Advanced Placement Literature and Composition

Prairie View High School

R. Gleichmann - Instructor

Course Syllabus

2010-2011

 

STRUGGLE FOR DIGNITY AND UNDERSTANDING

 

Poem based on family photograph**- Aug 16

 

Oedipus Rex (p1426) and Antigone (p1469)- Aug.16

 

Related Poetry:

“The God Who Loves You”- Dennis

“Jocasta”- Eisenberg

 

Related Essays:

Study of Sophocles (p1418-1426)

“Aristotle on Tragic Character” (p1506)

 “Sigmund Freud’s Theory of the Oedipus Complex” (p1508)

 “Jocasta’s Secret”- Estep  (Lit. Essays and poems – LEaP)

“Antigone’s Flaw”- Lines  (LEaP)

Enjoying Oedipus – Friedlander   (LEaP)

 

 Oedipus or Antigone Project- Aug.30

 

Death of a Salesman (p1908)- Aug.30

 

Related Essays:                                          

 “Tragedy and the Common Man”- Miller (p1973)

“On Biff and Willy Loman” – Miller (p1976)

 From the Times “Arthur Miller” (LEaP)

 

Salesman Project- Sept. 3

 

Introduction to Poetry- Sept.7

“The Eagle”- Tennyson  (LEaP)

“Spring”- Shakespeare  (LEaP)

“Dulce et Decorum Est”- Owen  (LEaP)

“Anthem for a Doomed Youth”- Owen  (LEaP)

“The Parable of the Old Man and the Young”- Owen  (LEaP)

“There’s Been a Death in the Opposite House”-Dickinson  (LEaP)

“Taking Emily Dickinson’s Clothes Off’- Collins  (LEaP)

“Mirror”- Plath  (p912)

“Naming of Parts”- Reed  (p943)

“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”- Jarrell  (832)

 

Related Essays:

“Sylvia Plath’s Trauma”- McCormick  (LEaP)

“Sylvia Plath’s Gangsta Rap Legacy”- Richards  (LEaP)

“Analysis of ‘Anthem for a Doomed Youth”  (LEaP)

 Notes on “Dulce Et Decorum Est”  (LEaP)

“Shell Shock During World War I”  (LEaP)

 

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich- Sept. 13

 

Related Essays:

“Analysis of Ivan Denisovich”- Salisbury  (LEaP)

Solzhenitsyn Biographical Material   (LEaP)

Solzhenitsyn Autobiographical Material  (LEaP)

 Essay Topic and Critical Commentary – Schelle   (LEaP)

 Quotes from Joseph Stalin    (LEaP)

 

 

One Day in the Life of a PVHS Student- Sept. 20

 

Stalin Information- Sept. 23**

 

Canterbury Tales- “Prologue, Pardoner’s Tale, Wife of Bath’s Tale”- Sept.27

 

Related Essays:

“The Murder of Thomas Becket”   (LEaP)

“A Brief Chronology of Chaucer’s Life and Times”   (LEaP)

“Chaucer’s Tomb in Westminster Abbey”   (LEaP)

 

John Donne’s poetry- Oct.4

“Death Be Not Proud”  (p1058)

“A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”  (916)

“Batter My Heart”   (LEaP)

 

Related Essays:

Combining the Elements of Poetry: A Writing Process  (p1056-1066)

“The Circle of Souls”  (LEaP)

 “John Donne and Metaphor”   (LEaP)

“John Donne and His Followers”  (LEaP)

“Notes from a Small Curate- ‘Batter My Heart’’- Davies  (LEaP)

“John Donne’s Metaphysical Poetry”   (LEaP)

 

Research Essay based on Medieval History- Oct.11

 

Presentations of Research Essays Begin- Oct 11**

 

Supplemental Reading Due*** Oct 14

 

ODYSSEYS

 

Candide- Oct. 18

 

Related Poetry:

“Voltaire at Ferney”- Auden   (LEaP)

“Pangloss’ Song”- Wilbur   (LEaP or  http://webofstories.com/play/14745)

“Poem on the Lisbon Disaster”- Voltaire   (LEaP)

 

Related Essays:

“Voltaire: Author and Philosopher”   (LEaP)

“Voltaire Quotes”   (LEaP)

 

Group Map Project- Oct .25

 

A Picaresque Tour- Oct. 25**

 

“Araby” and “The Rocking-Horse Winner” (LEaP) – Oct. 25

 

Gulliver’s Travels- Nov. 8

 

Related Essays:

“Jonathan Swift’s Religious Beliefs”  (LEaP)

Biography of Jonathan Swift  (LEaP)

“Gulliver’s Travels: An Introduction”   (LEaP)

Swift’s Attitude toward Science and Technology   (LEaP)

“A Treatise on Good Manners and Breeding”- Swift   (LEaP)

Quotations of Jonathan Swift   (LEaP)

“A Modest Proposal” – Swift   (LEaP)

 

The Modern Gulliver Project- Nov. 15

 

Brave New World- Nov 22

 

Related Essays:

Dystopias: Categorization   (LEaP)

