AP English Literature and Composition Syllabus
Overview of the Course
AP English Literature and Composition is designed to be a college level course. This
course will provide the intellectual challenges and workload consistent with a
typical college undergraduate English literature or humanities course. Upon
completion of the course, it is highly recommended that students take the AP
English Literature and Composition Exam given in May. While students are not
required to take this exam, students who choose to take the exam will have their
course grade weighted (a grade of A equals 5 points on a 4.0 GPA scale).
Additionally, most colleges and universities will give course credit to students who
complete the AP Exam with a score of 3 or better.
What will students understand by the end of this course?
Students will understand that:
- Literature provides a mirror to help us understand ourselves and
others.
- Writing is a form of communication across the ages.
- Literature reflects the human condition.
- Literature deals with universal themes (i.e., man vs. man, man vs.
nature, man vs. self, man vs. God)
- Literature reflects the social, cultural, and historical values of its
time
What arguable, recurring, and though-provoking questions will guide our
inquiry of literature?
- 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?
Course Goals
1. To carefully read and critically analyze literature
2. To understand the way writers use language to provide meaning and
pleasure
3. To consider a work’s structure, style, and themes as well as smaller scale
elements such as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and
tone.
4. To study representative works from various genres and periods (from the
16th to the 21st century) and to know a few works intimately
5. To understand a work’s complexity, to absorb richness of meaning, and to
analyze how meaning is embodied in literary form
6. To consider the social and historical values a work reflects and embodies
7. To write, focusing on critical analysis of literature including expository,
analytical, and argumentative essays
8. To become aware of, through reading, writing, speaking, and listening, the
resources of language: connotation, metaphor, irony, syntax, and tone.
Text and Materals
While all full-class readings will be provided, either in printed or electronic form,
students are encouraged to obtain their own copies of texts for ease of annotation.
Planned list of novels, dramas, and anthologized material:
- The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
- The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Heart of Darkness, William Conrad
- Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
- Othello, Shakespeare
- All the Pretty Horses, Corman McCarthy
- A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
- Short fiction and essays – as selected
- Poetry – as selected
Performance Tasks:
- Timed essays based on past AP prompts
- Essay questions as required of college-level writers
- Reading/responding to/analyzing novels, drama, fiction,
nonfiction, and poetry
- Literary analysis papers – expository and persuasive
- Personal essay
- Graphic organizers, paragraph responses, questions
- Reading journals
Grade Weighting
Per school policy, students who take the AP Exam – regardless of score earned – will
have their course grade weighted. A course grade of A equals 5 points on a 4.0 scale,
a grade of B equals 4 points on a 4.0 scale, and a grade of C equals 3 points on a 4.0
scale. Grades below C are not weighted.
Homework and classwork comprise 50% of a student’s grade. Written assignments
are 45% of a student’s grade, and academic responsibility 5% of a student’s grade. I
have chosen to include the academic responsibility grade because students at our
school struggle with both timely completion of assignments and regular attendance.
As many colleges and universities have hard and fast attendance and/or late work
policies, students in this course need to be held to a high standard in preparation for
college attendance.
Enrollment Policy
Because this is a popular course and class sizes tend to be larger than normal, it is
necessary to weed out the students who are not able to keep up with the workload.
Any student who is carrying a grade less than 75 or who is missing work at midquarter of the first quarter will be disenrolled from the class and given a seat in the
regular English class for their particular grade.
