August 2013

Dear AP Parents and Students,

Advanced Placement Language and Compositionis a year-long college level course open to able and ambitious students who are willing to accept responsibility for their own learning. AP English requires high standards, heavy workloads, and serious, mature students.

The advantages of AP English are basically twofold. One is the possibility of advanced placement upon entering college, and the second is that many colleges give college credit based on acceptable scores on the AP examination. By gaining advanced placement and credit, students can save both time and money.

The culmination of AP English is the national AP Examination, which is given on Friday, May 9, 2014. AP English has rigorous standards. Students are expected to actively participate by meeting course objectives, making daily contributions to the class, and meeting deadlines. Excessive absences may result in elimination from the course. Students who do not meet the course’s criteria will be subject to review and possible elimination from the program.

Please acknowledge your understanding and agreement with the nature of the AP course by signing below. Feel free to contact me at any time during the school year if you have questions or concerns. You can call me at (803) 810- 8200 or email me at . I look forward to working with you!

Sincerely,

Josie Jamison

J. Jamison

Advanced Placement Language and Composition, Fall 2013-Spring 2014

Course Description: The course is organized around rhetorical modes: narration, description, exposition, and argumentation. Students studyvocabulary and analyze reading selections in terms of the following: audience, purpose, style, syntax, structure, tone, thesis or claim, evidence, appeals, assumptions or warrants. Students learn to identify and effectively use rhetorical strategies, rhetorical devices, and various stylistic elements. They identify and practice elements of argumentation and effective logic. Additionally, studentsstudy visual media (photographs, films, ads, paintings, sculpture, comic strips, editorial cartoons, etc.), keep journals, write timed in-class essays based on past AP prompts, compose formal compositions that show their understanding of various rhetorical modes, and use research skills.

In each unit, students develop the following:

  • 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, transitions, and emphasis
  • a balance of generalization and specific illustrative detail; and
  • aneffective use of rhetoric including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achievingappropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure.

Required Textbook: Patterns for College Writing. 11th ed. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. New York: Bedford, 2010.

Supplementary Readings--In addition to selections found in our core textbook, supplementary readings include essays, articles, letters, editorials, and speeches from various time periods and noted authors such as Fredrick Douglass, Benjamin Franklin, Lord Chesterfield, Lady Mary Montagu, Winston Churchill, Henry Louis Gates, Susan Sontag, Jamaica Kincaid, George Orwell, Charles Lamb, N. Scott Momaday, E.B. White, Virginia Wolfe, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jonathan Swift, Charles Darwin, and Annie Dillard.

Current Events/ Response Journals--Periodically, students are required to read news articles and complete outlines or précis in which they identify and explain the significance of rhetorical devices and/or strategies used in selected articles. At times, students are asked to select a controversial article, determine the writer’s position and then defend or challenge that position. Students examine graphics and visual texts from news sources. These journal entries may serve as prewriting or rough drafts for future writing assignments.

Essays--In addition to composing major writing assignments by rhetorical modes, students will write numerous essays from AP prompts. These essays will be analysis,synthesis, or argumentation essays.Unless otherwise indicated, outside essays must be a minimum of 500 words in length. These essays must also be formatted according to MLA guidelines and must include the word count (for both rough and final drafts).

Assessment--A variety of methods for evaluating student work include daily quizzes, vocabulary quizzes, journal assignments, formal essays, and informal essays, homework/classwork grades, and objective and essay tests on grammar and literature.

  • Major grades count 60% and minor grades count 40%.
  • Exams

The midterm exam will include multiple choice items and at least one essay. The final exam will be the practice AP exam given prior to the date of the actual exam. Each exam is 20% percent of the semester average.

The national AP Language and Composition Exam is scheduled for Fri., May 9, 2014.

Late Work and Absences—AP/DC students are expected to complete all assignments on time; therefore, late work will not be accepted. Unless I specify otherwise, All assignments are due at the beginning of the class period. In the event of absences, long-range assignments (papers, projects, etc.) must be handed in either on the date due or prior to the due date.

It is always best to turn in your assignments to me personally; however, if you email an assignment because you are or will be absent, I should receive the email by 1st Blockon the due date to receive credit. I will reply to your email to let you know that I received the assignment; if I do not reply to the email, I did not receive it.

Make-up Work -–I follow the school policy for make-up work. It is your responsibility to get your make-up work. I keep class assignments in the notebook near the door.

Retests—AP/DC students are expected to prepare thoroughly for all assessments; consequently,you may not retest.

Parent Communication--I will communicate with parents in the following ways: e-mail, phone calls, conferences, grade reports, interim report cards, and quarter report cards.

Class Procedures

  1. At the beginning of each class, there will be a warm-up on the board for you to work on while I take attendance. Include your responses in your notebook
  2. Only instructional materials are allowed on your desk. Backpacks, pocketbooks, etc. should be placed on the floor.
  3. Use only pencil or blue or black ink for work that you are to turn in to me.
  4. You may work only on English while in class. If you finish an assignment early, you must read an approved novel or current events articles, write in your journal, improve past essays, or study your vocabulary. There is no free time in this class.
  5. Students are expected to use the restroom prior to arriving to class. However, those who must go during class may not go during assessments or during the first and last 15 minutes of class.
  6. Always be prepared for quizzes on reading assignments. These quizzes may be announced or unannounced.
  7. Homework must be neat and complete in order to receive full credit.
  8. A student who does not bring his/her completed writing assignments to class on the day that we have peer-editing sessions, will receive a zero for class participation and/or lose points from the final essay grade.
  9. On the days that formal essays are due, each student should turn in a paper copy of his/her prewriting, a visibly altered rough draft, and a revised draft (with changes highlighted). Papers should be stapled in the following order, top to bottom: final draft (MLA format with word count), prewriting, rough draft, self-reflection, peer or self-evaluation sheet, and rubric. Always save an electronic copy of your essay for revision purposes. I do not print papers for students, so please do not ask. If you have had or are having computer problems, be sure to resolve your printing issues before class.

