AP Literature Tentative Syllabus 2013-2014
Ms. Woodson Room 3064D
Course Description:
AP courses are college level classes on a high school campus. This course is designed to prepare students to take the required AP exam in May. We will focus on close reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature spanning from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries and a variety of genres. Students will read a few works deliberately and thoroughly to take time to understand a work’s complexity, to absorb its richness of meaning, and to analyze how that meaning is embodied in literary form. This curriculum emphasizes the craft of literary artistry as well as considerations of the social and historical implications of a work and the necessary critical thinking and writing skills required to successfully comprehend and complete the AP exam. Students may receive college credit depending upon the score earned. After two years of AP English, students are well-prepared for college writing in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, etc. as well as literary analyses.
Supplies—to bring to class everyday:
1 three ring binder
10 tab dividers
1 flashdrive
Notebook Paper – wide ruled
Black pens
Post-it notes (lots)
Index cards (all the same size): 4” x 6” (the largest)
1 file folder with pockets
Textbooks:
Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense ninth edtion
How to Read Literature Like a Professor Thomas Foster
AP Exam Preparation:
Students will practice multiple choice and take a mock AP exam in January during your period's exam period to become accustomed to both the test format and timing needed to complete the exam successfully. Numerous essays will also be assigned, so the necessary skills will be practiced for success on the free-response section of the AP exam. The AP exam is scheduled for May --, 2014. I recommend that you periodically check the College Board website at http://www.collegeboard.com/ap/students/index.html for updates and assistance. You will receive more details from the AP Test Coordinator, Mrs. Newby. College Board reserves the right to change the testing date
AP Scores:
Students will need a College Board account to access questions and AP scores online. You may create an account at www.apscore.org. You will find sample multiple choice and free response questions as well as test tips there.
College Credit:
Go to the following website and plug in your colleges of choice in order to see the college credits you will receive based on scores: http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/apcreditpolicy/index.jsp
Grading:
Approximately 40% essays & projects 30% daily oral & written participation 30% tests & quizzes
Daily Participation Grade:
You are graded daily on your class participation, both oral and written. You will need to make an appointment with me to make up your Daily Grade within 3 days of absence. An alternate class participation assignment will be given to make up for the missing grade. We will have 3 class participation sessions and 2 reading/work sessions per week. Designated days are to be announced the first week of school.
Make-up/Late Work:
Check our class’s web site and/or make-up work binder upon your return from an absence. Make-up work is to be turned in within 3 days into the make-up/journal box. Late work (not due to an excused absence) will receive one letter grade lower each day it is late. When you are absent you lose class participation points, so you need to check on an alternative assignment to regain those points. Long term projects are due on the due date. If you are absent on the due date, make arrangements for the work to be turned in. If you can’t find anyone to turn it in, call me on the due date and provide directions to your house for me to pick it up. Schedule make- up quizzes and tests before or after school within 3 days of your absence. It is your responsibility to locate and make up your missed work.
Work Load:
As you know, the daily average homework time is one hour per night. Most homework is reading. Students have a tendency to put off reading homework until bedtime when they are too exhausted to absorb the material. This habit shows up quickly in class discussions and essays. Book summaries and quick reads do not provide the type of analysis and thinking that are needed for success in this course. Homework will be given on weekends and holidays. Homework appears excessive when students don’t spend the appropriate amount of time nightly and on designated reading days, wait until an assignment is due and then spend hours trying to complete it. Time management is key to success in this course. Much of the material will be read outside of class, at times 2 books will be read at the same time, and as a class, we analyze the books after everyone has read a chunk or the entire book instead of analyzing chapter by chapter. Also frequent papers are required with appropriate rewriting.
