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Course Organization
I intend the course to be stimulating and demanding, a course in which students will grow in relation
to who they are instead of in relation to established standards developed by state or federal mandates.
True learning, I believe, comes from self-demand rather than society’s expectations. School is the last
stronghold in this regard, a place where experimentation occurs and ideas are generated to be considered
and examined for their own sake.
Learning is an organic process. It is interactive, not predicated on my filling students with information
as though they were empty vessels. My students and I will learn and create the parameters of this course
together.
Class Profile
There are seven to eight sections of AP English Literature and Composition each year, with enrollments per
section of 27 to 29 students. It is a yearlong class and meets every day for 50 minutes. There is a schoolwide
examination schedule at the end of each semester. These exams are 90 minutes long.
Course Overview
AP English Literature and Composition
Again and again something in one’s own life, or in the life around one,
will seem so important that one cannot bear to let it pass into oblivion.
There must never come a time, the writer feels, that people do not know about this.
—Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji
Literature is news that stays news.
—Ezra Pound
If writing is thinking and discovery and selection and order and meaning,
it is also awe and reverence and mystery and magic.
—Toni Morrison, “The Site of Memory”
Let’s look at literature and composition separately since they are both in the title of this course.
Literature first. I have always felt that teachers in the humanities are exempt from having to justify their
various courses of study. In other words, when members of other disciplines demand to know why studying
literature is useful or important to society at large, people in the humanities are usually consigned to the
age-old answer: “Studying literature teaches us about ourselves.” This is not a fraudulent response; studying
literature does increase our self-knowledge as human beings, our capacity to recognize and speak to a
common human experience. Yet studying literature gives us insight into not only human emotion but
also human thought processes and the magical blending of logic with imagination. Line, meter, rhyme,
character, plot, spectacle, dramatic monologue—these are the tools of the writer that enable very ordered
and extremely intricate art forms. Literature cannot exist without order. Like music, literary expression is
as much a product of disciplined rules as it is, in William Wordsworth’s terms, “the spontaneous overflow
of powerful feeling . . . recollected in tranquility.” Put another way, literature is a science of words and it is
a painting of ideas. During this AP year, we will discover together how to read and understand literature as
an art form guided by unified but sometimes competing rules, an art form at once translatable to all and
subject entirely to individual interpretation.
So how does writing fit into this course? This AP course is meant to restructure students’ preconceived
assumptions about writing and what it means to be a good writer. In my experience, AP students often
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believe an A paper is one with no mechanical errors, yet the process and ultimate product of writing is not
the achievement of perfect grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Rather, writing is an endeavor that never
ends, an informational or artistic act of casting one’s ideas into a form of meaningful communication.
As such, I do not believe in a formulaic A paper; instead, students will be evaluated according to their
individual progress and hard work.
So far, my remarks may sound familiar. What, then, is different about this course from others students
have taken? How do literature and writing blend in this course? What makes it a college course?
This AP English Literature and Composition course is designed to teach beginning college writing
through the fundamentals of rhetorical theory. Class discussion every day will touch on some vital aspect
of writing, including invention and the artistic proofs (ethos, pathos, logos), disposition or structure,
and style (diction, syntax, figurative language, mechanics). But this class is not a rhetoric manual but a
workshop—a place where students will test certain kinds of writing and attempt to recover their own
recollections as part of larger cultural experiences that eventually become a people’s history, that is, a
people’s collective account of itself through its literature.
In order for this class to function as a true workshop, students will write a good deal, and they will
revise certain pieces of their writing into polished final drafts. Students will also produce a final writing
portfolio—a kind of individual writing archive. What I expect most of all is hard work on the part of the
individual writer, and careful reading and discussion on the part of the class.