Independent Reading
Because students are expected to be familiar with a broad range of literature for
success on the AP Exam, students will be required to complete 2,000 pages of
independent reading over the course of the year. Students must choose works from
the following list:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)
All the King’s Men (Robert Penn Warren)
An American Tragedy (Theodore Dreiser)
Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
Antigone (Sophocles)
As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner)
The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
Billy Budd (Herman Melville)
Bless Me, Ultima (Rudolfo Anaya)
Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
Ceremony (Leslie Marmon SIlko)
The Color Purple( Alice Walker)
Cry, The Beloved Country (Alan Paton)
Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevski)
The Crucible (Arthur Miller)
Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)
Doctor Faustus (Christopher Marlowe)
A Doll’s House (Henrik Ibsen)
An Enemy of the People (Henrik Ibsen)
Equus (Peter Shaffer)
Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton)
The Glass Menagerie (Tennessee Williams)
Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Go Tell It on the Mountain (James Baldwin)
Gulliver’s Travels (Jonathan Swift)
Hamlet (Shakespeare)
Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy)
The Jungle (Upton Sinclair)
King Lear (Shakespeare)
Light in August (William Faulkner)
Long Day’s Journey into Night (Eugene O’Neill)
Lord Jim (Joseph Conrad)
Macbeth (Shakespeare)
Madama Bovary (Gustave Flaubert)
Major Barbara (George Bernard Shaw)
The Mayor of Casterbridge (Thomas Hardy)
Medea (Euripedes)
The Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare)
Middlemarch (George Eliot)
Moby Dick (Herman Melville)
Moll Flanders (Daniel Defoe)
Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
Native Son (Richard Wright)
Obasan (Joy Kogawa)
Oedipus Rex (Sophocles)
A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (James Joyce)
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
Song of Solomon (Toni Morrison)
The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams)
Sula (Toni Morrison)
The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)
The Tempest (Shakespeare)
Tess of the D’Urbervilles (Thomas Hardy)
Their Eyes Were Watching God (Zora Neale Hurston)
The Turn of the Screw (Henry James)
Waiting for Godot (Samuel Beckett)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Edward Albee)
Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys)
Winter’s Tale (Shakespeare)
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
While some of these titles are available in either the classroom library or the school
media center, many are not. Students may choose to purchase titles, or they may
obtain them from the public library. On a limited basis, the teacher may be able to
obtain titles for students through the local university library. Additionally, many of
the older works are in the public domain and, thus, their full texts are available
online.
Students will be required to enter into a dialogue with the teacher about their
independent reading via a “Questions, Quotes, and Notes” online blog. The
expectation is that students will journal at least once per week, and journals will be
graded for both completion and effort. The student’s second semester exam grade
will be equal to the proportion of pages completed vs. pages required. (For example,
if a student reads 1800 of the required 2000 pages, s/he will receive a second
semester exam grade of 1800/2000, or 90%)
Students are strongly encouraged to read books from the list that they have not
already read. The idea is to broaden students’ literary knowledge.
Writing Expectations
Because this is a college-level course, students will be expected to hand in collegelevel compositions. The writing process is not optional! Students will be required to
revise their writing for conciseness and structure on a regular basis. Composition
assignments will include statements, paragraphs, timed writings, reader response
journals, and formal essays (personal, expository, and argumentative).
All assignments for formal papers will include a specific grading rubric. Students will
be expected to rewrite larger papers and literary analyses after they receive feedback.
Timed writings will be scored using the scoring guides provided by the College
Board for each specific question. Because students are expected to handwrite essays
on the AP Exam, timed writings will be handwritten. Students who receive a grade
lower than 5 on a timed writing will be required to rewrite the essay. Students who
receive a grade of 6 may opt to rewrite.
Because these students are in a college-level course, it is expected that they already
have a good command of Standard Written English. However, students may
occasionally need some additional help. Mini-lessons dealing with complex
grammar and usage issues, sentence constructions, and diction will be taught on an
as-needed basis.
AP Exam Practice
While the main focus of this course is on teaching students to analyze literature and
create college-level compositions, it would be disingenuous to assume that students
are not interested in being successful on the culminating AP Exam. While the skills
to be successful will be taught through the use of literature, essays, and poetry, it is
still important that students know what to expect of them where the AP Exam is
concerned. Over the course of the year, students will complete 25-30 AP timed
writing prompts and will work through approximately 150 AP multiple choice
questions. This works out to about one essay and 5 multiple choice questions per
week.
Course Syllabus
Listed are the main foci for each week or weeks. However, these tasks are not the
only assignments students will be expected to complete during that time frame. As
stated earlier, there will be regularly assigned multiple choice practice and timed
writing prompts.
Week 1:
The first week will consist of beginning of the year housekeeping, including
setting up online blog accounts, becoming familiar with the policies and procedures
of the course, and an in-depth lesson on plagiarism. Students will also be required to
sign an academic honesty pledge and will explore the academic honesty policies of
the colleges/universities they are interested in attending. Students will also get an
in-depth lesson in the QQN (Questions, Quotes, Notes) form of annotation.