Extra Credit Opportunities:
You can receive extra credit when you turn in the books we’ve studied thoroughly annotated, make study flashcards, or rewritten essays beyond the final copy with significant revisions ( with all copies attached). You also can receive extra credit for cartoons you bring in referencing the reading from last year or this year. Annotations and flashcards must be turned in at the end of the course of study involving these materials. I WILL NOT TAKE ANY OF THESE MATERIALS PAST ONE WEEK AFTER WE’VE STUDIED THEM (except cartoons). I WILL NOT TAKE ANY EXTRA CREDIT WORK ONE WEEK PRIOR TO THE END OF THE NINE WEEKS.
College Recommendations:
Please place your college recommendation requests in the RED box marked College Recs on the top shelf next to my desk and printer. There will be a form on our website for you to complete which should be clipped to your request. Include the due date (give at least two weeks’ notice) that you need the recommendation letter(s) to be mailed. REQUIRED: addressed stamped envelope with the school return address and my name. Sample: Jefferson Forest High School/Woodson 1 Cavalier Circle Forest, VA 24551 Special Note: I will only write recommendations that I can mail or email myself.
****Special Note: Students who email me or verbally ask me AND DON'T use the form found on our class website risk their recommendation not being done. I am sorry but I cannot possibly remember every request unless you follow the procedure I have organized.
Field Trips/Guest Speakers:
Field trips to see drama and experience poetry are being planned. I will get the information to you as soon as dates, prices, and information is finalized. Also many times during the year, AP Lit students will go to optional readings, lectures, talks, and dramas at local colleges as a group for extra credit. Sometimes we include meals in our literary adventures.
AP Lit Course Tentative Outline 2013-14
Course Syllabus Essential Question:
How does the literature of imagination,full of untruths, manage to convey to us, the readers, the most profound truths about human nature and society?
Daily Essential Questions:
What is the meaning of the piece? How do you know? So what?
Theme, Tone, Purpose, Metaphor Daily!!!!!!!!!!!
Q1 SOL 12. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Why really read? Why is story so compelling to us? How do writers shape & manipulate language so readers discover their own truths? What choices do writers make that impact meaning, beauty, and truth?
nursery rhymes, fairy tales
Our own stories
Greeks, Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, ballads, riddles
3 levels of meaning-- “Curlews”
AP English Prep Day
“Ordeal by Cheque” graphic story
college essays
short stories (Perrine’s) that may include
“Hunters in the Snow”
“Rocking Horse Winner”
“The Cask of Amontillado”
“Where are you Going, Where Have you Been?”
“Interpreter of Maladies”
Flannery O’Connor’s stories
“Once Upon a Time”
Comedy/Taming of the Shrew & field trip to Liberty University
prose FR prompts & MC practice
Independent novel selections: The Handmaid's Tale, The Kite Runner, A Lesson Before Dying, and other contemporary titles
Q2 SOL 12.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7
How does genre affect author’s meaning? Why have popular formats for storytelling shifted over the generations? How is poetry the lifeblood of our language? How does poetry reveal the essences of what really matters to humans?
Short Story Teaching Project
Verse --review skills
Poems may include the following:
Romantic poems--assorted
“God’s Grandeur”
Shakespearean sonnet
“One Art”
“My Last Duchess”
John Donne mini unit
Dickinson and Frost poems
“Dover Beach”
“Terence, This is Stupid Stuff”
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Writing our own poetry and imaginative stories
poetry MC and FR
The Bluest Eye
Lit Circle Novel--seminar filmed activity
Open Prompts--the list & practice
Mock Exam
Q3 SOL 12. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Essential Questions: What are our true selves? Do we have the
capacity to face our real selves? Why do we enjoy being ‘in the
know’ and on the ‘inside’? How does poking fun at our
lives and surroundings bring us satisfaction?
