AP British Studies

AP British Studies: Where Am I Going?

As a Junior, you focused on literature that helped to define what your past is. You read Emerson, Melville and others in order to get a better grasp on what it means to grow up in the late twentieth century on Nantucket.
In this course, we look to the future. This course will not focus on science fiction and Wall Street predictions, but on the ideas of destiny and control. How much do we guide our futures and how much are we swept along.
This course will feature the following works: Great Expectations, Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, Jane Eyre, Hamlet, Howard's End and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. These titles may change.

Rules of the Road These are some of the important early handouts for this class.

Summer Reading All of the assignments and books, helpfully linked to Amazon.
AP English The Princeton Web site
Coursework Most of the basic grades
Homework A different approach to Homework. This is a Ten point homework, this is a Nine point challenge, this is an Eight point homework, and this is a Seven point one.
Challenges You don't actually think that these would go away?
Absence and Late Work Policy

Essay 1: Future of Nantucket Our first essay will be a shake out the dust and the cobwebs sort of thing.

My miserable model Something like what you should write
Ten years after I used this assignment and its model essay a few years ago. It may help now.
the Comprehensive Plan for Nantucket
the Five Beliefs are required in the essay.

Great Expectations These other sites will help with information.

Great Expectations This seems an excellent starting place for the novel and for research.
Great ExpectationsSomething for teacher.
The Book itself in case you forget yours.
Discussion comments from Thursday
Dickens Parody by Kevin Diamond
Pip...A description by Jeremy Andersen

Beowulf These other sites will help with information.

Early English Our first notes.
History of the text The text, but remember we are using
Beowulf; The Old handouts From the Raffel translation.
Grendel Talks From an online discussion of Gardner's book
Grendel's Mom Great site with wierdness
the Illustrated Beowulf Cookie Monster gets beat.
Grendel Page An awesome resource, including an Index!!!!

Murder in the Cathedral These other sites will help with information.

Murder in the Cathedral handouts
T.S. Eliot A short biography.
Thomas a Becket History of the man.

Hamlet The text of the play and a good forum for some commentary is available at the Shakespeare Homepage. Aside from that, here are my study questions.
- there are three quartos (versions) of the play available on-line, the 1603 version, the 1604 version, and the 1623 version
- There is not a lot of good commentary on the play out there in Cyberspace. The MIT site will do better than most anything else. Samuel Johnson wrote this early commentary on this most famous of plays. The Lamb's Hamlet helps understand the basics of the plot.This site does the play very well. T.S. Eliot gets his two cents in. Mr. Murdoch chimes in from Australia.
- Other commentary: This site is from a student in Dallas, with some general commentary on the play.
- Specific parts: This site commemorates Hamlet's crawl during the "play" scene. On the other hand, this site has everything that you need.
- Movies: The recent Brannaugh movie. Possibly the definitive one.
- Humor: The Skinhead's Hamlet is foul-mouthed, but funny. A cleaner and equally humorous take is the a Night in Elsinore parody.
  FateAnother essay is a definition piece.
  - My miserable model Something like what you should write
  Back to the Beach Copyright © Finestkind publications and Bob Barsanti.