AP® English Literature and Composition with The Lukeion Project
We are tied down to a language which makes up in obscurity what it lacks in style.
― Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Stoppard
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Recommended ages: 17+ or for those working (reading and writing) at senior high school level
College Board-approved AP® course prepares students for AP® English Lit. exam offered May (students must make local arrangements). We engage in careful reading & critical analysis of imaginative literature. Explore how writers use language to provide meaning & pleasure for their readers. Students learn to consider a work’s structure, style and themes, as well as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism and tone. This is a writing intensive course for students working at the junior or senior high school level. Expect summer readings. |
The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility.
― Algernon from The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde
Course Details (2 semesters)
The Lukeion AP® English Literature and Composition course is the very model of a modern college literature class which is why, if one successfully passes the AP® English Lit. & Comp exam, one earns college credit. Expect to read representative works from British and American literature (such as Frankenstein and Raisin in the Sun). We start in the Renaissance and finish with Post-Modern works, focusing on those works of well recognized literary merit. Expect to read critically and deliberately, focusing on the complexity and richness of meaning in these works. We’ll also consider the social and historical values of a work so that we can understand it in context.
In this course, students will master the critical analysis of literature and will develop expository and argumentative essays. Creative-writing assignments including response papers and poetry will push students to see how excellent literature is written. Students will advance their ability to clearly explain and interpret these important literary works. Expect to see an emphasis on themes, structure, style, and the use of rhetorical elements such as figurative language, symbolism, and tone. Students will regularly practice the types of questions and essays given on the AP® Literature and Composition exam. Students must make local arrangements to take the exam (scheduled Wednesday, May 8, 2019).
In addition to our regular 1 hour live synchronous weekly meeting, there will be an optional meeting each week for those who wish to get into a deeper discussion of the works from that week. Instructor Randee Baty will also meet once during the year individually with each student to discuss a writing project in progress. The writing will be extensive, as one must expect from a college-level class.
This is a two semester class. Sign up for AP® English Lit. Alpha & Beta to complete the course.
(Please await texts purchases until you receive further instructions from your instructor)
The first semester will include:
- Jane Eyre, Bronte
- The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Shakespeare
- Wuthering Heights, Bronte
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Stoppard
- The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilde
- A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry
- Mrs. Dalloway, Woolf
- Ceremony, Silko
- Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston
- Short stories by Flannery O’Connor
- Poetry by these authors among others:
- Shakespeare
- Whitman
- Frost
- Bradstreet
- Pope
- Coleridge
- Hughes
- Brooks
- Dylan Thomas
- Philip Larkin
- Stevie Smith
- others assigned as needed
2 Semester course (register for AP® Eng. Lit Alpha & Beta)
Course time: 2:15 PM ET on Tuesdays
Required Texts
