AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION



AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

SYLLABUS

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

The purpose of this course is to help students “write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and their professional and personal lives.” The course is organized according to the requirements and guidelines of the current AP English Course Description, and therefore, students are expected to read critically, think analytically, and communicate clearly both in writing and speech.

Grading Procedures:

Essays 30%: Most essays are first written as in-class essays and graded as rough drafts. Rough drafts are self-edited and peer-edited before students type the final copies. Final copies make up 30 percent of the semester grade. Rough drafts and editing assignments are part of the daily work, which is 20 percent of the semester grade. Students must submit all draft with final copies. Graded final copies are kept in a portfolio that counts as part of the final exam grade for each semester.

Tests 30%: Most tests consist of multiple choice questions based on rhetorical devices and their function in given passages. Some passages are from texts read and studied, but some passages are from new material that students analyze for the first time.

Quizzes 20%: Quizzes are used primarily to check for reading and basic understanding of a text. Each unit has at least one quiz on vocabulary from the readings. Also, each unit has at least one quiz on grammatical and mechanical concepts reviewed in daily tasks as well from the discussions and or annotations of syntax from the readings.

Daily Work 20%: Daily assignments consist of a variety of tasks. Some of those tasks involve individual or group steps leading to a larger product, such as plans, research, drafts, and edits for an essay. Other daily tasks consist of grammar reviews, vocabulary exercises, annotation of texts, and fluency writing.

Most lessons begin with a warm-up task. These focuses on a grammatical or writing concept that connects to the day’s reading assignment. Students do these exercises during the first ten or fifteen minutes of the eighty-five minutes class period.

COURSE OUTLINE AND EXPECTATIONS

This course is organized by themes.

Each unit requires students to acquire and use advanced vocabulary, to use Standard English grammar, and to understand the importance of diction and syntax in an author’s style. Therefore, students are expected to develop the following through reading, discussion, and writing assignments:

• A wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively;

• A variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination;

• Logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transition, and emphasis;

• A balance of generalization and specific illustrative detail; and

• An effective use of rhetoric including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure.

For each reading assignment students must identify the following:

• Thesis or Claim

• Tone or Attitude

• Purpose

• Audience and Occasion

• Evidence or Data

• Appeals: Logos, Ethos, Pathos

• Assumptions or Warrants

• Style

• Organizational patterns found in text, i.e., main idea detail

• Cause/Effect, Extended Definition, Problem/Solution, etc.

• Use of detail to develop a general idea

INTRODUCTION (Weeks 1-2): AP English Course Description, Class Rules and Responsibilities. Grading Procedures, Rhetorical Terms (Definitions), Rhetorical Modes, Rhetorical Devices, and AP Sample Practice Tests to Understand Form

ASSESSMENT:

Test: Rhetorical Terms

UNIT 1 (Weeks 3-9): Education

Readings:

• Maya Angelou, “Graduation”

• Plato, “Allegory of the Cave” from the Republic

• Richard Rodriquez, “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”

• Fredrick Douglas, “Learning to Read and Write”

• Mike Rose, “I Just Want to Be Average”

• Readings on Current Events: Theme-related articles, articles that reflect claims or central ideas made by the authors studied in this unit, submissions from students with teacher’s approval.

Theme related photos, video clips, and/or cartoons from current periodicals will be discussed as these become available. Students may contribute selections for viewing with teacher’s approval.

Additional Outside Reading:

Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

ASSESSMENTS:

Quizzes: Students are given a quiz on most readings. These check for understanding of meaning and strategies.

Quiz: Vocabulary from readings

Quiz: Grammar (from warm-up exercises, syntax discussions or group activities)

Test: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Composition: Expository

Prompt: In a well-written essay, explore the role of education, whether formal or not, as a way to escape oppression whether in the United States or in other countries, as a result of immigration, because of gender or racial bias, coupled with economic constraints.

Composition: Memoir

Prompt: Select a moment from memory, an educational experience that has stayed with you. In a well-written essay, re-create that experience, and then analyze it, figuring out what it means to you.

Composition: Analysis

Prompt: Write an essay in which you analyze the appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos in “Learning to Read and Write.”

Composition: Analysis

Prompt: After reading Flowers for Algernon, write a well-written essay indicating whether you think the novel makes a definitive statement about the role of intelligence in human life, or does it simply explore this idea as an open-ended question?

Composition: Argument

Prompt: Is reading the most important skill for students in school today? Write an essay explaining your position.

