AP Literature and Composition Syllabus Fall 2013
Mrs. Welder -- [email protected]
English office hours: 3, 6, 8 Literary Center: 4
“One of the most effective and humanizing ways that people of different cultures can have access to each
other’s experiences and concern is through works of literary merit.”
~Salma Jayyusi, Modern Arabic Poetry
Expectations: Please…
Be on time. Be respectful. Be honest—have INTEGRITY. Be original. Be
inquisitive. Be a contributor. Be a good role model.
Course Overview
The class is designed to “engage students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through the
close reading of selected texts, students deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both
meaning and pleasure for their readers. As they read, students consider a work’s structure, style and themes, as well as
such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone.” (The College Board, AP
English Course Description, 2010, p. 49).
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 such smaller scale elements as the use of figurative
language, imagery, symbolism, and tone.
4. To study representative works from various genres and periods but to know a few works extremely well.
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, cultural and historical values a work reflects and embodies.
7. To write focusing on critical analysis of literature including expository, analytical, and argumentative essays as well as
creative writing to sharpen understanding of writers’ accomplishments and deepen appreciation of literary artistry.
8. To become aware of, through speaking, listening, reading, and chiefly writing, the resources of language: connotation,
metaphor, irony, syntax, and tone.
9. To understand the universal human experience as expressed in literature.
10. To foster autonomy in learning.
Reading Skills
Reading skills are incorporated into every unit and categorized into three critical areas including:
 The experience of literature: Respond personally and critically to literary works (themes, format and structure);
Utilize active reading strategies (with emphasis on re-reading and annotation); Establish connections from reading
(thematic, structural, personal and format)
 The interpretation of literature: Identify and analyze literary devices; Interpret thematic ideas; Recognize and
understand text and sub-text; Distinguish author's voice from character's voice
 The evaluation of literature: Assess the quality and artistic achievement of literary works; Determine a work’s
historical, social, and cultural values; Recognize the relationship between the literary techniques and the author’s
purpose; Analyze effects of genre
Writing Skills
Writing skills are incorporated into every unit and categorized into three critical areas including:



Writing to understand: Paraphrase and summarize; Use writing as a vehicle to understand text; Informal writing
activities: journals, annotations, free-writing; Model a writer’s style or literary techniques
Writing to explain: Apply MLA style; Use logical organization in writing; Identify and appropriately integrate
both primary and secondary sources; Choose appropriate and substantive textual support
Writing to evaluate: Timed writing; Integrate quotes into own text; Write coherent, focused, unified essays with
intent and broad stylistic variety
Students will also be expected to:
 Utilize internal transitions and sophisticated transitions between paragraphs
 Eliminate wordiness in their own writing (passive voice, clichés, etc.)
 Use correct grammar
 Employ appropriate vocabulary
 Revise and rewrite
 Vary sentence structure and sentence beginnings
General assessments and activities within each unit may include:
 AP Practice multiple choice

 Timed writing based upon a prompt from an AP

Literature and Composition exam

 Active reading

 Reading quizzes

 Formal Essays: College Admissions, Literary

Analysis, Research, Critical Interpretations

Analysis, AP Sample Prompts

 Peer edit/review
Peer teaching
Class discussion / participation
Informal and formal presentations
Note taking
Reader Response journaling
Vocabulary sentences
Independent reading
Grammar/style application worksheets
The following units may be modified if needed for time.
Unit 1: Classical and Modern Tragedy / Origins of Theater
 Annie Murphy Paul: Your Brain on Fiction
 Myth of Dionysus
 Sophocles: Oedipus Rex
 John Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”
 Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman; Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby (one will be 1st quarter independent novel)
With a special focus on:
 Elements of Greek Tragedy and Tragic Sequence
 History of Greek Theater
 AP Literature Free Response Prompt
** During this unit we will also work on the following: Personal Essay for College Admission and/or
Scholarship Application; Improving Writing Style
With a special focus on:
 What makes an exemplary essay? (We will review some exemplars)
 Rhetorical focus: voice/ethos and logic/logos; organization; fluency; word choice; convention
 Writing Style (ongoing throughout the year): sentence structure; fluency and rhythm; eliminating wordiness; use
of active voice; word choice
Unit 2: Poetry
Various poem selections including but not limited to:
 Poems selections from 100 Best-Loved Poems edited by Philip Smith
 R. Browning, Roethke, Hayden, Shakespeare, Herrick, Frost, Dickinson, Keats, Eliot, Wright, Marvell, cummings,
Heaney, etc.
With a specific focus on:
 Poetic elements and forms
 Prose vs. poetry
 Critical Lenses/interpretations
 Poetic Movements: Elizabethan, Metaphysical, Romantic, Victorian, Transcendental, Modern, Harlem
Renaissance
 AP Literature Poetry Prompt
Unit 3: Renaissance/Elizabethan Tragedy
 Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
 Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night
 Shakespearean sonnets
With a special focus on:
 Application of poetic and dramatic elements
 Shakespearean Tragedy and Form
 Characterization
 Critical Interpretations
 AP Literature Free Response Prompt
Unit 4: Short Fiction
 Short story selections from The World’s Greatest Short Stories edited by James Daley
 Kafka: The Metamorphosis
 Bunting: Terrible Things: An Allegory of the Holocaust
With a special focus on:
 Literary elements
 Author’s life and times
 AP Literature Prose Prompt
Unit 5: Human Struggle with Society and Self
 A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
 Independent novel related to research topic
With a special emphasis on:
 Oppression essay
 Research paper
 NoodleTools
Unit 6: Existentialism
Camus: The Stranger and The Myth of Sisyphus
Hemingway: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
T.S. Eliot : The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Truman Show
With a special focus on:
 Philosophy (Existentialism)
 Tragic hero/Anti hero
 Symbolism
Unit 7: Human Struggle with Society and Self
Dostoyevsky: Crime and Punishment
With a special focus on:
 Foil and split characterization
 Polyphonic novel
 Nietszche’s Ubermensch
Unit 9: The Modern Novel
Students choose one novel to read and study from the following list of possible titles:
Alias Grace, All the King’s Men, All the Pretty Horses, Angle of Repose, Animal Dreams, Atonement, Awakening,
Beloved, Brave New World, Catch 22, Einstein’s Dreams, Ethan Frome, Frankenstein, The Grapes of Wrath, The Great
Gatsby, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Kite Runner, Lord of the Flies, Montana 1948/Justice, 1984, Obasan, Player Piano,
The Poisonwood Bible, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Snow Falling on Cedars, Stones from the River, Their Eyes Were
Watching God.
 Formal literary paper—persuasive format. Students will take the novel they read and, again using material
generated in their double entry journals, will write an analytical, argumentative essay that attempts to persuade its
reader that each novel is making specific sociohistorical commentary on an issue of social concern. The issue
may, but need not, be the same in each novel. The essay, developed through multiple drafts, will argue for
specific ways, with illustrations from the texts, that each novel reflects the social concern detected and articulated
in writing, in the opening paragraph of the essay, by the student.