1. AP Literature and Composition “It’s a Muddle-it-Over Monday!” February 9, 2009 Mr. Houghteling

2. Agenda: 1.Turn in “Helen” essays. Include your T- Charts or Venn diagrams. 2.Freewrite and brainstorm regarding how and what we read. 3.Background notes on “The Canon.” 4.The Synthesis Essay: where we’re going from here.

3. Quickwrite 3.1 Respond to one or all of the following: If you were in charge of deciding what high school students should read, what texts would you select? Why? If you had to recommend a must-read novel to someone, what would you suggest? Why? Should high school students be required to read “the classics?” Why or why not?

4. Report Back on your Freewrite: 1.Meet with the people sitting next to and around you. Share the ideas from your freewrite with them. 2.Did you agree? Disagree? Take notes on one another’s ideas as this will help you with your next writing assignment. 3.Report out to the rest of the class. Continue to take notes on one another’s ideas and arguments.

5. The Canon “The canon” is a term used to denote a selection of books, and, more widely, music and art, that has been the most influential in shaping Western culture. It asserts a compilation of the "greatest works of artistic merit.” The canon is often equated with “high culture” or cultural literacy.

6. Questions and controversies “Greatest works of artistic merit” is a value-laden concept. Who is to say what constitutes artistic merit? The Western canon, as a list, was made popular by Harvard in 1908; however, the texts included on that list were considered “classic” well before then. As such, they represent a specific type of list.

7. Questions and controversies Women and minority writers were not historically included in the canon; however, this has changed. The canon as a changing entity has brought its own controversies and questions.

8. Homework Read the instructions for the synthesis essay. What questions do you have? Please bring these to tomorrow’s class. Revisit your freewrite from the beginning of class. Knowing about the essay as you do now, what ideas, texts, questions do you now have? Continue to brainstorm.