http://wjpsaplit.blogspot.com
Curriculum created by Shari Marks, MSEd, Literacy

Course Overview
The AP English Literature and Composition Course is designed to foster in students critical reading, thinking, and writing skills via numerous, frequent, and varied opportunities to closely read, analyze, respond to, discuss, and write about imaginative literature from diverse historical and cultural contexts. Students will consider an author’s purposes - what, how, why, and to whom writers write.They will study the impact an author’s choices have on the reader’s understanding of and reactions to text. A study of language will examine the ways in which authors, playwrights, and poets use structure, diction, connotation, syntax, tone, imagery, irony, symbolism, theme, and other literary and stylistic devices to elicit mood and responses from readers. Classroom community-building will encourage students question and make connections to varied texts. Students will practice writing in numerous modes for varied audiences and purposes, including expository, analysis, and argument. They will utilize the writing process - including daily dialectical journal writing, varied forms of idea generation, outlining, drafting, revising, peer- and self-editing, teacher conferencing, publishing, and presenting their work - to explore the ways in which they can improve organization, clarity, and message for overall effectiveness. Research skills and Modern Language Association citation methods will also be acquired and used as students synthesize materials from a variety of sources into cohesive performance-based assessments. College-level and technical vocabulary acquisition and use will play a major role in elevating students’ ability to think, write, and speak in an informed, purposeful, and sophisticated manner. This course is presented by theme and corresponding skills acquisition. Texts vary from canonical titles and authors, to modern classics, to challenged and banned texts. Students will explore long and short literature, poetry, drama, literary criticism, essay, film, and art. Students will be widely and often exposed to AP testing situations, including on-demand writing, using sources from and related to past AP English Literature and Composition exams.
Habits of Mind
Close Reading: Students will acquire a myriad of reading strategies, including annotation, Cornell Note-taking Method, dialectical journals, SOAPStone, Literary 3x3, TPPCASTT, SIFT, FIT, OPTIC, and others that will help them more deeply connect to, respond to, and discuss challenging texts.
Independent Reading: Students will read a fiction text of merit (suggested list from College Board and by teacher recommendation) every two weeks. They will record reactions to their books as they read (dialectical journals), as well as complete a summative response to reading chosen from a provided “choice board”. Class time will be provided for students to read independently, discuss common thematic texts, participate in author study groups, present book talks, or share reading responses. A community of readers will encourage one another to sample new genres, authors, and titles.
Vocabulary Acquisition and Use: Students will use the Oxford English Dictionary and Thesaurus to define and use new vocabulary on a daily basis. Vocabulary from common readings will be used in writing and discussion. A wide-ranging, sophisticated vocabulary is key to mature speaking and writing.
Discussion: Students will be exposed to a variety of discussion methods, including Fishbowl, Socratic Seminar with coaching/player roles and hot seat, debate, author study circles, Silent Discussion, Gallery Walk, and others that will promote informed citizenship and mature conversations regarding social issues, personal experiences, varied points-of-view, and history/current events. Students will also present various projects to their classmates, elicit and receive constructive criticism, and continually work to improve their speaking and listening skills.
The Writing Process: Students will be writing everyday, in class and out of class. They will produce great volumes of writing, both formal and informal, that will be the basis for expository, analysis, and argument pieces, as well as for discussion and presentation. Students will use self-review, peer review, and teacher conferencing to revise and improve selected pieces. Students will maintain dialectical journals in which they write a minimum of two pages daily in accordance with prompts and/or themes associated with the current unit of study.
Research: Students will conduct short- and long-term research (teacher-assigned and self-selected subjects) using electronic and print resources. They will be instructed in ways in which to use sources - direct quotation and paraphrase - and to properly cite sources using Modern Language Association style. An example of a major research-based paper will be literary analysis with historical and social commentary.
Homework: Each night, students will complete two or more of the following tasks to practice skills they have learned in class: read and annotate a new text; re-read a text through a different lens or for a different purpose; write a minimum of two pages in their dialectical journals; revise writing; watch/observe and react to visual text; conduct research and take notes; use varied reading strategies to analyze text; prepare for a Socratic Seminar; prepare for an author study discussion; work on an ongoing project; etc.
Assessment: Student work is assessed against AP English Literature and Composition Scoring Rubrics (adapted from testing materials) and against Common Core English Language Arts Standards for grades 11-12 and College Readiness. (http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/WHST/11-12/). All work is graded on a 0-9 scale, which is converted into points (0-100). All work is aligned with the AP Literature and Composition Scoring Components (see below).

