AP English Literature and Composition

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Course Description
AP English Literature and Composition gives students chances for personal expression and reflection in both formal and informal writing. There will be in-depth studies of literary classics, from Shakespeare to the modern period, and writing about what you read, in order to understand, explain and appreciate. It is a tough, demanding college level course, which is designed to better prepare students for college work. It also gives them the opportunity to prepare for the AP literature exam at the end of their senior year, in order to receive college credits in advance. But it is not all work and no play! There are great class discussions and projects which students share with their classmates.

Objectives

  1. Develop better reading skills to judge literature of a variety of styles and forms.
  2. Write personal, analytical, and evaluating papers in response to published stories, plays and novels.
  3. Discover and learn to love great literature as a mirror to help us understand ourselves and others, through drawing connections between our personal experiences and those we find in the fiction, poetry and plays we read.
Course Overview
Required Texts and Materials:
You will be issued Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson, Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense, 10th ed. (Boston: Wadsworth, 2009) and Vocabulary Workshop, Elements of Literature 6th ed. (Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2000).
Short stories, poems and plays from Perrine will be selected each academic year

Probable list of novels, plays and stories to be read and studied

Heart of Darkness, Conrad
Things Fall Apart, Achebe
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare
Jane Eyre, Bronte
The Awakening, Chopin
Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky

You will find it helpful to purchase the listed plays and novels so that you can freely write in them and underline/highlight them while reading.

Readings are not limited to the ones listed, as modern novels, and other novels and plays listed on the AP exam, will be considered for inclusion.


 

 

 

 

Writing:

Most assignments will be essays, either timed compositions done in class, or formal writing, taken through the composition process, from brainstorming, to final draft publication.