Even if you have emailed a paper, you are still expected to bring a paper copy to class.

Required Materials

1

  • A loose-leaf notebook or folder
  • Blue or black ink pen
  • Independent novels
  • A Post-it note pad
  • Textbooks
  • Class novels

1

Class Rules

  1. Follow directions.
  2. Be in your assigned seat when the tardy bell rings.
  3. Once you have entered the classroom, you may not leave unless the teacher gives you permission to do so. Students are expected to take care of personal matters (i.e., going to the restroom, getting water, going to lockers, etc.) before class.
  4. Bring required materials to class each day.
  5. Remain in your assigned seat unless the teacher gives you permission to move.
  6. Eating in class is not permitted. Bottled drinks are allowed, but they must remain in your book bag or pocketbook when you are not drinking.
  7. Cell phones may not be used during class; they should not be visible or audible in the classroom.

Consequences for Infractions of Rules

  • Verbal and/or written warning
  • Detention, phone call home, and/or email home
  • Teacher/student and parent/teacher conference
  • Office referral

Rewards for Exemplary Behavior

  • Praise and recognition
  • Enhanced learning environment

COURSE OUTLINE

FIRST SEMESTER

Introduction

  • The Writing Process (invention, arrangement, drafting/ revising, and editing/proofreading)
  • Grammar: subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, usage, commas, semi-colons, parallelism, and faulty/awkward sentence structure
  • Close reading strategies
  • Citing sources and avoiding plagiarism
  • “Writing with Style”- (Write for College)

Rhetorical Mode: Narration

1.Henry Louis Gates Jr. –“What’s in a Name?”

2.Sandra Cisneros-“Only Daughter”

3.Bonnie Smith-Yackel-“My Mother Never Worked”/AP Style writing prompt:

4.George Orwell-“Shooting An Elephant”

5.Martin Gansberg-“Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police”

6.Visual Text

Writing Assignment #1—Narrative Essay

Rhetorical Mode: Description

  1. Suzanne Berne-“Ground Zero”
  2. Mark Twain-“Reading the River”
  3. N. Scott Momaday-“The Way to Rainy Mountain”
  4. Isabel Allende-“The Amazon Queen”
  5. Leah Hage Cohen-“Words Left Unspoken”
  6. E.B. White-“Once More to the Lake”
  7. Visual Text

Writing Assignment #2—Descriptive Essay

Rhetorical Mode: Exposition

  • Exemplification
  1. Richard Lederer-“English Is a Crazy Language”
  2. David Birnbaum-“The Catbird Seat”
  3. Brent Staples-“Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space”
  4. Jonathan Kozol-“The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society”
  5. Visual Text

Writing Assignment #3—Exemplification Essay

  • Comparison/Contrast
  1. Bruce Catton-“Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts”
  2. Deborah Tannen-“Sex, Lies, and Conversations”
  3. Visual Text

Assignment #4—Comparison-ContrastEssay

Rhetorical Mode: Argumentation

Visual Text: “Thanks to Modern Science” political ad from American Civil Liberties Union

  1. Thomas Jefferson- The Declaration of Independence
  2. Martin Luther King Jr.-“Letter from Birmingham Jail”
  3. Karen De Coster and Brad Edmonds-“The Case for Wal-Mart”
  4. Liza Featherstone-Down and Out in Discount America
  5. Oliver Stone, Memo to John Grisham: What’s Next---“A Movie Made Me Do It?”

Writing Assignment #5: (Research Paper) MLA documentedresearch argument

Major Works (Selected from the following)

1

Antigone-Sophocles

Invisible Man-Ralph Ellison

Night-Elie Wiesel

Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgerald

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings-Maya Angelou

Student-selected nonfiction texts

1

SECOND SEMESTER

Cause/Effect

  1. Visual Text, Louis Requena, “Major League Baseball Brawl.”
  2. Norman Cousins-“Who Killed Benny Paret?”
  3. Lawrence Otis Graham-“The Black Table is Still There”
  4. Ronin Lakoff-“The Power of Words in Wartime”
  5. Janice Miritani, Suicide Note (Poetry)

Writing Assignment #6-Cause and Effect Essay

Definition

  1. Judy Brady-“I Want a Wife”
  2. Gayle Rosenwald Smith-“The Wife Beater”
  3. Visual Text

Writing Assignment #7- Definition Essay

Classification and Division

  1. Scott Russell Sanders-“The Men We Carry In Our Minds”
  2. Stephanie Ericsson-“The Ways We Lie”

Process

  1. Malcolm X-My First Conk
  2. Joshua Liven, David Borgenicht, and Jennifer Worick-“How to Escape from a Bad Date”
  3. Jessica Mitford-“The Embalming of Mr. Jones”

Writing Assignment #8-Select a topic from the Classification/Division or the Process mode

Combining the Patterns

  1. Jonathan Swift-“A Modest Proposal”
  2. Richard Rodriquez-“Strange Tools”
  3. Virginia Wolf-“The Death of a Moth”

Writing Assignment #9- Emphasis on irony and satire.

major works

Growing Up-Russell Baker

“The Metamorphosis”- Frank Kafka

Student-selected nonfiction texts

**This is a tentative schedule. Changes may be made at the teacher’s discretion.**

I have read and understand Ms. Jamison’s class expectations and course outline for AP Language and Composition.

Date: ______

Student name, first and last name (Printed)______

Student signature: ______

Parent(s)/ Guardian(s) signature: ______

Email address of parent/guardian: ______

1