AP English Language and Composition Syllabus
AP English Language and Composition Syllabus
Course Objectives:
Students in this introductory college-level English course read and analyze a variety of prose sources on a variety of subjects with an emphasis on non-fiction and argumentation. The students must examine writing for “the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication.” When the students read fiction, they must examine authorial intent, and they must analyze the argument contained in the creative pieces as well. Fiction pieces are always accompanied by connected non-fiction such as historical analysis, critical readings, or persuasive pieces posing a contrasting argument. The reading selections provide models or contexts from which the students can participate in reasoned discourse. The students begin to view reading and writing as parts of an integrated process of analysis of ideas and rhetorical technique.
Course Approaches:
Close reading: The students examine a variety of texts on a variety of subjects using strategies designed to help them identify the relationship between the author’s rhetoric and intent such as SOAPSTone and PATTR. They receive instruction in selective and purposeful emphasis of text (highlighting) and annotation of text where they must identify such elements as organization, logical structure, vocabulary, sentence structure, rhetorical strategies, argumentative appeals, evidence, and argument. The students learn to question the text and to interact with the text.
Journal writing: The students continually interact with text by keeping journals of their reading experiences. These journals require that the students comment on specific examples of text in order to identify the technique, use of language, rhetorical devices, argument, or intent of the author. Depending on the specific assignment, the students may summarize text, provide dialectical entries in response to specific questions, provide dialectical entries in response to more general guidelines (i.e.—finding argument, rhetoric, vocabulary, etc.), analyze purpose, or make comparisons to other readings.
Essay writing: The students write in a variety of settings and discursive forms from longer essays formed through a process to timed writings done in class in addition to informal journal writing. The students also must research and document essays in accordance with the requirements of the Modern Language Association. The students respond to a variety of prompts designed in the style of the AP Language and Composition test. For instance, they must take critical positions on the texts they read; demonstrate an ability to examine language, rhetorical strategies, or style; evaluate arguments, apply an author’s argument to their own experience or knowledge. The students must learn to evaluate their own writing by becoming familiar with the College Board rubrics and applying these rubrics to their own essays.
Discussion: The students participate in small and large group discussions over their readings using the Socratic Seminar technique and adaptations of Burke’s “reading circles” technique. Discussion provides opportunities for modeling and perfection of Toulmin’s model, the rhetorical triangle, rhetorical strategies, etc. Discussion at all times, like their journal writing, moves from specific detail to larger ideas such as argument, analysis, and persuasion.
Evaluations: The students are evaluated in a variety of ways consistent with the evaluations that appear on the AP Language and Composition test. They must write essays, journal entries, and short responses based on the texts they have read. Their journal entries are evaluated as part of the writing process looking for significant detail and evaluation of that detail. When verbal presentations are evaluated, they are evaluated elements similar to those found in College Board essay rubrics. They must answer multiple-choice questions designed in the style of a College Board test as well. The teachers provide ongoing assessment of the students during all phases of the writing process including conferences, written notes, models, and final assessments.
Unit One: Characterizing Change
Readings:
Required:
Students choose one of the following summer required readings:
• All Over But the Shoutin’ Rick Bragg
• When I was Puerto Rican Esmerelda Santiago
• Black Boy Richard Wright
Students must also read during the first six weeks:
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain
• “Huck, Jim, and American Racial Discourse” David L. Smith
• Excerpts from “Self Reliance” Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Excerpts from Walden Henry David Thoreau
• “Letter From Birmingham Jail” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Handouts outlining reading strategies and introducing rhetorical strategies
Lesson focus:
• The students must analyze the autobiographical readings for the author’s intent by looking at the development of character as a literary device. They must discover to what extent an author uses fictional techniques in a non-fiction piece of narrative.
• The American Transcendentalist writings and Huck Finn are paired readings. The students must analyze character in Twain by applying the ideas about character found in Emerson and Thoreau.