AP English Literature and Composition Scoring Components:
SC1 The course includes an intensive study of representative works such as those by authors cited in the AP English Course Description. By the time the student completes English Literature and Composition, he or she will have studied during high school literature from both British and American writers, as well as works written in several genres from the sixteenth century to contemporary times.
SC2 The course teaches students to write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering such elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone.
SC3 The course teaches students to write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering the work’s structure, style and themes. 6 SC4 The course teaches students to write an interpretation of a piece of literature that is based on a careful observation of textual details, considering the work’s social, cultural and/or historical values.
SC5 The course includes frequent opportunities for students to write and rewrite timed, in-class responses.
SC6 The course includes frequent opportunities for students to write and rewrite formal, extended analyses outside of class.
SC7 The course requires writing to understand: Informal/exploratory writing activities that enable students to discover what they think in the process of writing about their reading (such assignments could include annotation, free writing, keeping a reading journal, reaction/response papers, and/or dialectical notebooks).
SC8 The course requires writing to explain: Expository, analytical essays in which students draw upon textual details to develop an extended interpretation of a literary text.
SC9 The course requires writing to evaluate: Analytical, argumentative essays in which students draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work’s artistry and quality. SC10 The course requires writing to evaluate: Analytical, argumentative essays in which students draw upon textual details to make and explain judgments about a work’s social, historical and/or cultural values.
SC11 The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students’ writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work that help the students develop a wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately.
SC12 The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students’ writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work that help the students develop a variety of sentence structures.
SC13 The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students’ writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work that help the students develop logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence. Such techniques may include traditional rhetorical structures, graphic organizers, and work on repetition, transitions, and emphasis.
SC14 The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students’ writing assignments both before and after they revise their work that help the students develop a balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail.
SC15 The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students’ writing assignments both before and after they revise their work that help the students establish an effective use of rhetoric including controlling tone and a voice appropriate to the writer’s audience.






Literature is Life Course Plan
Enduring Understandings:
  • Imaginative literature is life; it both reflects and promotes where we have been, who we are, and where we may be.
  • Imaginative literature is the story of the human condition, a chronicle of man’s (and woman’s) success and suffering.
  • Themes in literature are timeless and are representative of historical, cultural, and societal conditions.
  • Imaginative literature fuels critical thinking, intelligent conversation, and process writing.

