Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
4301 East-West Hwy, Bethesda, MD 20814 (240) 497-6300
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Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School 4301 East-West Hwy, Bethesda, MD 20814 (240) 497-6300 |
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Advanced Placement Literature 2007 – 2008 Instructors: English office: 240-497-6364 Aims
and Objectives: Focus:
The focus of the Advanced Placement Literature course is to
enable students to: • Respond sensitively to a wide range
of adult literature. • Identify and use specific textual evidence from the works we read to support an informed analysis of a text. • Improve skills in answering multiple-choice questions based on poetry and prose text. • Lead class discussions on works of significant literary merit. • Be able to discuss the relative merits of a variety of literary forms. • Become familiar with a variety of poetry terms. • Become familiar with the ways poetic devices enhance meaning, create structure, and give pleasure. • Write interpretive or critical essays
that develop tenable theses in a logical, coherent, and rhetorically
effective manner. • Write essays that demonstrate a familiarity with a particular work and the devices employed by the artist. • Write brief timed in-class essays which will demonstrate ability to do an analysis of a literary piece or passage and to write a well- reasoned essay within a short period of time. • To read, recall and draw upon works of significant literary merit in order to write focused, relevant, thoughtful responses to the open-essay questions on the AP Literature Exam in May. • Students will read model student responses and readers comments from past AP exams. • Students will respond to past AP essay prompts. Writing
Instruction and procedures: Students
will write essays that proceed throughout several stages with
revision aided by teacher. These planning, draft-writing, and
final editing stages will be followed for all essays throughout
the year. Students will write essays on the following plan each
nine weeks. In addition, each unit will have at least two timed
essays in which the students will have only 45 minutes to develop
a final response to a question. In the longer essay assignments
students will: • Complete a graphic organizer prior
to draft-writing that provides evidence of an initial thesis
and supporting examples. • Review the options for sentence structure and have students identify where they have used these sentence structures in draft essay. • Review the use of transition words and have students identify where they have used transitions in essay. • Have students identify where they have supported ideas with specific examples from the text. • Students will review essay for weak verbs and poor or vague word-choice and replace these words with more effective choices. • Students will have opportunity to revise their work after submitting an initial draft in order to improve logical organization, use of specific techniques to increase coherence such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis. • Papers and timed writings will be graded using the AP rubric scale as seen in AP Course Description. (discussed in class before the first paper due; students received a handout with rubrics defined) • After receiving grade and teacher's
comments on essay, students may revise essay for a higher grade. • Teacher will use exemplars of effective student writing. Unit
1: Summer Reading (two weeks) Anchor text: The Things They Carried Topics: • Show how the narrative technique is particularly effective in The Things They Carried • Identify tone using excerpts from The Things They Carried. • Identify the structure of a simple sentence, a compound sentence, a complex sentence, and a compound-complex sentence. • Recognize the comma rules associated with sentence structure • Identify and use transitional expressions within a paragraph and between paragraphs. • Students will make a class presentation re the answers to the questions on the summer reading which they were given in May. • Writing • Identify and discuss with textual examples the use of point of view in Tim O’Brien’s short story “Speaking of Courage.” • Analyze and write about the use of point of view using selections from AP released exams. • Identify dominant tone in a selection from The Things They Carried and show how the author achieves this particular dominant tone. • Use a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination. • Students will discuss and use effective organizing techniques when writing essays • Students will discuss and use appropriate methods of citing textual evidence when writing essay. Writing assignment: In a 2-3 page paper, students will write an analysis of The Things They Carried (using the above criteria) to show how O’Brien achieves a singular point of view regarding the war even though he has multiple voices as narrators within the novel.. In addition, paper will explore how the work’s cultural and social values are reflective of its time. (See “writing instruction and procedures” above.)
Unit 2. The Tragic Self – An examination of the elements of the tragic genre and the tragic hero (eight weeks)
Anchor text: Hamlet • The characteristics of a Shakespearean tragedy • The characteristics of tragedy based on the Aristotelian definition • The use and purpose of repeated figures of speech such as illness or poison • Students will lead discussions of the play based on themes such as the following: • Theme: Determine the conflict illustrated between filial duty v. moral right • Theme: The use of memory as a device in the play • Theme: The use of parallel characters to examine different solutions to the same problem • Theme: The use of religion as a theme in determining Hamlet’s own view of his required duty • Theme: Various interpretations of Hamlet as seen in film • Theme: Students will discuss the role of women (Gertrude and Ophelia) in the play • Students will develop a “case” for Hamlet’s procrastination • Students will develop a quasi-legal argument to justify Hamlet’s actions Writing assignment:
Anchor text: Oedipus Rex • The characteristics of a Greek tragedy • The use of staging devices to enhance the meaning of the play • The use of a chorus as character in a Greek tragedy • The effective use of history to illustrate a moral as well as character • Theme: The use of fate v. free choice in tragedy • Theme: How tragedy serves as catharsis for the audience and reader Writing assignment:
Unit Three: Self and Society – An examination of the search for self in relation to society (nine weeks)
Anchor text: The Return of The Native Topics: • Students will learn the characteristics of a Victorian novel. • Students will examine Hardy’s use of poetic language in a novel setting • Students will examine Hardy’s use of allusions to further his poetic message. • Students will find examples of various points of view in the text • Students will examine the society presented in the novel and discuss how each of the major characters fit into that society. Writing: Students will write a multi-page essay in which
they: 1) examine Hardy’s literary descriptive technique in revealing
personality through physical description with particular emphasis
on citing textual evidence to support their analysis or 2) examine
how Hardy’s Egdon Heath serves as a philosophical metaphor citing
textual evidence to support the analysis or 3) write an analysis
of how the mother-son relationship is vital to an understanding
of Hamlet, Oedipus Rex, and The Return
of The Native.
