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Semester One
Week One-Two
•    Introduction to AP English
•    Journals due Friday, September 8
•    Paper  due Friday, September 15
•    Discuss summer reading

Week Three-Four
•    Short Story Unit:
•    Perrine’s Story and Structure: “Reading the Story,”Tobias Wolff’s “Hunters in the Snow,” “Understanding and EvaluatingFiction.”
•    Perrine’s Story and Structure: “Plot and Structure,” Jhumpa Lahiri’s “Interpreter of Maladies.”
•    Other short stories to choose from: Faulkner’s“Barn Burning” and “A Rose for Emily”, O'Connor’s “A Good Man is Hardto Find” and “Good Country People”, Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,”Perkins Gilman’s “Yellow Wallpaper,” Hemingway’s “Hills Like WhiteElephants.”
•    Elements of style and Literary Analysis
•    Examples of literary criticism
•    MLA format

Week Five-Six
•    Review 2001 AP Exam: Multiple choice, prose, poetry, open question
•    Poetry study: techniques including denotation andconnotation, imagery, metaphor, symbolism, allusion, tone,alliteration, rhyme, and rhythm.

•    Poetry Assignment which includes
1.    Three short essays (2 pages) based on yourpersonal research of THREE poets’ visions of poetry.  These essaysmay be developed from reading about poets, from videotaped interviews,or from personal interviews with, for example, a local poet. These must include reference to what the poet himself/herself says andexamples of his/her poetry.  You should also include personalcomment on your agreement or disagreement with each poet’s philosophyabout poetry.  Include Works Cited page for each essay.  
o    One poet must be from before the 20th Century.
o    Diversify your choices.
o    Not life of poet…you may need to research this tounderstand the poet’s philosophy of poetry, but it should not be thefocus.

2.    One longer essay (4-5 pages) in which you explainyour own newly developed vision/philosophy of poetry.  Includereferences to those specific learning experiences that helped you todevelop this vision, both over the next several weeks and other lifeexperiences outside this unit that have contributed to your personalphilosophy on poetry.

3.    A collection of favorite poems that you feelillustrates your poetic philosophy.  It should include a minimumof four poems from several different poets, a short analysis of eachpoem, and your personal comments on why you chose each of these poems. 

4.    Your own poetry.  This may be a series ofshort poems, three longer poems or a book of poetry ready forpublication.  

•    Study poetry as a class by: Eavan Boland, e.e.cummings, Dylan Thomas, Pablo Neruda, William Blake, Elizabeth Bishop,Anne Bradstreet, Seamus Heaney, and William Shakespeare.

Week Seven
•    Poetry Presentations

Week Eight-Twelve
•    Invisible Man—please note that all novel studiesare accompanied by a journal assignment that you will maintain throughthe literature study.  Specifics for each assignment will be givento you at the beginning of each literature study.  Additionally,there will be two major projects assigned for Invisible Man—theresearch paper (see Invisible Man Paper Topics below) and thefaciliation of a discussion (see discussion format for Invisible Manhandout).  
•    Review of research process

Invisible Man Paper Topics

(Harlem) is romantic in its own right. And it is hard and strong, itsnoise, heat, cold, cries and colours are so. And the nostalgia isviolent too; the eternal radio seeping through everything day andnight, indoors and out, becomes somehow the personification ofrestlessness, desire, brooding."
--Nancy Cunard, Harlem Review, 1933

In 1925, the African-American philosopher Alain Locke published The NewNegro, an anthology that contained the works of some of the writers ofthe period: Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston. InHarlem, "Negro life is seizing upon its first chances for groupexpression and self-determination," Locke wrote in the introduction.Instead of using more direct political means, African-American artistsand writers employed culture to work for goals of civil rights andequality.

•    Write a 7-10 page paper on one of the following topics.  
•    All papers need to be typed, in 12-point font and written in MLA format.  
•    The topics are vague since it is designed toenhance your knowledge of Invisible Man yet leave room for you toexplore an area that you are interested in.  
•    All papers should use specific textual evidence to support your thesis.  
•    A Works Cited page must be included with the paper in order for the paper to be graded.  
•    Take time to write this paper.  See me for guidance or clarity if you need it.  

1.    Research the Communist party during the HarlemRenaissance.  Write a commentary about how it affected the HarlemRenaissance and/or specific artists from the Harlem Renaissance. Research the people who joined the Communist party, the reasons forjoining, and their reasons for leaving the party.  

2.    Historical Perspectives--Research one of thefollowing topics and address how it influenced the author and/or noveland/or culture of the Harlem Renaissance:
•    Lynch mobs (especially from 1890s on)
•    Evictions of African American people
•    Woodrow Wilson
•    Jazz: Bessie Smith, Florence Mills, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong
•    Art: Augusta Savage, Laura Wheeler Waring, AaronDouglass, Louis Mailou Jones, Sargent Claude Johnson, William H.Johnson, Archibald Motley, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence
•    Dance: Josephine Baker
•    Jim Crow Laws

3.    Literary Influences—Research one of the following influences on Ellison:
•    Melville/ Moby Dick
•    Richard Wright/ Native Son
•    Dostoevsky (minus Crime and Punishment)
•    William Faulkner
•    Mark Twain
•    Stories of Brer Rabbit

4.    Literary Contemporaries—Read other works byauthors of the Harlem Renaissance and compare/contrast Ellison’sthemes.  You should integrate literary criticism with in yourpaper as well.  Authors include:
 
•    Langston Hughes
•    Zora Neal Hurston
•    Countee Cullen
•    Jessie Redmon Fauset
•    Dorothy West
•    Claude McKay
•    Anne Spencer
•    Alice Ruth Moore Dunbar-Nelson
•    Paul Laurence Dunbar
•    Arna Bontemps
•    Angelina Weld Grimke
•    Marita Bonner
•    Jean Toomer
•    Gwendolyn B. Bennett
•    Esther Popel
•    Marion Vera Cuthbert
•    Ida B. Wells-Barnett
•    James Weldon Johnson
•    Nella Larsen
•    Alain Locke
 

5.    Politics—Research the politics of the time and how their ideologies influenced Ellison.  
•    W.E.B. Du Bois/ NAACP
•    Booker T. Washington/ Tuskegee Institute
•    Marcus Garvey/ UNIA

6.    Research the Negro Baseball Leagues.

7.    Research the treatment of African Americans in the Military during the Harlem Renaissance

8.    Research Women’s Rights during the Harlem Renaissance.  

9.    Your own idea that you get approved by your instructor.  

Additional work during this unit:
•    Bildungsroman notes
•    Ellison Short Stories
•    Richard Wright’s short story “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
•    T. S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland”
•    Essays written by W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington
•    Small group discussion facilitation
•    Art project
•    Midterm: practice test

Week Thirteen
Research Paper due
•    Present projects
        
Week 14-17
•    Assign novel study--
Madame Bovary, Their Eyes Were Watching God, As I Lay Dying, Hamlet
•    Shakespeare Sonnets
•    Review of literary terms as needed for test prep

Jan 22-23 Final Exams
•    Practice Test

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