Essential Questions:
  • What makes literature imaginative and “of merit”?
  • What are an author’s intentions and how do they impact readers’ experiences with literature?
  • In what ways and with what skills/strategies can we access, analyze, discuss, and write about imaginative literature?
  • What is the relationship between medium and message?
  • How does literature reflect and comment on the human condition?
Required Readings:
  • How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster
  • Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
  • The Turn of the Screw by Henry Miller
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  • The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
  • Medea and Other Plays by Euripides
  • The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow
  • The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike
Supplemental Readings:
  • The Crucible by Arthur Miller
  • Selections from Conversations in American Literature, Bedford St. Martin’s
  • Selections from The Bedford Reader, Bedford St. Martin’s
  • Excerpts from Euripides, a Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Erich Segal
  • Excerpts from Modern Critical Interpretations: Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and Other Tales, edited by Harold Bloom
  • Excerpts from Short Story Theories, edited by Charles E. May
  • Poetry, varied
  • Short stories, varied
  • Literary criticism, varied
  • Visual texts, varied
Independent Reading (student-selected, of literary merit):
Performance Tasks:
  • Personal Essay (college essay)
  • Timed writings (AP prompts and other assignments)
  • Entrance and exit tickets
  • Literary analysis papers
  • Research papers
  • Poetry writing
  • Creative writing
  • Projects, varied
  • Socratic Seminars
  • Presentations
Summer Reading Assignment:
Choose from one of the following novels of literary merit and create a minimum 5-page, typed reading response journal.
  • The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
  • The Cider House Rules by John Irving
  • The Dinner by Herman Koch
  • Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout
  • The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  • The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
You must choose one of the books from the list above. It is preferred that you buy your own copy so you may annotate as you read. Additionally, you will need your own copy of the chosen novel for approximately the first two weeks of school, as there will be several in-class and homework assignments that require you to use, reference, and quote both How to Read Literature Like a Professor and your chosen novel.
DIRECTIONS:
Reading allowance: two weeks. You should give yourself approximately two weeks to read, annotate, and respond to the book. Do not try to read it in a few days. Read carefully, annotate generously, and reflect thoughtfully.
Maintain a reading response journal; read and write daily. You may handwrite or type your responses. Please date each entry. There should be a minimum of 10 entries. On the first day of school, you will submit a typed reading response journal, minimum of 5 pages, single-spaced, Times New Roman 12-pt. Font. There is no need to use MLA citation in your journal. You will also share your reading journal with me at shari.marks@wjps.org. Please allow me to “comment”.
Reading Response Journal How-tos:
Do not write summary. Do not make personal connections to the text. Rather, write your reactions as a critical reader of the novel. Below are possible response topics; please note that you do not have to commit to one of these through the entire text, but rather, you should use what best fits what you have read on any given day. There is room to approach the novel in different ways, as well. Please consult with me if you are unsure if your ways are applicable.
  • Critique of themes emerging in novel - track themes as they mature and grow and analyze them
  • Surprises: You see something you didn't see/notice before (aha! moments)
  • You recognize patterns - imagery, gestures, phrases, details seem to overlap or repeat
  • Patterns of symbolism: what is symbolized, when, and what is the “bigger picture” meaning?
  • Author’s style: syntax, diction, tone - analyze its contribution to the quality of the text
  • Characterization - motivation, relationships, how characters sees himself/herself, how others see character, morals/values, what character represents, etc.
  • You discover that you were misreading - what do you know now that you didn’t know then? How did it happen?
  • You realize that the writer has introduced a new context or new perspective (...or narrator/voice/POV changes)
  • You notice new vocabulary, especially new words, that are being repeated throughout - discuss the importance of those words to the overall effect of the novel
  • Things don't make sense— clearly pose questions and/or state problems that occur to you
  • Note ways in which the story makes you think about about real life (text to world connection) or a connection to another text (text to text connection) or another academic discipline (history? science? psychology?, religion?)
  • Make a claim about a chapter and support it with details
  • Analyze the author’s use of literary devices, their functions, and their effectiveness
Unit 1: Literature is Life: A Study of Short and Long Prose
Approx. 3 weeks
Unit Goals: Students will be familiarized with the AP English Literature and Composition course in terms of structure, content, and expectations. Classroom rituals and routines, habits of mind, and community will be established. Students will investigate how their perceptions of literature “of merit” compares to those of professional writers and critics. As they discover what makes a good story, they will analyze their self-selected texts (summer assignment) and other texts in terms of meaning, purpose, and underlying messages. Students will draft, revise, and publish their personal essays (college).
Essential Questions: What types of imaginative literature can we read and analyze? What makes a good story? What are the elements of short and long literature? How can we analyze literature in terms of its merit of meaning, purpose, and message? How can we use dialectical journals to identify and analyze key literary passages? What are the connections between reading and writing?
Texts:
  • Summer Reading Assignment (student-selected text, notes, and analysis)
  • How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster
  • The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike
  • “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
  • “What Words Can Tell” by Francine Prose
  • “The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allen Poe
  • “Death by Landscape” by Margaret Atwood
Assessments:
  • Summer Reading Assignment: Dialectical Journals
  • Timed writing - diagnostics
  • Nightly annotated readings and dialectical journal entries
  • Timed in-class writings - entrance/exit tickets, AP prompts
  • College Essay - writing process plus final
  • Novel and Author Cards
  • How To Read Literature Like a Professor Bookmark