Course Planner
First Semester
Week 1: Introduction to the Course
What Is Literature? Reading, Responding, Recognizing Literature
Readying for reading and analyzing literature: students bring in some of their favorite children’s
poems and those they like as young adults; song lyrics; literature in connection with the other
arts
What Is Composition and Language? Analyzing Literature
(Lunsford and Connors, pp. 18–26)
Readying for writing (“Considering Rhetorical Situations”): genre study, language, audience, the
nature of writing assignments in AP English Literature and Composition, online materials
Review of syllabus
In-class sample AP Exam (one question) with review of scoring guidelines and exemplars: why essay
examinations, why scoring guidelines, why assessment versus grading
Week 2: Poetry
The Basics (Introduction)
What makes poetry poetry? Working with traditional poetry; readapting poetry through poetic
prose, adaptations (advertisements); the relationship between poetry and photography, painting
(the nonlinear arts)
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Course Organization
Finding poetry in the world around us: a search for poetry; student-engendered “definition” of
poetry
The Basics (Tone, Speaker: Hunter, The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Background: Tone, pp. 33–43; Speaker, pp. 63–69
In-class reading aloud of poetry with discussion of tone and speaker; discussion of tone as
metaphor for sound: the sounds we hear every day; conversion of sounds to words
Connection between poet, speaker, and audience: the interplay among these with poetry
as “discourse,” “the best words in the best order” for an audience one does not know
(noncontemporary)
In-class writing: converting words and photography/landscape into a “poem”
Week 3: Poetry
The Basics (Language, Imagery, Symbolism: The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Background: Precision and Ambiguity, pp. 140-53; Metaphor and Simile, pp. 66–174; Symbol,
pp. 82–189
In-class reading aloud of poetry with discussion of precision, ambiguity, metaphor, simile, and
symbols. Terminology as concept and poetic choices: finding these in the world around us;
finding them in one’s own clothing, presentation, persona; finding them in parable; finding
them in Depression-era photographs
In-class writing: critical analysis of poem (reader-response theory)
Week 4: Poetry
The Basics (Rhythm, Sound: The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Background: Sounds, pp. 198–208
In-class reading aloud of poems with discussion of sounds; Dr. Seuss and sounds; converting
music to word-sounds; a study of the sounds of language (“the sound is an echo to the sense”)
Explanation of Explication Assignment (Lunsford and Connors, pp. 32–49, 70–98); “Exploring,
Planning, and Drafting” in writing; “Thinking Critically: Constructing and Analyzing
Argument” (the theory of new criticism: the significance of text)
Week 5: Poetry
The Beauty (Sonnet and Epigram: The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Backgrounds: Sonnet, pp. 257-59; Epigram, pp. 373-74
Barrett Browning, “How Do I Love Thee?” p. 3; Chasin, “Joy Sonnet in a Random Universe,”
p. 262; Coleridge, “What Is an Epigram?” p. 374; Gay, “My Own Epitaph,” p. 375; Harwood,
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Chapter 3
“In the Park,” p. 261; Jonson, “Epitaph on Elizabeth, L. H.,” p. 374; Kennedy, “Epitaph for a
Postal Clerk,” p. 376; Shelley, “Ozymandias,” p. 265
Explanation of Sonnet Assignment (Lunsford and Connors, pp. 622-42)
“Understanding Disciplinary Discourse”; “Writing about Literature”
Form as function (critical approaches to literature complementing textual study)
DUE: EXPLICATION ASSIGNMENT BY THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
Workshopping this assignment
Developing group-based scoring guidelines: class-created nine-point, holistic scoring guidelines
Week 6: Poetry
The Beauty (Villanelle, Sestina, Ode, and Elegy: The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Backgrounds: stanza forms, p. 271; poetic “kinds,” pp. 371-73; and definitions of various poetic
forms in the glossary
Auden, “Stop All the Clocks,” p. 20; Bishop, “Sestina,” p. 273; Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,”
p. 323; Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night,” p. 272