• Throughout the syllabus, the teacher should strive for a balance between the needs of the AP curriculum and those of the State of Texas. Remember that AP Language and Composition is a course of non-fiction. Each unit should have several opportunities for the student to read, think about, and write about non-fiction pieces.
Recommended:
• Biblical texts as they relate to readings and allusions (Genesis, Exodus, I Kings 3:16-28)
Assessments:
• Reading check test over summer memoir—contextualize and analyze citations from the readings
• SAT essay
• Personal Narrative/Character analysis essay
• Dialectical journals
• Huck Finn Exam
• Reader response journals
Note:
• The SAT essay is used as a diagnostic tool. The student must complete it without instruction over the summer before the course begins. It uses sample released SAT prompts.
• The personal narrative/character analysis essay is a process paper designed to have the students evaluate character in the summer readings and in their own experiences. The formal stages of the writing process for this assignment are note taking in their textual emphasis, annotations, and highlighting; their journal entries; essay preparation including prewriting, drafting, revisions and editing, and publishing. Each requiring it’s own lesson and assessment.
• The reading check tests require that the student identify a series of lines from the autobiography or from Huck Finn (two separate tests). They must identify the context and speaker, and they must analyze the quotation in terms of characterization, theme, or argument.
• The dialectical journals contain textual evidence, commentary, and application to the novel of ideas encountered in the non-fiction pieces. The journals function as study guides and as prewriting for the essays and short responses the students must write.
• The Huck Finn exam is a combination of multiple-choice items written in imitation of the AP test and a timed writing also written in imitation of the AP test prompts.
Unit Two: Understanding How Individual Perspective Affects Reality
Readings:
Required:
• The Crucible Arthur Miller
• Current event project book/rhetorical analysis
Lesson focus:
• The current event project is a small group assignment done in parts over several weeks time. It requires reading a non-fiction book on a current topic chosen from a teacher-selected list (e.g.—Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Among the Thugs by Bill Buford, The Stem Cell Divide: The Facts, the Fiction, And the Fear Driving the Greatest Scientific, Political And Religious Debate of Our Time by Michael Bellomo), independent research on the books subject matter, analysis of source material and of the book, and presentation of findings and argument. The presentations take the form of researched persuasive dialogues, or debates, with the books the students have read. They are developed through a process that involves reading the primary sources, researching independently on the subject, evaluating the primary source in light of the student’s research, working in a group to organize and develop the persuasive analysis/presentation, and publishing their results to the class.
Recommended:
• The Scarlet Letter Nathaniel Hawthorn
• Short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorn
• Historical background on Salem witch trials, Puritanism, and McCarthyism
• Thematically related political cartoons
• Scene from Good Night and Good Luck
Assessments:
• Reading Check Test (RCT)
• Dialectical journals
• Argument essay (timed writing)
• Group presentation with Power Point
• Reader response journals
• Unit exam
Note:
• The argument essay relates historical information to Miller’s explanation of his purpose in The Crucible found in the stage direction at the beginning of the play. It is a timed essay—40 minutes.
• The RCT is a series of lines from The Crucible without the speaker’s identification. The students must identify the context and speaker, and they must analyze the quotation in terms of characterization, theme, or argument.
• The dialectical journals act as prewriting for the group presentations. The students must track argument, style, rhetorical strategies, and evidence over the course of the novel-length books on current topics. Each journal entries must provide text and commentary pointed at one of these categories.
• The group presentations are a combination of graphic and spoken presentation. Each student is graded separately and is judged on his ability to explain the author’s argument and connect that argument to his or her own independent research. Each presentation must be accompanied by a student-generated quiz and a Works Cited page that refers to text citations in the Power Point presentation according to MLA specifications. The content of the presentation should also contain internal citations of sources according to the requirements of the MLA.
• The unit exam is a timed essay over The Crucible in response to a question in imitation of the AP test—40 minutes.