Week 2:
Review of literary terms: Students will review literary terms and create
graphic posters to hang in the classroom.
Baseline writing assessments: Students will be given an AP writing prompt.
Their essays will be used as benchmarks to which their progress in writing can be
measured throughout the year.
Baseline multiple choice assessment: Students will be given a portion of an
AP multiple choice assessment as a benchmark to which their growth in close
reading and analysis can be measured throughout the year.
Week 3:
Common Application Essay: Because most of the colleges to which the
majority of our students apply use the Common Application, students will receive
direct instruction in personal writing – including, but not limited to, anecdote,
dialogue, details, language, syntax, and varied sentence structures. Using the writing
process, students will have a submission-ready finished product by the end of Week
3.
Weeks 4-5:
Intro to Poetry: Students will be introduced to the TP-CASTT method of
poetry analysis and will work both individually and in groups to analyze the
following poems:
- Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night (Dylan Thomas)
- Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock (T.S. Eliot)
- I Felt a Funeral in My Brain (Emily Dickenson)
- To His Coy Mistress (Andrew Marvell)
- The Second Coming (W. B. Yeats)
Students will continue to analyze poems using the TP-CASTT method throughout
the year.
Weeks 6-8:
The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
Students will explore the following essential questions through reading, QQN
annotations, class discussions, and small group discussions:
- What do people need to be happy? Does modern life support those
needs or work against them?
- What makes humans feel powerless?
- Why do people sometimes feel at odds with members of their own
families?
- What are the qualities that makes someone “human?” Can a nonhuman be human? Can a human be inhumane?
Students will also explore the themes of alienation, the disconnect between
body and mind, and self-sufficiency vs. the welfare state, and will explore
Kafka’s use of imagery, metaphor, and point of view.
Upon completion of the reading, students will be guided through their
first literary analysis essay. As many students struggle with writing because
of a “one-and-done” approach, particular attention will be paid to ensuring
students work through the writing process. Students will be required to
submit a thesis statement for approval before even beginning to write, and
they will also be required to submit a rough draft after the initial drafting
stage. Guidance will be provided through modeling, sample papers, and peer
editing. For this first literary analysis, the majority of the work will be
completed in class.
Week 9:
Students will be given a prose essay prompt from a past AP test. Essays will
be timed and hand-written in class, as students will be expected to handwrite their
essays on the actual exam. For the remainder of the week, we will work to
deconstruct the prompt as a class and in small groups, explore at the prompt’s
grading rubric and sample graded essays, and reflect on our own answers to the
prompt. Students will then revise their written essays and turn them in for a 1-9
grade.
After Week 9, students will continue to receive prose essay prompts biweekly, to be timed and handwritten in class.
Week 10-13:
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Before beginning reading, students will need background on Puritan society and
philosophies, which will be provided in lecture format.
Students will explore the following essential questions through reading, QQN
annotations, class discussions, and small group discussions:
- How does the time in which one lives impact one’s beliefs and
actions?
- In what ways does society use stigmas in order to deem what is
socially acceptable?
- Is sin a conflict with oneself or with God? Should there be
punishment for sin and, if so, by whom?
- Can there be mitigating circumstances that exonerate a “sinner?”
- Does love always conquer all?
- Are women held to different moral standards than men?
Students will also explore the themes of hypocrisy, revenge, forgiveness, and sin and
will also explore the symbolism in the letter, the meteor, and Pearl.
At the end of the book, students will again write a literary analysis essay. While
guidance will not be as strong on this assignment, students will still be expected to
submit a thesis statement for approval and turn in a rough draft. For this essay, the
majority of the work will be done outside of class.
Week 14:
Puritan Poetry
Students will explore and analyze poetry by Anne Bradstreet, Michael
Wigglesworth, John Newton, and William Cowper using the TP-CASTT method.
Students will choose one of their favorite works and write an essay discussing its
similarities with the themes in The Scarlet Letter.
Week 15 – 18:
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Romantic Poets (to include Blake, Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, and Shelley)
Before reading, students will need background on the English Romantic period,
which will be provided in lecture format.
