Fall Semester
AP English Literature


Hello scholars! I hope you have had a wonderful and restful vacation and are ready to get to back to work. The books we will be using are:

1. Vocabulary Workshop Level F
2. Warriner's Grammar Book
3. British Literature Anthology

In addition to the above books, we will be using excerpts from Voice Lessons,
Sound and Sense, and Philosophy and Literature, and AP English Literature. We will start off this semester with Sophocle's The Oedipal Cycle, with additional background readings in Plato and Aristotle.

We will cover the following books in class by the end of the semester:

1. Excerpts from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales
2. Excerpts from Beowulf
3. Dante's Inferno
4. Hamlet
5. A Restoration comedy
6. Crime and Punishment

In addition to the above books, we will also be reading and analyzing, and of course, writing about poetry, essays, short stories and excerpts by writers around the world and down through the ages. To help us understand the literature, we will also study the philosophical and historical context in which these great works were written.

We will also cover vocabulary, grammar and writing, and to a certain extent philosophy and history as part of the curriculum.

As you can see, we have a busy schedule. Due to the tremendous work load, we will do peer editing before you turn in your final draft of your essays.

There will be no make-up work for truancies. If you have been absent then it is up to you to get the work you have missed. The work will be:

1. Written on the board
and/or
2. Placed in the wire basket on the stage and/or
3. On the blog on the Hollywood High School website. The website is
hollywoodhighschool.net. Click on the weblogs and then on J BRIDGES. The week's agenda will be posted on the weblog every
Sunday night.

The grading schedule is as follows:

1. 90 - 100 = A
2. 80 - 89 = B
3. 70 - 79 = C
4. 60 - 69 = D
5. Less than 59 is an F

Please remember that the essays are worth two (2) grades and are the most important part of your grade, so if you miss more than one essay your grade can be jeopardized. The grade breakdown is as follows:

1. Essays: 50%
2. Tests: 20%
3. Classwork: 15%
4. Homework: 15%

As you can see, if you don't do the homework and/or the classwork, then that can lower your grade by a full grade point. So even if you make A's on all the essays and the tests, but you don't do the classwork or the homework, you cannot make an A in the class.

And of course, the class is only as good as you and I make it. I can't make the class interesting by myself - I need help - from you! That means class participation! Speak up! Ask questions! Take a stand! (But be polite!) I get bored too and not even I like hearing myself talk all the time, so please help make the class interesting by participating. And if you do, then you will be rewarded by points which will translate into a grade!

If you have questions, please feel free to call me at 323-461-3891 or better yet, e-mail me at jkatbridge@aol.com.

Please visit my weblog at hollywoodhighschool.net for class information and agendas. Click on the weblog, click on teacher, and then click on J. Bridges.

Hope you have a great and productive fall semester this year as an AP English Literature student! Happy reading!

Sincerely,

J. K. Bridges

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