Con: Anti-Cloning Research   (LEaP)

Pro: Cloning Supporters   (LEaP)

“Aldous Huxley: The Author and His Times”   (LEaP)

 

The Great Debate- Nov. 29**

 

1984- Dec.6

 

Related Poetry:

“Cockroach” –Sexton   (LEaP)

 

Related Essays:

“George Orwell Says, ‘Let the Meaning Choose the Word”   (LEaP)

 “The ‘Not Me’ Myth: Orwell and the Mind”- Singer   (LEaP)

 

Supplemental Reading Due *** Dec 13 

 

The Creation of a Dystopia Project and Modern Dystopias- Dec. 15

 

Allusion Hunt** – Dec.16

 

Invisible Man- Jan. 3

 

Related Poetry:

“The White Man’s Burden”- Kipling   (LEaP)

“The Brown Man’s Burden” – Labouchere   (LEaP)

“We Wear the Mask” – Dunbar   (LEaP)

 

Related Essays:

“The Negro in Hollywood Films”- Jerome    (LEaP)

“Man Underground- Review of Invisible Man”- Bellow   (LEaP)

“The Deep Pit: a Review of Invisible Man”- Brown   (LEaP)

“Review of Invisible Man”- Howe   (LEaP)

 

Observations of Invisibility**- Jan. 10

 

“The Secret Sharer” Jan. 18

 

“Young Goodman Brown” (p398)- Jan. 21

 

Goodman Brown Board Game- Jan.24

 

 

TWISTED LOVE AND AMBITION

 

Hamlet-   (p1589)   Jan. 22

 

Related Poetry:

“King Claudius”- Keeley and Savidis   (LEaP)

“Dead Letters”- Manley   (LEaP)

“Elizabethan Tragedy: A Footnote”- Moss   (LEaP)

“Hamlet’s Cat”- author unknown   (LEaP)

“Oor Hamlet”- McNaughton   (LEaP)

“Father and Son”- Kunitz    (LEaP)

“Hamlet” – Vinokurov    (LEaP)

“He Lugs the Guts Into the Other Room”- Taylor    (LEaP)

“Ophelia”- Rimbaud    (LEaP)

 

Related Essays:

“Background Information”- Friedlander   (LEaP)

 “Tragedy and the Mind of the Infant”- Jones   (LEaP)

  “The Embassy of Death”- Knight   (LEaP)

“Ophelia’s Depression” – Byles   (p1698)

“Ophelia’s Mad Speeches” – Fischer  (p1699)

 

Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Metrics- Jan. 31

 “My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun”  (p1010)

“Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”   (p1010)

“That Time of Year Thou Mayst in me Behold”   (p1343)

 

Hamlet Project- Feb. 7

 

The Kite Runner – Feb. 7

 

Related Poetry:

“Who Makes These Changes” –Rumi  (LEaP)

“Sometimes I Forget Completely”- Rumi  (LEaP)

“Love of a Nation” – Durriani  (LEaP)

“Bitter Fruit Falling Upon the Earth”- Khalili  (LEaP)

 

Related Essays:

“Introduction to the Kite Runner”  (LEaP)

“Following Amir: A Trip to Afghanistan in Which Life Imitates Art”- Hosseini  (LEaP)

“Pulled by the Past: An Immigrant Returns to Kabul”- Kipen  (LEaP)

“Language and Literature of Afghanistan”  (LEaP)

 Biographical Information of Hosseini  (LEaP)

“The Land Hazarajat”  (LEaP)

 

Kite Runner project- Feb.14

 

Romantic Poets- Feb. 14

 “She Walks in Beauty”- Byron   (p1318)

“The World is Too Much With Us”- Wordsworth   (p1009)

“London, 1802”- Wordsworth   (p914)

“Ozymandias”-Shelley   (p1344)

“The Lamb”- Blake   (p993)

“The Tiger” Blake   (p995)

“Kubla Khan”- Coleridge   (p1320)

“Ode to a Grecian Urn”- Keats   (p858)

“La Belle Dame Sans Merci”- Keats   (p1335)

“The Human Seasons”- Keats   (p1335)

“On Looking Into Chapman’s Homer”- Keats   (p1008)

 

Related Essays:

“Percy Bysshe Shelley- biographical materials”  (LEaP)

“Samuel Taylor Coleridge- biographical materials”  (LEaP)

“William Wordsworth- biographical materials”  (LEaP)

“The Byron Complex”  (LEaP)

“Keats’ Final Journey”  (LEaP)

“Keats’ Living Hand”  (LEaP)

 Friedlander’s Analysis of “LaBelle Dame Sans Merci”  (LEaP)

 

Wuthering Heights- Feb. 28

 

Related Poetry:

“Remembrance” – Bronte  (LEaP)

 

Related Essays:

“Emily Bronte- biography”

 “The Magnanimity of Wuthering Heights”- Oates

“The Imp of Satan: the Vampire Archetype in Wuthering Heights”- Snider

“Victorian Suicide: Mad Crimes and Sad Histories”- Gates

 

Supplemental Reading Due *** March 3

 

