Madison Public Schools

Madison Public Schools

Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Grades 11-12

Written by: Anne Wessel Dwyer

Reviewed by: Matthew A. Mingle Director of Curriculum and Instruction

Dr. Mark R. DeBiasse Supervisor of Humanities

Approval date: October 14, 2014

Members of the Board of Education: Lisa Ellis, President

Kevin Blair, Vice President Shade Grahling, Curriculum Committee Chairperson

David Arthur Johanna Habib Thomas Haralampoudis Leslie Lajewski James Novotny

Madison Public Schools 359 Woodland Road Madison, NJ 07940



Course Overview

Description

Advanced Placement English Language and Composition is a college-level, non-fiction rhetoric and writing course for seniors. (Juniors may take the course as an elective in addition to English 11.) In prerequisite English courses, the focus of study is on the elements of fiction and literary devices, and thus, literary analysis. In AP Language and Composition, students engage primarily in the study of nonfiction and rhetorical analysis. Students analyze a variety of classic and contemporary texts, including memoirs, essays, editorials, letters, speeches, and visual texts such as editorial cartoons, with the goal of understanding the writer's craft. Some imaginative literature is used, but the emphasis here is still on understanding the writer's craft instead of literary analysis. Students read, annotate, write, and discuss regularly.

Throughout the year, students are expected to demonstrate a high level of skill in analytical, narrative, expository, and argumentative writing, both with and without research. Writing moves beyond the five paragraph essay; students imitate the classical argument, but they consider structure more organically, and as a rhetorical choice. Topics for student writing are primarily student generated. The course begins with a focus on analysis of fundamental rhetorical features and style, progresses to a more specific study of argument, and ends with a focus on writing the synthesis essay and a multimedia project. A lengthy researched essay is submitted in the fourth marking period, the culmination of a year-long project.

Students admitted into the course have demonstrated a high level of writing competence. In addition to having a firm grasp of grammar, syntax and basic structure, students have a strong interest in reading closely and developing their own writing through regular revision and with feedback from both the teacher and peers. Student engagement in a wide range of issues in a variety of subjects - historical, scientific, political, etc. - is critical to success in the course.

Students are required to take the Advanced Placement Language and Composition Exam in May. On this exam, they will demonstrate their abilities to read and write analytically, and write cohesive and convincing arguments, synthesizing sources where required. Integrated into the course are regular opportunities to practice for the exam by completing timed essays and multiple choice practice tests. College credit is offered by many institutions for a score of three or above on this exam.

Goals

AP English Language and Composition aims to produce sophisticated readers of complex nonfiction print and visual text and writers of "prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers." To these ends, this course aims to:

engage students in analyses of selections from both pre-twentieth and twentieth/twenty-first centuries to examine the purpose, speaker, audience, context, and the relationships between these entities;

engage students in the identification, analysis, and use of rhetorical and stylistic devices;

 provide students with opportunities to write for a variety of purposes; provide students with opportunities to write in a variety of modes - narrative, expository, and argumentative; provide guidelines for finding and evaluating sources in print, via databases and the internet for usefulness, appropriateness,

and credibility; provide guidelines for incorporating and citing sources appropriately; engage students in moving effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to inquiry and research,

drafting, revising, editing, and review; engage students in making effective and appropriate grammatical choices; engage students in providing writers with effective feedback to help them revise; use feedback from other writers and the instructor to revise their own work; provide multiple frameworks resulting in effective analysis of graphic and visual images.

Resources

Suggested activities and resources page

Unit 1 Overview

Unit Title: Introduction to Rhetorical Analysis - Readings on Language

Unit Summary: In this unit, students are introduced to fundamental rhetorical concepts: speaker, subject, purpose, audience, context, occasion, exigence, and the rhetorical triangle. Students apply these concepts to readings in discussion and in writing, which takes the form of reading responses and timed, thesis-driven essays. The readings prompt students to consider the personal and political significance of language. Plagiarism as it applies to this class is reviewed in this unit. Although the research paper is not submitted until the end of the year, students generate questions on a self-selected topic. In addition, the instructor may have students respond to prompts related to their experiences and observations about language which will be revisited in unit 4. Grammar is examined in context, with special attention to nominalizations and pretentious diction.

Suggested Pacing: 13 lessons

Learning Targets

Unit Essential Questions: What is good writing? How does the writer convey his or her ideas effectively? How does our language reveal who we are? How is language used to obfuscate meaning and manipulate or motivate an audience?

Unit Enduring Understandings: Understanding how rhetoric works to appeal to an audience puts the reader in a position of strength. Rhetoric influences our everyday thoughts and actions. Rhetoric is influenced by the relationship between the subject, speaker, and audience. Effective rhetoric appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos. Discerning the audience is essential to understanding the writer's purpose. Exigence, context and occasion are essential to understanding the writer's purpose. Scholarship requires attribution of sources.

Evidence of Learning

Unit Benchmark Assessment Information: Examine several articles on the same subject and identify the purpose. Then, examine how the interaction among speaker, audience, and subject affects the text and how each text appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos. Finally evaluate how effective each text is in achieving its purpose. Chapter one in The Language of Composition provides four articles on the first moon landing, but the instructor may collect articles on other topics as well.

Applicable Texts

Objectives

(Students will be able to...)

Anchor Texts:

Textbooks: William Zinsser, On

Writing Well (summer reading)

Renee Shea, Lawrence Scanlon, Robin Dissin Aufses, "Chapter 1: An Introduction to Rhetoric" from The Language of Composition

Memoirs: Narrative of the Life of

Frederick Douglass, excerpts

Essays: Richard Rodriguez,

"Aria"

Marjorie Agosin, "Always Living in Spanish"

Myriam Marquez, "When and Why We Speak Spanish in Public"

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"

Speeches: George W. Bush, "9/11

Speech," September 11, 2001

Reading Literature and Informational Texts:

SWBAT:

Identify the purpose, audience, context, occasion (when relevant) and exigence of a text

Analyze the impact of occasion on a writer's rhetorical choices

Distinguish between the different types of audiences of a text, and analyze impact of understanding the intended audience on the purpose of the text

Identify appeals to pathos such as selection of detail and analyze the effectiveness of such appeals

Identify appeals to logos such as concession and refutation

Analyze appeals to ethos and evaluate how a speaker establishes credibility

Annotate text thoroughly to understand text,

Essential Content/Skills

Reading Literature and Informational Texts:

Rhetorical concepts: purpose, audience (intended, addressed, actual), context, occasion, exigence, classical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos), persona, speaker, the rhetorical triangle

Annotation

Suggested Assessments

Reading Literature and Informational Texts:

Annotation

Reading responses

Essays similar to those used on the AP exam

On-line and/ or classroom discussion

Standards

(NJCCCS CPIs, CCSS, NGSS)

Reading Literature and Informational Texts:

Reading: Informational Text RI.11-12.1 Cite strong and

thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

RI.11-12.2 Determine two or more central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to provide a complex analysis; provide an objective summary of the text.

RI.11-12.3 Analyze a complex set of ideas or sequence of events and explain how specific individuals, ideas, or events interact and develop over the course of the text.

RI.11-12.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term or terms over the course of a text (e.g., how Madison defines faction in Federalist No. 10).

RI.11-12.5 Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the structure an author uses in his or her exposition or

Pacing

13 lessons 1 lesson: summer reading

2 lessons: memoir

2 lessons: textbook reading

1 lesson: plagiaris m

4 lessons: essays

1 lesson: speeches

2 lessons: writing

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