Portfolio Self-Assessment
poetry analysis continued
Heart of Darkness/Daisy Miller
Gulliver’s Travels and Satire
Tragedy--King Lear or Macbeth
The Sound and the Fury
Q4 Fourth Nine Weeks—SOL 12.1,2 3, 4, 5, 7
Essential Questions: How do we know who we really are? How do we handle our prejudices? What genre best suits our expressions of beauty and truth?
mock exam 2--optional
Heart of Darkness
Anne Spencer focus and field trip
Fences
Art Museum Field Trip
19th Century Novel--student vote--The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Return of the Native, or Great Expectations
Poetry project
(If time Frankenstein)
AP Exam Prep
AP Lit Reads--an argument based literature contest
Quizzes and Tests to be part comprehension and part close reading analysis.
Ongoing each 9 weeks: --Language exercises SOL 12.3 & 7 --AP Multiple Choice Questions SOL 12. 3 & 4 --Timed Responses to direct AP free response prompts SOL 12.7 --Reader Responses 12.7 --Write, revise, and edit essays in multiple modes SOL 12.7 & 8 --Daily oral participation SOL 12.1 --poetry reactions 12.5 --Voice Lessons practice 12.3, 5, & 6 --Word studies 12.3
(Please print 2 copies of the above and place in binder and at home in a conspicuous place. I encourage you to place dates in your agenda, e-calendar, and/or wall calendar to keep yourself aware of due dates. Get the signatures and appropriate information of the following permission slip and give to me on the first day of school.)
****************************************************************************************************************************************************
(please cut and return only the portion below)
(Please print just the permission form below and turn in the first day of school) We have read, and we understand the course syllabus for AP English Literature and Composition. We commit to the workload and requirements of this class. We agree that the student will take the AP exam in May, 2014 as well as participate in the AP Prep opportunities. College Board reserves the right to change the testing date. Interims will be sent home via email.
Print Student Name_____________________________________ Class Period________
_______________________________________ student signature
_______________________________________ parent signature _________________________ home phone #
_________________________ parent work # Please include area code, if long distance
_________________________ parent cell #
________________________________________________parent e-mail address
(please type and paste or tape here - do not handwrite)
______________________________________________________student e-mail address (please type and paste or tape here - do not handwrite)
AP courses are college level classes on a high school campus. This course is designed to prepare students to take the required AP exam in May. We will focus on close reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature spanning from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries and a variety of genres. Students will read a few works deliberately and thoroughly to take time to understand a work’s complexity, to absorb its richness of meaning, and to analyze how that meaning is embodied in literary form. This curriculum emphasizes the craft of literary artistry as well as considerations of the social and historical implications of a work and the necessary critical thinking and writing skills required to successfully comprehend and complete the AP exam. Students may receive college credit depending upon the score earned. After two years of AP English, students are well-prepared for college writing in the humanities, social sciences, sciences, etc. as well as literary analyses.
Supplies—to bring to class everyday:
1 three ring binder
10 tab dividers
1 flashdrive
Notebook Paper – wide ruled
Black pens
Post-it notes (lots)
Index cards (all the same size): 4” x 6” (the largest)
1 file folder with pockets
Textbooks:
Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense ninth edtion
How to Read Literature Like a Professor Thomas Foster
AP Exam Preparation:
Students will practice multiple choice and take a mock AP exam in January during your period's exam period to become accustomed to both the test format and timing needed to complete the exam successfully. Numerous essays will also be assigned, so the necessary skills will be practiced for success on the free-response section of the AP exam. The AP exam is scheduled for May --, 2014. I recommend that you periodically check the College Board website at http://www.collegeboard.com/ap/students/index.html for updates and assistance. You will receive more details from the AP Test Coordinator, Mrs. Newby. College Board reserves the right to change the testing date
AP Scores:
Students will need a College Board account to access questions and AP scores online. You may create an account at www.apscore.org. You will find sample multiple choice and free response questions as well as test tips there.