Students will explore the following essential questions through reading, QQN
annotations, class discussions, and small group discussions:
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What consequences do we face if we do not take responsibility for our
actions?
How does a lack of compassion lead to prejudice and stereotyping?
In what ways does scientific advancement present positive and negative
consequences?
Which has a greater impact on human development – nature or nurture?
Students will also explore the themes of nature vs. nurture, prejudice, revenge,
family, the restorative powers of nature, and ambtion. They will also explore the
symbolism of light and fire.
At the end of the book, students will again write a literary analysis essay. Students
will still be expected to submit a thesis statement for approval and turn in a rough
draft. For this essay, all work will be done outside of class. Students may receive
guidance on a case-by-case basis.
Students will also explore and analyze the poems of well-known Romantic poets
using the TP-CASTT method.
Week 19:
Students will be given a poetry essay prompt from a past AP test. Essays will
be timed and hand-written in class, as students will be expected to handwrite their
essays on the actual exam. For the remainder of the week, we will work to
deconstruct the prompt as a class and in small groups, explore at the prompt’s
grading rubric and sample graded essays, and reflect on our own answers to the
prompt. Students will then revise their written essays and turn them in for a 1-9
grade.
After Week 19, students will continue to receive poetry essay prompts biweekly, to be timed and handwritten in class.
Weeks 20-22:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Poems of Rudyard Kipling
Before reading, students will need background on British Imperialism, which will be
provided in lecture format.
Students will explore the following essential questions through reading, QQN
annotations, class discussions, and small group discussions:
1. What is the value of personal, firsthand experience?
2. To what degree is it possible to know or understand people and cultures
that are strikingly different than your own? What methods or processes
would be required for deep understanding? What does it take to achieve
understanding between two different cultures?
3. How does Conrad use literary methods to understand “darkness”?
4. What television shows and films have plots that resonate with the plot
of Heart of Darkness?
5. Describe Marlow’s way of interacting with the world. What methods
does he use to gain clarity of vision?
6. What does the novella say about language?
Students will also explore the themes of racism (overt vs. covert),
humanity/inhumanity, man and the natural world, identity, power, and language
and communication.
At the end of the book, students will again write a literary analysis essay. Students
will still be expected to submit a thesis statement for approval and turn in a rough
draft. For this essay, all work will be done outside of class. Students may receive
guidance on a case-by-case basis.
Students will also explore and analyze the poems of Rudyard Kipling using the TPCASTT method.
Weeks 23-25:
Othello by William Shakespeare
By 11th grade, our students have been exposed to numerous plays by Shakespeare,
to include Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. Thus, students will already be familiar
with the cadence and lexicology of Shakespeare.
Students will explore the following essential questions through reading, QQN
annotations, class discussions, and small group discussions:
1. Why does Othello distrust so easily? Is it related to him being an
"outsider" in his society? Is there some sort of paranoia built in to being
"different"?
2. Would Othello have treated Desdemona differently if the color of her skin
more closely matched his own? Does his willingness to believe the worst
have a racial motivation?
3. What are Iago's motivations? Are there different levels of motivation? Is it
possible there are some motives of which Iago himself is unaware?
4. Is Desdemona that different from modern women? Are there similarities
between her and women who are killed now by their lovers or husbands? If
there are similarities, are there also differences?
5. Is Othello weak? If he is, what is it that makes him so?
6. Where does the real tragedy lie in this story?
7. Why did Shakespeare make Othello a Moor? Is his difference necessary to
the play?
Students will also explore the themes of jealousy, racial prejudice, manipulation,
gender, power struggles, and appearance vs. reality.
At the end of the play, students will again write an evaluative analytical essay
that engages judgments about the artistry and quality of the Shakespeare
works we have read thus far. For this essay, students will refer to the “No Fear
Shakespeare” website where original Shakespearean works are side-by-side
with modern English translations of the works. Students will be expected to
explain how Shakespeare’s use of language and literary devices add to the
emotional weight of Shakespeare’s works and how, while a modern
translation still retains the “meat” of the story, modern translations lack the
quality that lends Shakespearean works their timeless literary endurance.
