Sheehan 2015-2016 AP Syllabus Joliet West 1
Syllabus for Semester 1
The first semester begins with discussion and testing over the summer reading text, Heart of Darkness. The
students discuss this work and reflect upon their summer writing throughout the first semester. Using this text
the students complete their first major piece of writing, Students will refine their college essays at this time
given application deadlines; these essays help the students write for different audiences and lend themselves
well to peer editing, revision, and style analysis. The next text is Beloved, which is used for double-entry
journaling that focuses the students on how they read. This leads to the journal conferences, which provide an
opportunity for students to discuss growth as readers from the summer. Students complete AP exams in class,
looking both at the writing prompts and the multiple-choice section. Large assignments include the summer
reading project, the college essay, the journaling, and the Beloved essay, and critical review and analysis of
Othello. Students will utilize a variety of critical lenses to analyze the play. The students finish the play by
looking back at the summer work and looking at it in comparison with Invisible Man and Beloved. This class
does not provide many opportunities to author poetry; we instead focus on the variety of styles contained
within the anthology used for class. They write explications of poems, as well as comparison/contrast essays in
the style of the AP exam. To write better AP-style essays, they read student samples from the AP website and
have the support of their classmates for discussion and revision groups. We will begin A Doll’s House or another
work depending on what skills need to be sharpened and give the students an opportunity to gain an
understanding of character motivation, epiphany, and setting and how a playwright uses them to affect a
certain meaning in a play.
Note: All texts are subject to change.
Unit 1:
Summer
Reading
Synthesis
(2 weeks)
Texts: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, “Good Readers, Good Writers”- Vladimir Nabokov
Objective: The students read Heart of Darkness and analyze the novel from the perspective of
in-depth analytical questions, and then read Nabokov’s essay and determine whether he would
find them to be good readers. Students will also be prepared to discuss these works will extend
beyond the literal, and should analyze writers’ style and purpose.
Activities: The students discuss their answers to the summer reading prompts in small groups.
We analyze each text individually for tone specifically and how tone shifts throughout the
stories.
Assessment: There will be two summative assessments. The heart of Darkness exam asks the
students to respond to an AP prompt in a timed-essay situation; and a 40-question test
examining irony, story development and character motivation.
Sheehan 2015-2016 AP Syllabus Joliet West 2
Unit 2: A
Beloved and
Double-Entry
Journals
(2-3 weeks)
Texts: Beloved- Toni Morrison, “Good Readers, Good Writers,” Vladimir Nabokov
Objective: By reading a text and completing double-entry journals, the students will become
meta-cognitive readers aware of their strengths and weaknesses as readers.
Activities: The students read Beloved and journal on the right side of a notebook, documenting
page numbers throughout. They identify literary terms, ask questions and offer possible
responses, respond to shifts in tone, make predictions, and respond in ways they feel are
necessary as they read the text. They share their journals with classmates at designated times to
see what other students are identifying as they write. When we finish the novel, the students go
back and examine what they wrote on the right side, and then they write responses on the left in
which they interpret their initial thoughts, comment on their misinterpretations and accurate
predictions, and generally assess their reading of the novel.
Assessments: The students are assessed on their journal entries. The entries are examined for
depth and thoroughness. The students will also complete exams at the end of the three sections
of Beloved. The exams us AP-style multiple-choice tests and short answers that apply the text to
real-world situations of oppressive governments.
Unit 3: College
Preparation
Texts: The students will peer-edit the summer essays and complete a final draft for submission to
the college or university of choice.
(1-2 weeks)
Objective: The students create a 350-500-word narrative essay on a topic they choose from a
general listing of college admissions essay prompts, or using the prompt for the college to which
they will apply.
Activities: The students read sample essays, identify tone, structure, diction and thesis(implicit
or explicit). The students write rough drafts and peer edit each other’s essays. They use a
modified AP rubric to assess their essays and each other’s essays. These essaays are largely used
for submission to a college.
Assessment: The essays are assessed for content and mechanics, focus, diction, answering the
prompt, style and attention getting in the introduction.
Unit 4: 1984
Critical
Reading and
Analysis
(4 weeks)
Text: Othello- William Shakespeare
Objective: Through this unit the students will analyze Shakespeare’s play using four styles of
literary criticism: Psychoanalytic, Marxist, Feminist, and Reader-Response.
Activities: The class will read some of the play in school and more of it out of school. They are
asked to gloss their texts and focus on specific aspects of a certain critical lens as they read. For
example, in examining the roles of Desdemona, Emilia and Bianca, a student may see the power
structures essential to Marxism, while another student may find concepts from Feminism in their
relationships. We also examine the structure of Shakespearean tragedy, blank verse, and
character motivations throughout.
Assessment: A portion of the assessment for this reading asks students to take a passage in
isolation and apply two of the four criticisms we have been studying to the passage.
Assessments ask students to write AP-style responses to questions from prior AP exams. This is
done in a timed setting comparable to the AP test itself.