College Credit:
Go to the following website and plug in your colleges of choice in order to see the college credits you will receive based on scores: http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/apcreditpolicy/index.jsp
Grading:
Approximately 40% essays & projects 30% daily oral & written participation 30% tests & quizzes
Daily Participation Grade:
You are graded daily on your class participation, both oral and written. You will need to make an appointment with me to make up your Daily Grade within 3 days of absence. An alternate class participation assignment will be given to make up for the missing grade. We will have 3 class participation sessions and 2 reading/work sessions per week. Designated days are to be announced the first week of school.
Make-up/Late Work:
Check our class’s web site and/or make-up work binder upon your return from an absence. Make-up work is to be turned in within 3 days into the make-up/journal box. Late work (not due to an excused absence) will receive one letter grade lower each day it is late. When you are absent you lose class participation points, so you need to check on an alternative assignment to regain those points. Long term projects are due on the due date. If you are absent on the due date, make arrangements for the work to be turned in. If you can’t find anyone to turn it in, call me on the due date and provide directions to your house for me to pick it up. Schedule make- up quizzes and tests before or after school within 3 days of your absence. It is your responsibility to locate and make up your missed work.
Work Load:
As you know, the daily average homework time is one hour per night. Most homework is reading. Students have a tendency to put off reading homework until bedtime when they are too exhausted to absorb the material. This habit shows up quickly in class discussions and essays. Book summaries and quick reads do not provide the type of analysis and thinking that are needed for success in this course. Homework will be given on weekends and holidays. Homework appears excessive when students don’t spend the appropriate amount of time nightly and on designated reading days, wait until an assignment is due and then spend hours trying to complete it. Time management is key to success in this course. Much of the material will be read outside of class, at times 2 books will be read at the same time, and as a class, we analyze the books after everyone has read a chunk or the entire book instead of analyzing chapter by chapter. Also frequent papers are required with appropriate rewriting.
Extra Credit Opportunities:
You can receive extra credit when you turn in the books we’ve studied thoroughly annotated, make study flashcards, or rewritten essays beyond the final copy with significant revisions ( with all copies attached). You also can receive extra credit for cartoons you bring in referencing the reading from last year or this year. Annotations and flashcards must be turned in at the end of the course of study involving these materials. I WILL NOT TAKE ANY OF THESE MATERIALS PAST ONE WEEK AFTER WE’VE STUDIED THEM (except cartoons). I WILL NOT TAKE ANY EXTRA CREDIT WORK ONE WEEK PRIOR TO THE END OF THE NINE WEEKS.
College Recommendations:
Please place your college recommendation requests in the RED box marked College Recs on the top shelf next to my desk and printer. There will be a form on our website for you to complete which should be clipped to your request. Include the due date (give at least two weeks’ notice) that you need the recommendation letter(s) to be mailed. REQUIRED: addressed stamped envelope with the school return address and my name. Sample: Jefferson Forest High School/Woodson 1 Cavalier Circle Forest, VA 24551 Special Note: I will only write recommendations that I can mail or email myself.
****Special Note: Students who email me or verbally ask me AND DON'T use the form found on our class website risk their recommendation not being done. I am sorry but I cannot possibly remember every request unless you follow the procedure I have organized.
Field Trips/Guest Speakers:
Field trips to see drama and experience poetry are being planned. I will get the information to you as soon as dates, prices, and information is finalized. Also many times during the year, AP Lit students will go to optional readings, lectures, talks, and dramas at local colleges as a group for extra credit. Sometimes we include meals in our literary adventures.
AP Lit Course Tentative Outline 2013-14
Course Syllabus Essential Question:
How does the literature of imagination,full of untruths, manage to convey to us, the readers, the most profound truths about human nature and society?
Daily Essential Questions:
What is the meaning of the piece? How do you know? So what?
Theme, Tone, Purpose, Metaphor Daily!!!!!!!!!!!