The Beauty (Ballad, Lyric: handouts and The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Handouts: Billy Joel, “The Ballad of Billy the Kid”; James Taylor, “Traffic Jam”; students also
bring in ballade: the balladic traditions adapted
Arnold, “Dover Beach,” p. 104; Hardy, “The Convergence of the Twain,” p. 426
In-class writing their own song/ballad; group sharing
Week 7: Poetry
The Beauty (Epic: handouts and The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Handouts: Eliot, from “The Waste Land”; Whitman, from Song of Myself; Wordsworth,
The Prelude
Milton, “I” from Paradise Lost, pp. 162-63
Explanation of Allusion Assignment (other poststructural criticism tied with new critical: how
to read and reread through various critical lenses)
DUE: SONNET ASSIGNMENT BY THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
Workshopping this assignment
Developing scoring guidelines: class created with comparison and similarity of scoring
guidelines for critical and for creative writings, trait scoring guidelines
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Course Organization
Week 8: Poetry
The Banter (Allusion: handouts and The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Backgrounds: literary tradition as context, pp. 362-63; echo and allusion, pp. 363-64
Handouts: Dickinson, “The Bible is an antique volume”; Harrison, “A Kumquat for John Keats”;
Watts, “Our God, Our Help”; Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” p. 318
DUE: ALLUSION ASSIGNMENT IN CLASS
Partner work on responding to allusion assignment based on Lunsford and Connors text
Week 9: Poetry
The Banter (Myth: The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Backgrounds: cultural belief and tradition, p. 394
Donnelly, “Eve Names the Animals,” p. 395; Hollander, “Adam’s Task,” p. 395; St. Vincent Millay,
“An Ancient Gesture,” p. 401; Tennyson, “Ulysses,” p. 398
The Banter (Intertextuality: The Norton Introduction to Poetry)
Backgrounds: Imitating and Answering, p. 386
Marlowe, “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,” p. 371; Raleigh, “The Nymph’s Reply to the
Shepherd,” pp. 386-87; Williams, “Raleigh Was Right,” pp. 387-88; cummings, “(ponder, darling,
these busted statues,” p. 388; Hecht, “The Dover Bitch,” p. 392; Skirrow, “Ode on a Grecian Urn
Summarized,” p. 392
DUE: REVISED EXPLICATION ASSIGNMENT—FINAL COPY BY 3 P.M.
Weeks 10–11: Drama
EXAMINATION ON READING POETRY
The Basics (Spectacle, Song, Character, Plot, Soliloquy, Aside)
An introduction to drama: the “drama” of their AP lives; the “drama” of taking an examination
on reading poetry; drama as text and as theater; writing a playette
The terminology of drama; dramatic poetry
Drama: The Traditions
Euripides, Medea
Introducing Euripides and Medea: tragedy and the concept of the possibility of human
perfectibility
Male–female roles: the contemporary nature of Medea paralleling students’ lives
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Chapter 3
Weeks 12–13: Drama
The Traditions Extended
Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew: comedy and the concept of the diminution of humanity
through its potential to be ridiculed
Comparison and contrast with Medea regarding male–female roles; discussion of Shakespearean
drama and its classical models
Explanation of analytic assignment (an analytic study: drama as literary text, writing about
drama)
Week 14: Drama
The Traditions Exploded
Tom Stoppard, Arcadia: realistic and nonrealistic drama (mimesis)
Weeks 15–16: Drama
The Traditions Exploded
Shange, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf:
drama in the modern and postmodern age; responding to plays
Explanation of Choreopoem Assignment (Lunsford and Connors, pp. 645-71) “Making Oral
Presentations”; “Designing Documents”; “Working with Hypertext and Multimedia”
DUE: CHOREOPOEM ASSIGNMENT AND PRESENTATION BY THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
Weeks 17–18:
DUE: ANALYTIC ASSIGNMENT BY THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
Workshopping this assignment
Developing group-based scoring guidelines: class-created nine-point, holistic scoring guidelines
IN-CLASS CONFERENCES ON EACH STUDENT’S WRITINGS
Specific readings from Lunsford and Connors suggested for each student depending on his or
her writing needs
DUE: REVISED ANALYTIC ASSIGNMENT—FINAL COPY BY 3 P.M.