Sheehan 2015-2016 AP Syllabus Joliet West 3
Unit 5: 1984
Essay
(1 week)
Text: Othello- William Shakespeare
Objective: The students respond to 1 of 6 AP-style prompts on Othello, but rather than writing
the entire essay, they write an introduction with a thesis and the main points of support they
would use if they were writing the essay. The point is to get the students to focus their essays
and work on attention-getting introductions.
Activities: The students discuss the prompts in small groups with other students who have the
same prompt as them. This helps to spark some varying angles they might take in creating their
thesis and support statements. The following day they write the responses in class. I review the
responses, paying particular attention to the introduction and thesis statements as well as how
the support works with the thesis.
Assessment: The responses are assessed two times: the first time I look at how well the thesis
addresses the prompt and whether the introduction gets appropriate attention. I also look at
how well the support goes along with the thesis. The second time I am looking at the same
concepts and include both scores in the grade book.
Unit 6: Poetry
Unit
Poetry will be
infused
throughout the
year.
(3 weeks)
Texts: Selections from Intro to Fiction, Poetry and Drama by Kennedy and Gioia, 6th edition, in
addition to other readings from selected authors.
Objective: The students will start with the sonnet form and work into other more complicated
poetry constructions by reading poems in a variety of styles and explicating them both on their
own and in contrast and comparison with other poems.
Activities: After studying the sonnet form, students submit sonnet proposals either in the Italian
or English tradition with a predetermined topic, title and rime scheme. They then trade
proposals with another student and write based on that proposal’s criteria. The students then
focus on the work of one author for a week, examining his/her use of various poetic devices and
their function in the work. Seamus Heaney has worked particularly well for this purpose in
years past. Finally, the students are teamed up in pairs and compare/contrast poems as
designated in the textbook. The text asks students to compare particular poems. The students
present these explications for the class and the rest of the students follow along with copies of
the poem in front of them so they can gloss the texts using suggestions from the presenters.
Throughout this unit, students take practice exams from the poetry section of the AP test, and
they read sample student essays from prior AP exams and evaluate which ones were successful
and the reasons they believe so.
Assessment: For the sonnet assignment, the students are assessed on attention to the
conventions of the sonnet as well as the guidelines put forth by the “patron,” or student whose
proposal it was originally. For the work by a particular poet, the students are assessed on how
well they can explicate the poems using the terminology that has been learned and utilized since
the beginning of high school. In doing the compare/contrast presentations, the students are
assessed using similar criteria from the AP exam prompts that ask students to compare/contrast
certain poems. The delivery and overall presentation of the comparison/contrast is a significant
portion of the assessment.
Note: Although this is titled the Poetry Unit poetry will be studied throughout both semesters.
Sheehan 2015-2016 AP Syllabus Joliet West 4
Unit 7: Realist
Drama Unit
(1-2 weeks)
Text: A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (This is a suggested work. Another work might be used
based on the student skills that need to be practiced.)
Objective: Through this unit the students will gain an understanding of character motivation,
epiphany and setting and how a playwright uses them to affect a certain meaning in a play.
Activities: Students read the text largely on their own, examining setting and the subtleties
Ibsen uses to develop his characters.
Assessment: To determine how well the students understood the concepts from the play, I ask
them to create a 1-2-page outline that eventually becomes an AP-style essay. They create a
thesis based on which one of the 6 AP-test prompts they receive, determine a character on which
to focus, a support character to strengthen the case, and bullet points using specific textual
references that would support the thesis. After I review this proposal and give feedback, the
students turn this outline into a full draft. The students peer edit in groups who received the
same prompt.
Note: There will be Winter Break novel assigned. An AP essay will be given when we return from break.
Syllabus for Semester 2
The 2nd Semester begins with Things Fall Apart, and is used as a transition to poetry. We read poems whose
themes work in conjunction with the chapters. The students finish the text by looking back at the summer
work, looking at it in comparison with Invisible Man and Beloved. We tie in A Doll’s House as well in examining
how individuals fight against oppressive societies. There is an opportunity to look at literature as a
philosophical statement and how that effect is achieved as opposed to Vonnegut’s novel, where the political
statement demands attention. The short fiction and poetry unit allows students to examine the idea of single
effect as authors use it in shorter pieces. We come back to the literary terms they have been using throughout
high school and apply them at a higher level to different stories. AP practice tests and reviews of terminology
and CollegeBoard expectations are a large part of this semester. I hold AP review sessions before school and/or
after school for students who want extra help in preparing for the test. Note: All texts are subject to change.
Sheehan 2015-2016 AP Syllabus Joliet West 5
Unit 1: Things Fall
Apart: Man vs.
Society
Possible Winter
Break Read
(1-2 weeks)
Texts: Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe, Norton Critical Essays
(This is a suggested work. Another work might be used based on the student skills that need to be
practiced.)
Objective: The students will be able to synthesize Things Fall Apart with the earlier class readings, in
analyzing both how an author deals with a man’s struggle against society as well as how the authors deal
with presenting a variety of cultures.
Activities: Students read Chinua Achebe’s lecture regarding Joseph Conrad’s presentation of Africans in
Heart of Darkness. Students read poetry given at particular points in the novel and interpret the poems
through the text. Students investigate how culture and man’s perception of culture help define specific
literature through an online exploratory activity.