UNIT 2 (10-13): FINDING IDENTITY

Reading:

• James Baldwin, “Notes of a Native Son”

• Nancy Mairs, “On Being Cripple”

• Shelby Steele, “On Being Black and Middle Class”

• N. Scott Momaday, “The way To Rainy Mountain”

• Readings on Current events: Theme related articles, articles that reflect claims or central ideas made by authors studied in this unit, submissions from students with teacher’s approval.

Theme related photos, video clips, and/or cartoons from current periodicals will be discussed as these become available. Students may contribute selections for viewing with teacher’s approval.

Extra Outside Reading:

Eli Wiesel, Night

ASSESSMENTS:

Quizzes: Students are given a quiz on most readings. These check for understanding of meaning and strategies.

Quiz: Vocabulary from readings

Quiz: Grammar (from warm-up exercises, syntax discussions or group activities)

Test: Night

Composition: Rhetorical Analysis

Prompt: Read paragraphs 10 to 13 of “On Being a Cripple,” and write a well-organized essay explaining how the speaker uses features of style and rhetoric to convey her attitude toward her condition.

Composition: Argument

Prompt: The following statement is taken from James Baldwin’s essay “Notes of a Native Son”: It seems to be typical of life in America, where opportunities, real and fancied, are thicker than anywhere else on the globe, that the second generation has no time to talk to the first.” Write an essay which you refute, support, or qualify this assertion about lack of communication between generations. Use appropriate evidence from your experience and reading to support your position.

Composition: Journal Entry

Prompt: Do you define yourself primarily through your ethnicity, religion, or socioeconomic status? Explain how each of these, and other factors you deem important, contribute to your sense of who you are.

Unit 3 (14-18): Gender Differences

Readings:

• Dave Barry, “Lost in the Kitchen”

• Stephen Jay Gould, “Women’s Brain”

• Deborah Tannen, “There is No Unmarked Woman”

• Sojourner Truth, “Aren’t I a Woman?”

• Thomas Edison, “The Woman of the Future”

• Maxine Hong Kingston, “No Name Woman”

• Readings on Current Events: Theme-related articles, articles that reflect claims or central ideas made by the authors studied in this unit, submissions from students with teacher’s approval.

Additional Reading

• Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (play)

Viewings

• Tootsie (film)

• Henrik Ibsen, A Doll’s House (film)

Theme-related photos, video clips, and/or cartoons from current periodicals will be discussed as these become available. Students may contribute selections for viewing with teacher’s approval.

ASSESSMENTS:

Quizzes: Students are given a quiz on most readings. These check for understanding of meaning and strategies.

Quiz: Vocabulary from readings

Quiz: Grammar (from warm-up exercises, syntax discussions or group activities)

Test: A Doll’s House

Composition: Analysis

Write an essay using “Ain’t I a Woman” analyzing the rhetorical strategies Truth uses to appeal to her audience at the women’s rights convention in 1851.

Composition: Compare/Contrast

Write an essay comparing and contrasting “No Name Woman’ by Maxine Hong Kingston with Walker’s essay “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” Pay attention to the intent of the authors as well as their writing techniques.

Composition: Argument

Prompt: How are the roles of men and women defined and redefined during different time periods and cultures? What are the repercussions for characters like Nora in A Doll’s House who defy or rebel against accepted role? How do we define gender role right now? Are there generational differences in these definitions?

Unit 4 (Weeks 19-22): History and Politics

Readings:

• Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence”

• Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

• Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address”

• Bharati Mukherjee, “Two Ways to Belong in America”

• Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”

• Reading on Current Events: Theme-related articles, articles that reflect claims or central ideas made by the authors studied in this unit, submissions from students with teacher’s approval.

Viewing:

• Martin Luther King, “I Have a Dream” (Video Clip; )

Theme-related photos, video clips, and/or cartoons from current periodicals will be discussed as these become available. Students may contribute selections for viewing with teacher’s approval.

ASSESSMENTS:

Quizzes: Students are given a quiz on most readings. These check for understanding of meaning and strategies.

Quiz: Vocabulary from readings

Quiz: Grammar (from warm-up exercises, syntax discussions or group activities)

Test: Documents and Speeches

Composition: Expository

Prompt: Write your own definition of just laws versus unjust laws and explain a set of circumstances that you believe would warrant civil disobedience.

Composition: Compare/Contrast

Prompt: Compare and contrast the rhetorical strategies King employs in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” with those he uses in his “I Have a Dream Speech.”

Composition: Compare/Contrast

Prompt: Compare “I Have a Dream” to “The Gettysburg Address” and “The Declaration of Independence.”

