COURSE DESCRIPTIONAP British Literature and Composition is the culmination of English studies at Woods and follows the curricular requirements described in the AP English Course Description published by the College Board. It is designed as a rigorous freshman college/university course that "engages students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature" (45). By the end of the year, we will have studied works written in several genres by British authors from the Anglo-Saxton period to modern day and written extensively and critically on what we've have read.
Essays Students will use observations from annotations, class notes, and other classroom documents to write essays that interpret and analyze the text. Student writing should examine literary elements, analyze author craft, and illuminate themes within the text that reveal a truth about the human experience. Formal essays will closely resemble free response questions from past AP tests. Independent reading essays will be respond to topics of your choice. For each for the required novels, you will:
Essay Grading Rubric:
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class READING SCHEDULE1st Trimester Beowulf Selected Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer Selected Elizabethan Poetry Hamlet, William Shakespeare Midsummer's Night Dream, William Shakespeare Independent Reading: Grendel and one of your choice 2nd Trimester Frankenstein, Mary Shelly Selected Romantic Poetry The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde Independent Reading: Dickens or Austen and one of your choice 3rd Trimester To The Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf Selected Modernist Poetry Brave New World, Aldous Huxley Independent Reading: Beckett, Joyce or Woolf and one of your choice Independent Reading Students will self-select British literature from the College Board reading list as a form of independent study. The selected texts represent authors of merit, and will provide essential background reading for students preparing for the AP exam. Independent Reading Essays All independent reading essays will be composed during a single class period (yes, that means timed). You will be allowed to reference your annotation guides for notes on the text. Essays will be evaluated and graded according to the standards outlined in the A.P. rubric. SYLLABUS: |