Assessment: The students will type a timed essay from an AP prompt in 40 minutes at school. I assess
the students on attention-getting introduction, thesis statement, thesis support, and sentence variety.
The students have another day to edit their writing and resubmit their essays. All essay assessment will
be based on the CollegeBoard rubric.
Unit 2:
Moment in a Novel
Essay and
Satire through a
Novel Unit
(3 weeks)
Texts: Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
Objective: Through this unit the students will evaluate literary devices in the text including satire, irony,
paradox, simile, metaphor, and allusion.
Activities: In addition to finding examples of the literary terms listed above in Vonnegut’s text, the
students work on other texts that use satire, including taking an AP-style exam based in which they
investigate the components of satire. They also read “The Children’s Campaign,” a satirical work
examining children fighting wars.
Activities: Students submit proposals with a thesis, the specific “moment” they intend to write about,
and an outline of how the essay will go. They conference with me about their proposals and have to
rewrite them until they are accepted.
Assessment: The final project for Slaughterhouse-Five asks that students can correctly identify the
assigned literary terms and explain why they are used and determine whether or not they are used
effectively. The students will also complete a major piece of writing, the Moment in a Novel essay. The
students create a 3-4-page essay identifying a key moment in the novel that upon first read seemed
inconsequential. This key moment comes at the completion of the novel, capturing a theme and
establishing an implicit importance.
Assessment: The essays are assessed on both content and mechanics, paying special attention to MLA
citations, sentence complexity, passive voice, and present tense. The argument should be structured to
illustrate what a reader may think initially, how the moment may be more important on a second
reading, what larger theme this implies, and how that theme appears in other parts of the text.
Sheehan 2015-2016 AP Syllabus Joliet West 6
Unit 3:
Existentialism and
Literary Criticism
Approaches to
Kafka
(2 weeks)
Texts: The Metamorphosis- by Franz Kafka
Objective: Through reading works in translation, students can examine the rhetoric of the translator.
In addition, students can apply the philosophical and literary terms and concepts they have developed
in reading the previous selections to a new work.
Activities: Students read essays about translating works and see how different translations meet
different demands regarding audience. They also apply what they have learned regarding
existentialism and literary criticism to this text without as much guidance by the teacher.
Assessment: The assessment deals with students understanding Kafka’s symbolism, his structure of the
text into three parts, and the epiphanies of his characters. The students can use this text as a synthesis
of the concepts we learned in a number of other readings done this year.
Unit 4: Short
Fiction and Poetry
Unit
The Short Stories
and Poetry will be
infused throughout
the semester.
(4-5 weeks)
Text: Selections from Intro to Fiction, Poetry and Drama by Kennedy and Gioia, 6th edition, in addition to
other readings from selected authors.
Objective: Through this unit, students will see how a unifying effect is achieved through the short story.
They will also revisit the poetry unit.
Activities: Students will read “Rocking-Horse Winner,” “First Confession,” “Araby,” “A & P” and “A Good
Man Is Hard to Find.” They will examine how point-of-view affects the meaning, how diction affects our
interpretation of characters, and how authors develop story structure and its effects on the content. The
text asks students to compare particular poems. The students present these explications for the class,
and the rest of the students follow along with copies of the poem in front of them so they can gloss the
texts using suggestions from the presenters. Throughout this unit, students take practice exams from
the poetry section of the AP test, and they read sample student essays from prior AP exams and evaluate
which ones were successful and the reasons they believe so.
Assessment: Students read these four texts within two weeks, so much of the assessment will be noted
through discussion, with an exam on literary terms for all four texts to follow after they are all read.
They will relate these literary terms to the poetry we study as well.
Unit 5:
Final Novel or Play
Text: This work will be selected dependent on what skills need to be refined for the AP test. All
objectives, activities, and assessments will be designed to facilitate a higher level of competency based
on student need.
(2-3 weeks)
Note:


AP practice multiple choice and essay tests will be given bi-weekly during this semester in effort
to give each student the opportunity to become comfortable with the test format.
Often novels and/or plays are changed at the teacher’s discretion based on what skills need to
be enhanced.
Sheehan 2015-2016 AP Syllabus Joliet West 7
Possible Texts for AP Literature and Composition
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1959.
Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Trans. Matthew Ward. New York: Vintage Books, 1988.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness: A Norton Critical Edition. Ed. Robert Kimbrough.
3rd ed. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1988.
Ellison, Ralph. Invisible Man. 2nd. New York: Random House, 1980.
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 6th ed. New York:
The Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
Ibsen, Henrik. A Doll’s House. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and
Drama. Eds. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 6th ed. New York: Harper Collins
College Publishers, 1995. 1258-1315.
Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Plume Books, 1988.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice. Literature: An
Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Eds. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia.
6th Ed. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers, 1995. 1153-1254.
Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with
Death. New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1969.
Poetry selections come largely from the Kennedy and Gioia text, with other handouts given when necessary.
Supplemental materials are used with most of these texts, but the main texts are listed above.