Unit 2: The American Dream: A Study of the American Novel
Approx. 5 weeks
Unit Goals: Students will define The American Dream and analyze its impact across short and long texts.
Essential Questions: What is the American Dream and how has it evolved/devolved? In what ways do history and society inspire and impact literature? How does the past affect the present and the future? How are the unit texts representative of “imaginative and of merit” literature?
Texts:
  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
  • “Ragtime” and other era-specific lyrics, by Scott Joplin, etc.
  • “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin
  • The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike
  • Independent reading selections - American Novels
Assessments:
  • Dialectical journals
  • Nightly annotated readings
  • Timed in-class writings - entrance/exit tickets, formal responses, AP prompts
  • Novel and Author Cards
  • Project: Historical Context Analysis - Then & Now Novels
Unit 3: Tragedy, Heroes, and The Human Condition
Approx. 4 weeks
Unit Goals: Students will understand, identify, and analyze elements of drama, with a focus on Ancient Greek and Modern American tragedies.
Essential questions: What is drama? What makes a hero? What is a hero’s journey?
Texts:
  • Medea and other Stories by Euripides
  • Euripides: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Erich Segal
  • The Crucible by Arthur Miller
  • Independent reading selections - Drama, Tragic Novels
Assessments:
  • Nightly annotated readings and dialectical journal entries
  • Timed in-class writings - entrance/exit tickets, formal responses
  • Drama and author cards
  • Project: Drama
  • Project: Synthesis Paper
Unit 4: The Dark Side: A Study of British and American Gothic Literature
Approx. 6 weeks
Unit Goals: Students will understand, identify and analyze gothic texts from varied time periods in American and British literature. They will write analysis, argument, and synthesis pieces.
Essential Questions: What are the hallmarks of gothic literature? How have history and society shaped and been impacted by gothic literature?
Texts:
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  • Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
  • The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
  • Modern Critical Interpretations: Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw and Other Tales, edited by Harold Bloom
  • “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Gilman Perkins
  • The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike
  • Independent reading selections - Gothic, Horror, Romance, Thriller
Assessments:
  • Timed Writings (AP prompts and others)
  • Nightly annotated readings and dialectical journal entries
  • Timed in-class writings - entrance/exit tickets, formal responses
  • Project: Text to film analysis
  • Project: Lens paper
Unit 5: Poetic License: A Study of Poetry Across Historical, Social and Cultural Lines
Approx. 4 weeks
Unit Goals: Students will study poets of varied historical time periods, social and cultural lines to examine consistencies and differences among works. They will understand how structure, content, and context make imaginative poems come to life and analyze poems in terms of theme, tone, and message. In their readings, they will make note of a particular style they enjoy, engage in a poet study of varied works by one poet or school of poets, and craft their own poetry blending that style with their personal, unique voice. They will perform their poetry for the class.
Essential Questions: What makes poetry of merit? How does does context shape content? How does poetry speak to readers? How can we learn from the masters and find our own poetic voices?
Texts:
  • Poetry selections from, among others, W.H. Auden, Anne Bradstreet, Robert Browning, Samuel Coleridge, Billy Collins, Dante Alighieri (excerpts from The Divine Comedy), Charles Bukowski, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Edgar Allen Poe, Adrienne Rich, William Shakespeare, William Carlos Williams, and Walt Whitman.
  • Independent reading selections/viewings - Poetry, Epic Poetry, Sonnets, Choreopoem, Spoken Word
Assessments:
  • FIT Poetry Logs
  • TPCASTT
  • Timed in-class writings - entrance/exit tickets, formal responses, AP prompts
  • Reading Project: Poet Study
  • Original poetry writing
  • Poetry performance
Unit 5: Comedy, Satire and Irony: A Study of Classic and Modern Drama and Literature
Approx. 5 weeks
Unit Goals: In this unit, students will understand the concepts and hallmarks of varied forms of satire and irony in classic and modern English, American, and World drama. In the analysis of such works, students will question and research the role of history, politics, and culture in the writing, viewing, and appreciation of these texts.
Essential Questions: What are the hallmarks of comedy? In what ways can a comedy be a tragedy? What are the hallmarks of satire? In what ways do history, society, and politics inform and inspire writers? How do writers use varied forms of irony for effect?
Texts:
  • The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
  • The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
  • Excerpts from World Drama, including Sartre, Ionesco, etc.
  • “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant
  • “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
  • The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike
  • Independent reading selections - Choice
Assessments:  
  • Dialectical Journals
  • Nightly annotated readings
  • Timed in-class writings - entrance/exit tickets, formal responses, AP prompts
  • Project: Satire writing
  • Project: Social Media

Unit 6: Final Words: Moving Up, Moving On
Approx. 5 weeks
Unit Goals: Students will prepare for senior portfolio exit projects.They will also create and contribute to “The AP Lit Legacy Project”, a compilation of materials that demonstrate their learning and assist and educate incoming AP Lit students. In groups, they will tackle a unit of study or cover topics such as “AP Lit Survival Tips”, “How-Tos” to “Study Guides”. Additionally, students will prepare for the upcoming AP Literature and Composition exam by understanding the structure of the test and practicing full-length exams under testing conditions.
Essential Questions: What legacy will you leave behind as you prepare for higher education? How can we help next year’s AP Lit class(es) prepare for and succeed in this course? What are the expectations of the AP English Literature and Composition exam?
Texts:
  • Past AP English Literature and Composition exams
  • Independent reading selections - Choice
Assessments:
  • Legacy Project
  • Senior Exit Portfolio






No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)