For this essay, students will still be expected to submit a thesis statement for
approval and turn in a rough draft. For this essay, all work will be done outside of
class. Students may receive guidance on a case-by-case basis. Students will receive
instruction and feedback both before and after revision in order to help
students develop logical organization and learn specific techniques to
increase coherence (including the use of graphic organizers), and work on
transitions (which have historically been problematic with these students).
Students will also explore and analyze Shakespearean sonnets using the TP-CASTT
method.
Weeks 25-27:
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Before reading, students will need background knowledge about pastoral
novels and the conventions of the western genre. This will be provided in lecture
format.
Students will explore the following essential questions through reading, QQN
annotations, class discussions, and small group discussions:
1. In what ways is this novel a western? In what ways does it transcend the
western genre?
2. What are the roles of women in this novel?
3. What do John Grady’s attitudes and habits imply about his personality?
4. How does McCarthy view the end of the Cowboy Era?
5. Is this an optimistic or pessimistic novel?
6. What effects do McCarthy’s unconventional treatment of
conversation/dialogue have on the reader? On the narrative?
Students will also explore the themes of the mythology of the American West, the
death of the cowboy, inescapable evil (“sacred violence”), coming of age, and
competing moral codes.
At the end of the play, students will again write a literary analysis essay. Students
will still be expected to submit a thesis statement for approval and turn in a rough
draft. For this essay, all work will be done outside of class. Students may receive
guidance on a case-by-case basis.
Students will also explore and analyze the poems of Philip Roth, e.e. cummings, and
Baxter Black using the TP-CASTT method.
Weeks 28-30:
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Before reading, students will need background on the Jim Crow era. This
information will be provided via lecture and video viewings.
Students will explore the following essential questions through reading, QQN
annotations, class discussions, and small group discussions:
1. The American Dream is rooted in the belief that everyone in America is
free to live up to their abilities. How does this ideal shape our dreams,
and what does the Younger family show us about the American dream?
2. What feminist questions are addressed in this play?
3. What statements is Hansberry making about race? Are there more than
one? Do they conflict?
4. How dies the idea of assimilation become important in this play?
5. How do the minor characters represent the ideas against which the main
characters react?
6. How do power and authority change over the course of the play?
Students will also explore the themes of the value of family, the importance of
fighting racial discrimination, and the value and purpose of dreams. They will also
explore the motif of the home and the symbol of mama’s plant.
At the end of the play, students will write an argumentative essay explaining
how the social and cultural values in Hansberry’s work are or are not relevant
to today. Specifically, students will explore what statements Hansberry is
making about race in the 1950s and how her statements are relevant to the
discussion of race in America today. (This will be a difficult paper for my
students, as most of them are white and very affluent with little contact with
people of other races.) Students will still be expected to submit a thesis
statement for approval and turn in a rough draft. For this essay, all work will
be done outside of class. Students will receive instruction and feedback both
before and after revision in order to help students develop logical
organization and learn specific techniques to increase coherence (including
the use of graphic organizers), and work on transitions (which have
historically been problematic with these students).
Students will also explore and analyze the poems of the Harlem Renaissance era
using the TP-CASTT method.
Weeks 31-34
AP Boot Camp
During AP Boot Camp, students will be reminded of the structure of
the exam and be given multiple opportunities to practice portions of the test in as
close to “real time” circumstances as are possible in the classroom. Students will
also receive instruction in test-taking strategies, relaxation and positive self-talk
techniques, and self-care in preparation for taking the exam
Weeks 35-36
Wrap up
During these last two weeks of class, students will be given an
opportunity to reflect on their successes and weaknesses in the class. Additionally,
the students will be given a survey to see what worked and didn’t work from the
perspective of the syllabus and the teacher’s teaching style.
Our AP classes are open to both juniors and seniors. Because
graduation occurs before the last day of school, seniors do not attend classes the last
week of school. During this week, juniors will get a taste of what AP English
Language and Composition requires so they can make an informed decision when it
comes to choosing classes for their senior year. (Our school offers AP English
Language and Composition and AP English Literature and Composition on a
alternating basis year to year.) Work during this time frame will be graded for effort
and completion rather than correctness.