Composition: Synthesis Essay

Prompt: What is the individual’s duty to his government? What is the government’s duty to the individual? In an essay that synthesizes and uses for support at least four of the readings from this unit, discuss the obligations of individuals within a society. Remember to attribute both direct and indirect citations. Refer to the sources by authors’ last names or by titles. Avoid mere paraphrase or summary.

UNIT 5 (Weeks 23-29): MAN VERSUS MAN OR SOCIETY

Readings:

• Nathaniel Hawthrone, The Scarlet Letter (Independent Reading)—Students do an annotated reading of this novel. They are responsible for identifying and understanding its elements: characterization, setting, initial incidents, conflicts, climaxes, resolutions, and conclusions, as well as identify and comment on rhetorical and stylistic choices that the author makes.

• The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 1, “The Prison Door”

• The Scarlet Letter, Chapter 2, “The Market Place”

• Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”

• James West Davidson and Mark Hamilton Lytle, “The Visible and Invisible Worlds of Salem”

• Arthur Miller, The Crucible

• Reading on Current Events: Theme-related articles, articles that reflect claims or central ideas made by the authors studied in this unit, submissions from students with teacher’s approval.

Viewing:

Arthur Miller, The Crucible (film)

Senator Joseph McCarthy Attacks Edward R. Murrow on CBS, video clip,

Theme-related photos, video clips, and/or cartoons from current periodicals will be discussed as these become available. Students may contribute selections for viewing with teacher’s approval.

Quizzes: Students are given a quiz on most readings. These check for understanding of meaning and strategies.

Quiz: Vocabulary from readings

Quiz: Grammar (from warm-up exercises, syntax discussions or group activities)

Test: The Scarlet Letter

Test: The Crucible

Composition: Analysis

Prompt: Read Chapter 22, “The Procession,” from The Scarlet Letter. Then write an essay analyzing how Hawthorne uses rhetorical devices, including irony and extended metaphor, to reveal the conclusion.

Composition: Argumentation letter to the editor

Prompt: Using Jonathan Edward’s sermon as a model, write a letter to the editor of our newspaper, using fear tactics to deter your audience from doing something.

Composition: Journal entry

Prompt: What does guilt imply about free will and choice? If we had no free will and choice, how would guilt likely affect us?

Composition: Letter to the editor

Prompt: Write a letter to the local newspaper expressing your views on the treatment of a minority group or outsider in your community. What suggestions or solutions do you have to offer?

Composition: Synthesis

Prompt: Who are considered outsiders in our society? Why are they in this position? How does society treat them? Should society be more tolerant of them? Using at least three sources from this unit, including The Scarlet Letter and The Crucible, write an essay that discusses the position of the outsider in society. Remember to attribute both direct and indirect citations. Refer to the sources by authors’ last names or by titles. Avoid mere paraphrase or summary.

RESEARCH PAPER (30-33): THE DOCUMENTED ESSAY

Task and Prompt:

• Choose a current event that reflects one of the themes that we studied this year.

• Research the topic through different types of sources (newspapers, periodicals, news stories, interviews, online sources, etc.)

• Take careful notes, making sure that you cite your sources accurately using MLA format.

• Develop an argument about this topic.

• Establish a claim.

• Then integrate a variety of sources into a coherent, well-written essay.

• Use the sources to support your position; avoid mere paraphrase or summary.

• Your argument should be central.

• Remember to attribute both direct and indirect citations, using MLA format.

• Create a Works Cited page using MLA format.

• Plagiarism will result in a zero.

Week 34-AP Exam Review

Week 35-Review and AP Exam

Final Exam (Week 36):

Students have two days to complete final exam (each day contains 85 minutes)

Part 1: Multiple Choices

This section is interpretation of new material. Students will read three passages and answer 35 to 45 questions. Reading selections and questions are similar to those on the AP English Language Exam.

Part 2: Free Response

Students have 65 minutes to write an in-class essay. The prompt asks for rhetorical analysis, comparison/contrast, or argumentation. This essay is graded on the AP rubric, or nine-point scale.

SOURCES USED:

Alfred Rosa and Paul Eshholz, Models for Writers: Short Essays for Composition

Annette T. Rottenberg, Elements of Argument

Barbara V. Swovelin, Advanced Placement: English Language and Composition Preparation Guide

Dorothy U. Seyler, Read, Reason, Write: An Argument Text and Reader

Thomas Cooley, The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition

Wm. David Sloan and Laird B. Anderson, Pulitzer Prize Editorials: America’s Best Editorial Writing 1917-1993

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