Welcome to AP Lit!

Purpose:


The purpose of this class is ostensibly to help you pass the AP Exam in May; however, on a much more fundamental level, it is designed to hone your analytic skills and give you the experience of a college level English Literature and Composition class.  

It is my goal to make your first two years in college easier by giving you a foundation in college level reading and writing.  I will teach you how to decipher a prompt to understand what the task is before you. I will also show you techniques to help you disassemble literature into its rhetorical components to find the purpose of the author. Therefore, the focus becomes not merely summarizing texts, but striving to cultivate your insight and creativity to see what the texts say about being human.  

We will read some great literature. Some of it will be famous; some of it will be infamous.  All of it will challenge you and how you view the world.

The course also enhances the students' use of technology through web based research and discussion assignments on Google Classroom. 

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GRADES

Activities                       15%

Projects                        20%

Essays/Discussions      25%

Timed Writes                 25%

Tests/Quizzes               15%

POLICIES

Students are expected to behave like young adults and be responsible.  Additionally, these are specific rules which apply to the class.

1. No Late Work is Accepted
2. If a student is absent, the student must email any work due the day of the absence to Mr. Ricketts before the end of the day, or it is late and not accepted.  ericketts@ycusd.org
3. Students should seek solutions not problems.
4. No food or drink (water ok).
5. PRIDE Policies

Units:

The course is divided into three units.  

Unit 1, Poetry:

This initial unit teaches the methodology of close analysis of text.  Students learn various poetic forms as well as rhetorical devices and tropes.

Major concepts:

Philosophical Approach, Shift, Speaker, Schemes of Construction, Poetic forms (Ode, Ballad, Elegy, etc.), Purpose, Tone, Anaphora, Epistrophe, Antithesis, Antimetoble, Ambiguity, Complexity, Mood, etc., and film techniques.

Major assignments:

Three timed writes, two online discussions, Poetry Film, Personal Statement, Original Poetry

Unit 2, Drama:

This unit advances the Philosophical Approach but turns its attention to the stage.  Students read, act, and engage in different forms of drama from classical tragedies, to comedies, to modern dramas.

Major concepts:

Fourth wall, aside, soliloquy, monologue, types of tragic heroes, hamartia, catharsis, hubris, miasma, comedic ladder, pun, and wit.

Major Works:

Oedipus Rex
Macbeth
Hamlet
The Importance of Being Earnest
Pygmalion
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Fences

Major assignments:

Adaptation Film, two timed writes, Term Paper, Online Discussion

Unit 3, Fiction:

The last unit deals with both short and long fiction.  The students will continue to develop a Philosophical Approach to analyzing literature.  Some of the fiction read wanders into the sub-genres of horror and dystopian fiction.

Major Works:

Frankenstein
"The Lottery"
"A Good Man is Hard to Find"
"Harrison Bergeron"
"A Clean Well-Lighted Place"
"Where are you going? Where have you been?"

​Major Assignments:

Two timed-writes, blog, Term Paper, Student designed film

CONTACT INFORMATION

email: ericketts@ycusd.org
phone: 530-822-2500

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