Anchor text: An Enemy of The People • Students will learn how stage technique emphasizes character development • Students will examine Ibsen’s use of counter-point characters to emphasize the alienation of the hero. • Students will examine how the protagonist falls from grace to disgrace within his society. • Students will examine how the use of tableau is used to emphasize character situation. • Students will read several critical essays of the play and respond in class to the points raised in the respective essay. They will be expected to demonstrate not only a familiarity with the play but to be able to articulate their own criticisms and to buttress their arguments citing evidence from the play. Writing:
Anchor text: Lord Jim Topics: • Students will examine further the essential elements of the Victorian novel and will discuss how Lord Jim may be a “bridge” to the modern novel • Students will examine Conrad’s use of the narrator • Students will examine Conrad’s use of differing points of view within the novel. • Students will compare the difference in O’Brien’s story telling technique with Conrad’s Writing:
Unit Four. Self, Family and Belonging (seven weeks) In this unit students will examine the attitude of self and the aspect of belonging to a family as part of an individual’s identity.
Anchor text: Crime and Punishment • Topics: Students will lead class discussions on such topics as: • How is the protagonist’s family important in determining his actions? • How does the family influence Raskolnikov’s behavior? • Why does the protagonist feel he must act in a way to justify his belief he is a superman? • Who is the counter-point character to the novel and why does he so fascinate the reader? Writing: Students will write a multi-page paper in which they examine the arguments of free choice, of law v. individual freedom, of religious v. moral law and statutory law in determining “rightful” conduct. Students will use Crime and Punishment as their textual evidence. (See “writing instruction and procedures” above)
Unit Five: Poetry (six weeks)
Topics: Review poetry terms and read poetry that exhibit these devices • Identify how poetry devices help conveys the “sense” of the poem. • Compare/ contrast poetry that share similar themes: poems on love and family relationships • Write in-class timed essays. Students will respond to past AP exams poetry essay prompts. • Choose a modern poet from selected list and present ideas and lead class discussion on the poet and his works. Student will read and lead analysis of selected poetry • Students will read male and female poets to analyze whether gender is a factor in the creative process • Students will read selections from long poems such as Paradise Lost, The Rape of The Lock, The Deserted Village, Evangeline, and Beowulf. • Class discussion on the lengthy selections on the attitudes and criticisms found in the poetry selections • Class will read such poems as My Last Duchess, and Elegy Written In a Country Churchyard and then create multiple choice quizzes based on the poems. Writing Assignment: Students will do several timed writings on poem selected by the teacher.
Unit Six: Individual Analysis of literary topic, essay and presentation (two weeks) In this unit students, after discussion with teacher, will pursue a literary problem of their own choosing. They will present the problem and their analysis of it to the class and present, with textual evidence, a 2-3 page paper of the problem and their analysis. Such “problems” might be the question of dream v. reality as shown in Calderone’s, Life is A Dream; Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale; Coleridge’s Kubla Kahn; and The Rime of The Ancient Mariner; Trumbo’s, Johnny Got His Gun; and O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. Another such topic might be the use of fate or the problem of determinism as shown in such works as Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey; Shakespeare’s Macbeth; Remarque’s All Quiet on The Western Front; Marquez’s, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; and Hardy’s Convergence of The Twain (see “writing instruction and procedures” above)
Unit Seven: The Open –Essay Novel Question and the Prose Question (two weeks)
Topics: • Students will read past AP model exam prompts, student responses and AP reader’s comments • Students will create review sheets for three major works of significant literary merit. Students will identify major and minor characters in works studied, conflicts, theme, motifs, plot structure, significant events, symbols, etc. • Students will present their review sheets to the class • Students will develop their own multiple choice tests based on works read as well as review the AP CD Rom. • Students will exam how the AP rubrics are applied to sample answers. • Students will create their own AP type essay question and then present the thesis statement they would use in answering such question to the class.
Texts
Author: Sophocles
Author: Shakespeare, William
Author: Hardy, Thomas
Author: Conrad, Joseph
Author: Ibsen, Henrik
Author: Shaw, George Bernard
Author: Dostoevsky, Fyodor
Author: Arp, Thomas R. (ed.)
Author: Wilder, Thornton
Author: Woolf, Virginia
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Page Last Updated
October 18, 2007
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