Hello darrell.steph,
iTunes 11 does look different than the previous versions of iTunes, but you can adjust some settings to make it look more familiar. I find it convenient to have the sidebar enabled to build and manage playlists. You can follow these steps to bring back the sidebar in iTunes:
Show Sidebar - Choose View > Show Sidebar (this feature will display iTunes features on the left side of the application including Library, Store, Shared, Genius, and Playlists).
You can find the full article here:
iTunes 11: Frequently used features
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5649
Additionally, I recommend checking if you have the "Manually manage music and videos" option enabled in the Summary tab:
You can find all the steps to manually sync music in the following article:
Managing content manually on iPhone, iPad, and iPod
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1535
Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.
Best,
Sheila M.