Wuthering Heights Video or Slide Show- March 7

 

Victorian Poets- March 7

“My Last Duchess”-Browning   (p944)

“My Letters!”-Browning   (p1316)

“Fern Hill”-Thomas   (p1350)

“Sailing to Byzantium”-Yeats   (p1359)

“Dover Beach” –Arnold   (p878)

 “Crossing the Bar”- Tennyson   (p815)

“How Do I Love Thee”- Barrett Browning   (p1242)

“Ulysses”-Tennyson   (p1347)

“Terence, This is Stupid Stuff”-Housman    (LEaP)

“Musee des Beaux Arts” – Auden   (LEaP)

 

Related Essays:

“Browning’s Portrait of a Renaissance Man”-Allingham   (LEaP)

“Applying Modern Critical Theory to ‘My Last Duchess’”- Allingham   (LEaP)

“Arnold’s ‘Dover Beach’”   (LEaP)

 Biographical Material on Matthew Arnold   (LEaP)

“Byzantium in the Imagination of William Butler Yeats   (LEaP)

“The Silent Listener- Browning”   (LEaP)

 Analysis of “Musee De Beaux Arts”   (LEaP)

 

Pride and Prejudice- March 14

 

Related Essays:

 “Manners and Courtesies in the Time of Jane Austen”   (LEaP)

“The Calling Card”   (LEaP)

 “The Fan”   (LEaP)

“Newman on the Gentleman”- Landow   (LEaP)

“A Memoir of Jane Austen by her Nephew”   (LEaP)

“Criticisms and Interpretations of Pride and Prejudice”   (LEaP)

 

Pride and Prejudice Etiquette Lessons- March 21

                                                      

Hedda Gabler-  March 28

 

Related Essays:

 “What Critics Have Said About Hedda Gabler”   (LEaP)

 “Hedda Gabler: General Information”   (LEaP)

Ibsen’s Contemporaries Respond   (LEaP)

Hedda Gabler: An Introduction   (LEaP)

Hedda Gabler as Tragedy   (LEaP)

“Hedda Gabler: Psychoanalysis and the Space of the Play”- Hand   (LEaP)

 

 

MORAL DILEMMAS AND EXISTENTIALISM

 

Macbeth- April 11

 

Related Essays:

Macbeth Soliloquies   (LEaP)

Figures of Speech: “Tomorrow and Tomorrow”   (p898)

“To Strut and Fret Upon the Stage: Theatrical Interpretation of Sources of Macbeth”   (LEaP)

Freud on the Macbeths   (LEaP)

“Enjoying Macbeth”- Friedlander   (LEaP)

 “What Exactly Was the Gunpowder Plot?”   (LEaP)

 

Research Project** - April 14 (EarlyBird Special April 8)

 

Macbeth Psychology Project- April 18

 

Modern Poets- April 23

“In Just”- Cummings   (p1034)

“To an Athlete Dying Young”-Housman   (p1332)

“A Study of Reading Habits”-Larkin   (p783)

“Living in Sin”-Rich   (LEaP)

“Storm Warnings”-Rich   (LEaP)

“The Unknown Citizen”- Auden   (LEaP)

“The Goose Fish”-Nemerov   (LEaP)

“The Vacuum”- Nemerov   (LEaP)

“The Lifeguard”-Dickey   (LEaP)

“After Apple Picking”-Frost   (p1133)

“Ars Poetica”-MacLeish   (LEaP)

“The Snow Man”-Stevens   (LEaP)

“America”- McKay   (LEaP)

“First Fight. Then Fiddle”- Brooks   (LEaP)

“Africa”- Angelou   (LEaP)

“Musee de Beaux Arts”- Auden   (LEaP)

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”   (p1222

 

Related Essays:

“T.S. Eliot- ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’”   (p1219)

 

The Stranger and No Exit- April 25

 

Related Essays:

 Woody Allen’s Version of Existentialism   (LEaP)

 “The Myth of Sisyphus”- Camus   (LEaP)

“Preface to The Stranger”- Camus   (LEaP)

“Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel That Ended It”-Aronson   (LEaP)

 Albert Camus- biography   (LEaP)

 “The Jean-Paul Sartre Cookbook”- Smith   (LEaP)

 “Existentialism is a Humanism”- lecture by Sartre   (LEaP)

 

AP EXAM- May 5th- morning session

 

The Metamorphosis- After the AP Exam- Creative Projects**

 

 Projects are listed in italics, and the ones that have asterisks next to them indicate that everyone will participate.  If a project does not have an asterisk next to it, then it is open to bid by study groups.  A project sheet will accompany this syllabus.

 

In addition, every nine weeks, students will be expected to read an additional book for a supplementary grade.  A list will accompany this syllabus.  Students may opt to read more than one book for an extra credit grade.  There is no supplement for the fourth nine-week period.

 

This syllabus must, by necessity, be flexible.  Dates occasionally may change because of holidays, interruptions in the schedule, or because not enough time was accorded these projects or book or poetry or discussions.  Please be patient and understand that it is hard to predict exactly how much time is needed for each project and discussion.