EXAMINATION ON READING DRAMA
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Course Organization
Second Semester
Week 1: Fiction
The Basics (Setting, Character, Plot, Dialogue, Point of View)
Reading fiction; the development of fiction and the short story (its American roots); telling
their own stories and the conversion to Toni Morrison’s concept of fiction as truth (“The Site of
Memory”)
Handout: Carver, “Popular Mechanics”
Week 2: The Short Story
The Traditions
Setting: background as places, objects, imagination, culture (relationship to authorial purpose)
Handouts: Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”; O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
Week 3: The Short Story
The Traditions Extended
Character and point of view: people and things; psychology; opposition and interactions;
revealing character; setting and character (relationship to authorial purpose)
Handouts: García Márquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”; Borges, “The Garden of
Forking Paths”; Kincaid, “Girl”
Week 4: The Short Story
The Traditions Exploded
Plot as ideas: structure and development, the concept of shape, balance, suspense and
expectation (defying the expected); the emergence of ideas through plot (relationship of choice
to authorial purpose)
Handouts: Atwood, “Happy Endings”; MacLeod, “A Very Short Story Begins on a Farm”;
Le Guin, “She Unnames Them”; Baxter, “The Cliff”
Explanation of Sudden Fiction Assignment
Weeks 5–6: The Novel
EXAMINATION ON READING SHORT FICTION
The Traditions—style as central to story
Shelley, Frankenstein
DUE: SUDDEN FICTION ASSIGNMENT BY THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
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Chapter 3
Workshopping this assignment
Developing rubric: class-created trait rubrics
Week 7–8: The Novel
The Traditions Extended—tone as expression of attitude
Gabriel García Márquez, Strange Pilgrims
Explanation of Close Reading Assignment (Lunsford and Connors, pp. 50–69) “Revising and
Editing”; “Reviewing a Draft”
DUE: CLOSE READING ASSIGNMENT BY THE BEGINNING OF CLASS
Workshopping this assignment
Developing group-based rubrics: class-created nine-point, holistic rubric
Weeks 9–10: The Novel
The Traditions Exploded—symbolism and allegory as keys to extending meaning
Morrison, Jazz
Weeks 11–12: The Novel
The Traditions Exploded—theme or meaning as a search for insight and understanding through
exploring authorial choices
Winterson, Written on the Body
Explanation of Final Analytic Paper and Research (Lunsford and Connors, pp. 430-65)
“Becoming a Researcher”; “Conducting Research”
Week 13:
IN-CLASS CONFERENCES ON EACH STUDENT’S WRITINGS
Specific readings from Lunsford and Connors suggested for each student; questions and
responses to the research-based phase of students’ analytic papers
Weeks 14–16: The Novel
The Traditions Exploded—putting it all together by studying a contemporary novel (individual
student choice)
Student Choice of Novels:
Sherman Alexie, The Toughest Indian in the World
Julian Barnes, The History of the World in 10½ Chapters
A. S. Byatt, Possession
Michael Cunningham, The Hours
Michael Dorris, A Yellow Raft in Blue Water
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Course Organization
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
John Lanchester, The Debt to Pleasure
Documentation (Lunsford and Connors, pp. 499–563)
“Writing a Research Essay”; online sources; Modern Language Association (MLA)
documentation; other forms of documentation
Week 17:
DUE: FINAL ANALYTIC PAPER—FINAL COPY BY 3 P.M.
Sharing: the discourse of literature (author, audience, occasion, and subject interaction)
Students who worked on the same novel share insights
The author’s style (diction, syntax, figurative language, rhythm and sounds tied to authorial
purpose); conscious choice for needed effect (idea and meaning); symbolism; perspectives of
author, character, audience (creating credibility at various levels)
Students “teach” their group-based novel to the rest of the class
The purpose of literature and its study: interpretation as conscious and critical; interpretation
through various lenses; critical theories (cultural criticism, feminist, postcolonial, Freudian,
historic, etc.)
Week 18:
EXAMINATION ON READING NOVELS
DUE: FINAL “INTRODUCTION” AND PORTFOLIO—DUE BY 3 P.M.
Writing an introduction to a literary anthology; final copies of writings as part of the
“anthology”
Teaching Strategies
Reading Assignments
The most important requirement for this course is that students read every assignment on time and with
care. Students unused to literature courses will need to plan time in their schedule for more reading than
most courses require. Poetry, though usually not long, is dense and complicated and should always be read
at least twice. Novels in particular require planning.
Writing Assignments
Students will write a number of creative assignments in parallel with the critical writings completed per
unit. Creative writing will include a sonnet, a group-authored and class-presented choreopoem, an ABC
Fiction, and others. Students will also write several critical papers, including an explication of a poem and
a play, and a close reading of a novel, plus a research-based novel analysis.
Writing Assignments—Critical:
Each student will write several short critical papers, explicating poetry and drama, and performing
a close reading of novels, including one that is research based. I will be more specific on what I expect
from these critical assignments later on, but in general each paper will use specific and well-chosen
Documents you may be interested
Documents you may be interested