Unit Three: Understanding How Interactions Affect Society
Readings:
Required:
• Choice of:
The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood
Brave New World Aldous Huxley
Native Tongue Suzette Hadin Elgin
Never Let Me Go Kazuo Ishiguro
Recommended:
• “Utopia” Thomas Moore
• “Elvis in the Attic” Catherine Morrison
Lesson focus:
• The dystopic novels require the student to identify the aspects of the novel that act as predictions or extrapolations of current social trends. The students should analyze and highlight for authorial intent/argument moving from detail to generalization. They should be able to break the author’s argument into it’s component parts.
• “Elvis in the Attic” functions as part of a packet in preparation for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS). It also describes a sort of dystopia, but it should be related more specifically to current events—U.S. immigration.
Assessments:
• Dialectical Journal
• Reading Circle job assignments
• RCT
• Reader Response journals
• Unit exam
• Semester Final Exam
Note:
• The dialectical journal must respond to a lengthy series of questions about the author’s intent/argument, rhetorical strategies, style, character, relationship to current trends. It provides the student with a useful resource for the Dystopia essay. They must keep a record of their reading and the elements of the author’s argument along with supporting details.
• The RCT is a series of quotations from the dystopic novel without the speaker’s identification. The students must identify the context and speaker, and they must analyze the quotation in terms of characterization, theme, or argument.
• The unit exam is a timed writing in which the students must defend, challenge, or qualify the author’s argument about society—40 minutes.
Unit Four: Results of Interactions
Readings:
Required:
• The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald
Recommended:
• The Hollow Men” T.S. Eliot
• Selections from Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism on “The Hollow Men”
• “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” Mark Twain
• “The Noble Savage” Charles Dickens
• Excerpt from The Ballad of the Sad Café’ Carson McCullers
• The story of Trimalchio (online)
• Song of Solomon, Matthew 6:19-24
• Handout on Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development
• Handout on World War One
Lesson focus:
The recommended readings can follow one of two tracks. Either they can examine Gatsby in light of Kohlberg or they can place Gatsby in the social context of Twentieth-Century culture (empire and disillusionment). In either case, the students must examine a connection between fiction and non-fiction sources in the early twentieth century. They must use the framework of Kohlberg or Eliot to evaluate the reading in Fitzgerald.
Assessments:
• Timed writing
• RCT
• Reader response journals
Note:
• The students have four timed writings in this unit available. They should do at least two of the following in light of their non-fiction reading on the early twentieth century:
-A question in response to criticism on “The Hollow Men” in which they analyze the styles of two critics writing about the poem.
-A question in which they apply Kohlberg’s theory to characters in The Great Gatsby.
-A question in which they apply Carson McCullers idea about the “lover and beloved” to characters in The Great Gatsby.
-A question in which they pick either Twain’s or Dicken’s position and defend, challenge, or qualify in comparison to the other author.
Unit Five: Understanding the Power of One
Readings:
Required:
• The Things They Carried Tim O’Brien
Recommended:
• Excerpts from We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang--The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore
• Websearch on Ia Drang Battle
• “Beyond Vietnam” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “Silent Majority” speech by Richard Nixon
• “The 20th Century with Mike Wallace: Vietnam Dilemma—Tet offensive and the Anti-War Movement”
Lesson focus:
The students must analyze their readings for argument and evaluate them for bias. They must weigh their sources against information they find in a variety of sources on the subject.
Assessments:
• Dialectical Journals/graphic organizers
• Timed writing
• RCT
• Rhetorical analysis of famous speeches
• Small group and large group discussion of rhetorical strategies in speeches.
• Unit exam.
Note:
• The dialectical journals use a graphical organizer approach to identifying argument in ten selected chapters from The Things They Carried.
• The timed writing asks the students to analyze O’Brien’s writing strategies in “On the Rainy River” (chapter four)—40 minutes.
• The timed writing on the speeches asks the students to analyze rhetorical strategies—40 minutes.
