Online for the 2024-2025 School Year
Teacher: Kathryn Trudeau
Email: katie.trudeau10@gmail.com
This course is currently ACCEPTING STUDENTS for the 2024-2025 school year.
Tuition: $800 through July 1st; $850 after July 1st
Who should apply: If you are a 10th, 11th or 12th grader who is looking for a highly interactive class to develop your interest and aptitude for literature study, this class is for you! Ideally, students should be “go-getters” who are self-disciplined and internally motivated.
Length of course: This course begins Monday, August 26th, 2024, and extends through May 9, 2025.
COURSE TEXTS:
Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound and Sense: I’ll be using the 9th edition.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare (Buy or rent any edition)
Antigone by Sophocles (Buy or rent any edition)
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Buy or rent any edition)
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (Included in Perrine’s Literature)
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Buy or rent any edition)
*Short stories and poems: Most poems and short stories will come from Perrine’s Literature. I will supply other poems or stories as needed. I will also provide any scholarly articles, nonfiction pieces, or other resources.
Optional Reference Texts
CliffsAP Literature and Composition, 3rd edition by Allan Casson
Writer’s Inc., ISBN-10: 0669529958
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas Foster
Suggested Summer Reading
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas Foster
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This college-level course is intended for 10th, 11th or 12th graders who possess a love of reading and can write with few grammatical errors. AP English Literature and Composition is a rigorous (and exciting) course with the ultimate goal of preparing students for the AP exam. Throughout the course, we will study a broad range of texts from classical and contemporary canonical literature. As such, students will be expected to read the assigned pieces analytically and deeply – a skill that is useful in high school, college, and beyond. Students will encounter themes that are still relevant today; students will explore and question and discover.
In addition to cultivating an analytical approach to literature, students will also write about literature. Lessons will focus on strengthening college-level writing skills. Students will learn to assert themselves as confident writers who can articulate innovative ideas about a text, formulate a logical argument, support a thematic statement and thesis with textual evidence, and define their own voices. Both formal and informal writing assignments will provide students the opportunity to grow as writers.
All grading in the course is done personally by me.
This class is designed to be rigorous and exciting, while still flexible.
Weekly assignments may include:
- Interactive online live classes (always optional but will be recorded)
- Interactive discussion of course texts on the course website
- Short essays and multiple choice quizzes which will help prepare students for the AP exam in May
- Weekly reading assignments (expect assignments to range from 30-100 pages)
- Optional bonus assignments and / or extra credit
Technical Details:
Students should have access to:
- High speed internet
- Microsoft Office (and the ability to read PDF’s)
- Headset with microphone
- A printer (optional)
Homework will be assigned weekly via the course website. Homework will be due each Monday by 11:59 EST. Students are free to plan their week and manage their time as they see fit. Recorded lectures and / or optional live discussions will occur each Wednesday at 6:15PM EST. The optional live discussions via Zoom will consist of both lecture material and interactive discussions. These meetings will be recorded and may be viewed later if students cannot join the live meeting.
Hours of study each week:
Students should expect to spend about 2 hours on course work per day, or 8-10 hours per week. This includes required reading, extra credit, group discussion, short essays and multiple choice questions.
Instructor Qualifications:
Mrs. Trudeau is an English Literature instructor with a background in freelance writing, editing, and instructional design. She is a 2009 graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville where she studied English Literature and Drama. She graduated in 2010 from Purdue University with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature. While taking English Education courses at the master’s level, Mrs. Trudeau taught Freshman Composition at Purdue University Calumet. She has participated in several Poetry Marathons as well as the National Novel Writing Month challenge.
Mrs. Trudeau has been a freelance writer and instructor for over ten years. Her work has been published on Parent Co, Motherly, Mind&Spirit, Seton Home Magazine, and Thrive Global.