Course Syllabus

AP Literature and Composition

Spring 2024

 

Overview

 

Welcome to AP Literature and Composition, Spring 2024. I’m really excited to be exploring this curriculum together. In this course, we will use a variety of short stories, poems, plays, and novels from around the world and across time periods to investigate the following core question: how do we, as a society, make space for those who appear “Other” than us? Each of the texts we read will in some way examine this overall thematic question. That being said, your own ideas will be the primary engine to this course. The themes, questions, and complexities that you encounter in these texts are the building blocks of our shared knowledge. 

We will read the following longer works: One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston; a chosen play by William Shakespeare; The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx; and The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. You will also split into groups to read The Song of Achilles, The Silence of the Girls, or Circe. A grouping of short stories, poems, and other auxilary readings and materials will accompany each of these longer readings. 

 

This course is designed as a college level literature course. What does that mean? For us, it mostly means three different things. First, that the homework load will be significant. Expect the work you do to be rigorous, but rewarding. My goal is for homework to take some time, but not be a burden. If it is a burden, let’s talk together, and we can figure out a way to make it more manageable. Second, the material we cover will include mature themes and content. We will be discussing questions of sexuality, gender, race, class, suicide, war, violence, sexism, and the list goes on. I trust you to approach these topics thoughtfully and with care. If you are struggling with the content of any of our reading material, let me know and we can make a plan together. Third, that you will begin forming your own questions, arguments, and critical positions. In your previous writing experiences, you may have been used to receiving a thesis statement from your teacher, and then being asked to write an essay based on it. In this class, we will work on coming up with good questions of our own to answer, arguments to defend. You will determine the argument of your essays, as much as possible.

Goals

 

My goals for this course are as follows:

 

-That by the end of this course you will have an appreciation for how storytelling and language inform the world around us. I do not want “literature” to seem like a classroom enterprise, but rather a deep and enriching method of knowing ourselves and what place we occupy in the world. We approach each piece of reading as ourselves, individuals, with our own ways of thinking and seeing the world. I value that individual perspective. Together, we will find ways to harness that individual perspective and use it to develop critical analysis skills. 

 

-That you will have reading and writing skills useful in all future situations, and not just in the classroom. What we study in this classroom isn’t really “reading” or “writing,” but rather “communication.” We spend our entire lives communicating, in some way or another. We will develop communication skills in this classroom that will benefit you in employment, society, relationships, and other communication situations. 

 

-That by the end of the course we will be a “community of thinkers,” bound together by sharing this experience of reading, writing, and discussing. I mean it when I say this: I am just another participant in the classroom. Each one of you are a resource of knowledge, information, and ideas. You may be used to looking to the teacher as the person who “gives” you information. That is not my role. My role is to help you form and articulate the ideas you contain. When your classmates are speaking, that is just as much an opportunity to be taking notes and “receiving” knowledge as any other moment in our class.

 

-That you will be prepared to take the AP Exam confidently, comfortably, and with little to no anxiety. It is no mistake that this is the last item on my list of goals. While I as a teacher am motivated by you doing well on this exam, and thus having more financially pragmatic college options, I do not believe that you can be successful on the exam without succeeding in the first three goals. It may feel like taking a multiple choice test and writing some essays are isolated from the above three goals, but they are not. In doing the work we need to do in succeeding in our first three goals, we develop the tools to be successful in this fourth goal.

Outcomes

 

Informed by this list of goals, the following are outcomes you should be equpped with in order to consider this course a success:

 

-Comfort and confidence with literary analysis, critical theories, and the tools authors employ in their writing.

 

-Comfort in writing within the conventions of academic discourse, including writing good thesis statements or purposes, incorporating and thoroughly responding to evidence, engaging in language-level analysis, and imparting the applicable conclusions of your analysis. 

 

-Comfort in participating in vigorous and respectful classroom discussion and dialogue. 

 

-Improved reading skills, focused on reading for symbolism, theme, and social or political relevance. 

 

-The ability to give college-level presentations on complex topics, utilizing professional tools such as Google Slides, Powerpoint, etc.

 

-Independence in managing and scheduling tasks and assignments appropriately. 

General Graded Assignments

 

--Homework completion: I assess completion of homework in a variety of ways. Often, you will have to do some kind of worksheet or specific type of annotation for the reading you’re doing (sticky notes, ½ page protocol, questions to answer, etc). Sometimes, I will just have you read without doing anything specific with the reading. in these circumstances, I will occassionally give what I call a “Word-Vomit” Quiz.

 

My late work policy is as follows: homework is due at the beginning of class; do not waste time during class doing homework, because you will still receive a late penalty for it. You have until the beginning of the next period to get up to 95% of the credit for the assignment, until the next class after to get up to 90%, and up to the next class to get up to 85%, etc. After a week, the assignment will be marked as a zero in the gradebook. However, you can make up an assignment at any time within each quarter for up to 70% credit. 

 

For grading essays, you will receive an initial grade up to 90% of the total value. It is up to you to revise, based on feedback I or your peers provide for you, for additional credit. The revision will not be its own assignment, and we will continue with other coursework. If you’re satisfied with the 90, then you do not need to turn in a revision. If you’d like higher than a 90, then you can turn in a revision for more credit. 

 

The following is a list of types of assignments to expect to do in this class:

 

--In-Class writing prompts: In-class writing is not graded on the quality produced, but rather the effort put in. In-class writing almost always ends up being the first draft of essays that you will then write second, third, even fourth drafts of. It behooves you to be diligent in your first draft, as this will make the rest of the essay-writing much easier. 

 

--Projects: We will have a handful of in-class projects, either individually or in groups, throughout the semester.

 

--Essays: In most cases, you will do a practice “AP style” writing prompt for each longer work we read. That in-class, 40 minute timed writing activity will then be the rough draft for an essay you’ll revise and turn in for further credit.

 

--Extra Credit: local literary events, extra readings and writings, independent projects of merit. If you’re an extra credit queen, then lay it on! Extra credit will be counted as additional points in your cumulative points; extra credit does not replace missing work. 

In the spirit of the UK schooling system, I strongly encourage additional reading. I know no one has time and you’re already sunk with my homework, but the best way to become more critically astute as a reader and writer is to read lots. I will generally post on canvas additional readings for each unit that you can explore and read on your own time.