• The RCT is a series of lines from The Things They Carried. The students must identify the context, and they must analyze the quotation in terms of how it functions as evidence or argument.
• The unit exam is a combination of AP style multiple-choice questions and short essay response over The Things They Carried.
Unit Six: Understanding
Readings:
Required:
• AP essay response examples and rubrics.
• AP sample test responses.
Recommended:
• Selections from Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
• The Devil in the White City Eric Larson
• 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology Samuel Cohen, ed.
• “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” Ernest Hemingway
Lesson focus: This unit is directed at the form, structure, and content of the AP language and Composition Test itself. The students must practice responding to each of the parts of the test.
Assessments:
• AP test practice (multiple choice and timed writing)
• Small group and large group discussion of a writer’s rhetorical choices
• Reader response journals
• Unit exam
• Semester Final Exam
Note:
• The practice AP tests are the focus for this final grading period. They should consist of examples of released exams.
• The unit exam will be an imitation of the AP style exam with multiple-choice and timed writing examples.
List of works used in the course:
Student required texts:
Mccuen-Metherell, Jo. Readings for Writers, School Binding. Boston: Heinle, 2000.
Twain, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Dover Publications, 1994.
Miller, Arthur et.al. The Portable Arthur Miller. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.
Fitzgerald, F. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004.
O'brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. New York: Broadway Books, 1998.
Student chosen readings:
Bragg, Rick. All over but the Shoutin'. New York: Vintage Books, 1998.
Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican: a Memoir. New York: Da Capo Press, 2006.
Wright, Richard. Black Boy. New York: Perennial Classics, 1998.
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Garden City: Anchor Books, 1998.
Orwell, George. 1984. New York: New American Library, 1950.
Hiaasen, Carl. Native Tongue. New York: Warner Vision Books, 2004.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. London: Vintage, 2006.
Additional readings:
Smith, David L. "Huck, Jim, and American Racial Discourse." In Satire or Evasion? Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn, edited by James Leonard et al. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1992, 103-120.
Emerson, Ralph et.al. The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971.
Thoreau, Henry and Jonathan Levin. Walden and Civil Disobedience. City: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005.
“Letter From Birmingham Jail” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Holy Bible: King James Version. City: World Bible Publishing, 1989.
Biblical texts as they relate to readings and allusions (Genesis, Exodus, I Kings 3:16-28)
Hawthorne, Nathaniel and Brenda Wineapple. The Scarlet Letter. City: Signet Classics, 1999.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Selected Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Fawcett, 1983.
More, Thomas, Sir et.al. Utopia. City: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005.
“Elvis in the Attic” Catherine Morrison. May 5, 2007.
Eliot, TS. Selected Poems. New York: Harvest Books, 1967.
Selections from Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism on “The Hollow Men”
Twain, Mark. Following the Equator and Anti-Imperialist Essays. Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1996.
“The Noble Savage” Charles Dickens
Excerpt from The Ballad of the Sad Café’ Carson McCullers
The story of Trimalchio (online)
Excerpts from We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang--The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Harold G. Moore
Websearch on Ia Drang Battle
“Beyond Vietnam” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Silent Majority” speech by Richard Nixon
“The 20th Century with Mike Wallace: Vietnam Dilemma—Tet offensive and the Anti-War Movement”
Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.
Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.
Cohen, Samuel. 50 Essays: a Portable Anthology. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Short Stories. New York: Scribner, 1997.
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C1: The teacher has read the most recent AP English Course Description.
C6: The course requires non-fiction readings that are selected to give the students opportunities to identify and explain an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques.
C6: The course requires non-fiction readings that are selected to give the students opportunities to identify and explain an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques.
C4: The course requires the students to write in informal contexts designed to help them become increasingly aware of themselves as writers and of the techniques employed by writers they read.
C7: The course teaches the students to analyze how graphics and visual images both relate to written texts and serve as alternate forms of text themselves.
C9: The course teaches the students how to cite sources using a recognized editorial style.
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