Q1 SOL 12. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Why really read? Why is story so compelling to us? How do writers shape & manipulate language so readers discover their own truths? What choices do writers make that impact meaning, beauty, and truth?
nursery rhymes, fairy tales
Our own stories
Greeks, Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, ballads, riddles
3 levels of meaning-- “Curlews”
AP English Prep Day
“Ordeal by Cheque” graphic story
college essays
short stories (Perrine’s) that may include
“Hunters in the Snow”
“Rocking Horse Winner”
“The Cask of Amontillado”
“Where are you Going, Where Have you Been?”
“Interpreter of Maladies”
Flannery O’Connor’s stories
“Once Upon a Time”
Comedy/Taming of the Shrew & field trip to Liberty University
prose FR prompts & MC practice
Independent novel selections: The Handmaid's Tale, The Kite Runner, A Lesson Before Dying, and other contemporary titles
Q2 SOL 12.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7
How does genre affect author’s meaning? Why have popular formats for storytelling shifted over the generations? How is poetry the lifeblood of our language? How does poetry reveal the essences of what really matters to humans?
Short Story Teaching Project
Verse --review skills
Poems may include the following:
Romantic poems--assorted
“God’s Grandeur”
Shakespearean sonnet
“One Art”
“My Last Duchess”
John Donne mini unit
Dickinson and Frost poems
“Dover Beach”
“Terence, This is Stupid Stuff”
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
Writing our own poetry and imaginative stories
poetry MC and FR
The Bluest Eye
Lit Circle Novel--seminar filmed activity
Open Prompts--the list & practice
Mock Exam
Q3 SOL 12. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Essential Questions: What are our true selves? Do we have the
capacity to face our real selves? Why do we enjoy being ‘in the
know’ and on the ‘inside’? How does poking fun at our
lives and surroundings bring us satisfaction?
Portfolio Self-Assessment
poetry analysis continued
Heart of Darkness/Daisy Miller
Gulliver’s Travels and Satire
Tragedy--King Lear or Macbeth
The Sound and the Fury
Q4 Fourth Nine Weeks—SOL 12.1,2 3, 4, 5, 7
Essential Questions: How do we know who we really are? How do we handle our prejudices? What genre best suits our expressions of beauty and truth?
mock exam 2--optional
Heart of Darkness
Anne Spencer focus and field trip
Fences
Art Museum Field Trip
19th Century Novel--student vote--The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Return of the Native, or Great Expectations
Poetry project
(If time Frankenstein)
AP Exam Prep
AP Lit Reads--an argument based literature contest
Quizzes and Tests to be part comprehension and part close reading analysis.
Ongoing each 9 weeks: --Language exercises SOL 12.3 & 7 --AP Multiple Choice Questions SOL 12. 3 & 4 --Timed Responses to direct AP free response prompts SOL 12.7 --Reader Responses 12.7 --Write, revise, and edit essays in multiple modes SOL 12.7 & 8 --Daily oral participation SOL 12.1 --poetry reactions 12.5 --Voice Lessons practice 12.3, 5, & 6 --Word studies 12.3
(Please print 2 copies of the above and place in binder and at home in a conspicuous place. I encourage you to place dates in your agenda, e-calendar, and/or wall calendar to keep yourself aware of due dates. Get the signatures and appropriate information of the following permission slip and give to me on the first day of school.)
****************************************************************************************************************************************************
(please cut and return only the portion below)
(Please print just the permission form below and turn in the first day of school) We have read, and we understand the course syllabus for AP English Literature and Composition. We commit to the workload and requirements of this class. We agree that the student will take the AP exam in May, 2014 as well as participate in the AP Prep opportunities. College Board reserves the right to change the testing date. Interims will be sent home via email.
Print Student Name_____________________________________ Class Period________
_______________________________________ student signature
_______________________________________ parent signature _________________________ home phone #
_________________________ parent work # Please include area code, if long distance
_________________________ parent cell #
________________________________________________parent e-mail address
(please type and paste or tape here - do not handwrite)
______________________________________________________student e-mail address (please type and paste or tape here - do not handwrite)