Monday, September 21, 2009

Poetry Quiz II Thursday 9/25

We will have our second poetry quiz Thursday (50 pts.). This will be mainly a multiple choice exercise, and you will need to know the following terms to do well on it:

Assonance
Alliteration
Synesthesia
Onomatopoeia
Ceasura
Rhyme
Meter
Tone
Consonance

The link I posted earlier will help, as will the glossary of terms on p. 1660 of Perrine's. Re-reading chapters 10-13 won't hurt either.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Poetry Quiz I Wednesday

We will have our first poetry quiz tomorrow (50 pts.). This will be mainly a multiple choice exercise, and you will need to know the following terms to do well on it:

Simile
Apostrophe
Metaphor
Personification
Metonymy
Allusion
Paradox

The link I posted earlier will help, as will the glossary of terms on p. 1660 of Perrine's. Re-reading chapters five and seven won't hurt either.

Friday, September 11, 2009

Poetry Paper #1

Poetry Paper #1 – Using the suggestions on page 8 of “Writing about Literature” in Perrine’s, write a paper comparing and contrasting any two poems in the poetry section of the text. (pp 647-1024) This paper should be a minimum of 500 words, typed and double-spaced.We are going to workshop this paper, so you need to keep to the following schedule:


Poems and topic of paper selected and e-mailed to me – Monday 9/14
Thesis and outline of paper – Thursday 9/17
First draft of paper – Monday 9/21
Second draft – Wednesday 9/23
Final draft – Friday 9/25

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

HW for Thursday 9/10

Read Ch. 5 (pp 714-724) and complete the 10-question exercise on p. 724.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Poetic Terms Site and HW for Wednesday 9/9

Bookmark the site below and refer to it regularly throughout the remainder of the term.

http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/glossary_of_poetic_terms.htm

For Wednesday, pick any two poems in the book (make sure you have a first and second choice). Paraphrase each and be prepared to read either one out loud in class.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Poetry Reading Assignment

The poetry section of Perrine's begins on page 645 and is divided into 16 chapters. Each of those chapters consists of anywhere from 3-9 pages of introductory/explanatory narrative (with a few poems included as examples), a textbox with the heading "REVIEWING CHAPTER ____", and several pages of poems and critical reading questions. By Tuesday September 8 you need to have read the narrative parts of each of those chapters. You should read and consider the poems included as examples, but you do not need to answer the questions or read any of the poems that appear at the end of the respective chapters.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

APLC Syllabus and Frist Term Itinerary

AP Literature and Composition
Fall 2009

Objectives –

The main purpose of this course, beyond the obvious goal of understanding and appreciating the world’s great works of literature, is twofold…to hone your critical reading and writing skills to the point where you can pass the AP Literature and Composition Exam in May. The term hone is important here, as it is assumed that you already possess strong reading comprehension and writing skills.

Course Methods –

Needless to say you will be doing a tremendous amount of reading and writing in this course. Readings will frequently be accompanied by either individual or group analysis or response exercises. Writing assignments will be many and varied. We will obviously need to practice the type of timed, prompt-response essays that you will be asked to write in May (as well as practicing for the very difficult MC section). To this end, we will frequently write 40-minute prompt essays from past AP Exams. We will also read and score sample essays using the AP 9-point rubrics (I will typically not mark on your essays when I score them, because I will expect you to objectively, and accurately, score your own once you have familiarized yourself with the rubric and scored/ranked several samples.)

However, since passing the Exam will exempt you from the one real writing course you would otherwise take in college, we also need to spend a significant amount of time on the writing process. We therefore will have a number of longer writing assignments that will be “work shopped” during class and extensively edited and revised out of class. During the first semester, I will collect and assess draft versions of papers, and I will also assess your comments on/criticism of your peers’ papers. However, starting in the second semester, you will be expected to be able to effectively read and revise each others essays, and I will no longer collect or assess anything but final drafts of out-of-class papers. Like all literature classes, this one will be primarily discussion-based, though I will present important information through lectures from time to time.

Course Materials:

The text we will use for this course is Perrine’s. You will need a large three-ring binder for this class, preferably with at least one folder-insert. Each student will also need a black-and-white composition book which will be used as a response journal.






Grading –

Reading Comprehension Exercises (reflective response, explication, and analysis)
Quizzes (consisting of MC and short answer questions)
Unit Tests (some will be entirely MC questions, some will have MC and essay sections)
AP Essays (timed, in-class writing scored with 9-point rubric)
Longer Essays (out-of-class, careful revision required)

Homework –

You will ALWAYS have work to do for this course outside of class, and failure to do it will affect you grade. (If you haven’t read a poem or passage that I ask you to respond to during class, you’re obviously not going to do well on that assignment!) However, I will only rarely “take-up” homework assignments for points. When I do they will be scored on an effort-basis, so take advantage of the opportunity to pad your average.

Course Itinerary –

First Semester: Poetry & Short Fiction
Second Semester: Longer Fiction & Drama

Term 1 (Weeks 1-9)

Reading: Perrine’s “Writing About Literature” pp. 1-23; Elements of Poetry
(chapters 1-7, 9, and 11-13)
Mortimer Adler, “How to Mark a Book”

Research Assignments: Historical and Biblical Allusions (posted to blog)
One-Page Paper: Romantic Poets

Writing Assignments: 2 in-class AP-prompt essays
2 out-of-class papers, workshopped over a 2-week period