Bayleigh Hicks Phone ext. 219
Advanced Placement Language and Composition
Edmodo Code -
I. Advanced Placement Language and Composition Course Description:
Based on curricular requirements found in the most recent AP English Course Description, AP English Language and Composition encourages students to enter into conversations with texts, to become active readers, and, through active reading, to become more accomplished writers. The course includes intensive study and discussion of the ways writers use language to provide richness and complexity of meaning and the ways they present this meaning through the work’s purpose, structure, tone, style, and use of rhetorical modes, strategies, and devices.
Students close read and analyze a variety of works, mostly nonfiction, from various periods and disciplines, making careful observations of the textual details, historical context, and social and cultural value. Students use their observations to write analytically about the works they have studied. In addition, a wide variety of writing assignments (including narrative, descriptive, analytical, argumentative, and research-based writing) allows students to develop their own writing skills with an eye not only to their subjects, but also to their purposes, the needs of their audiences, and the uses of language and rhetoric.
II. Course Objectives:
AP English Language and Composition Course Content The AP English Language and Composition course is designed to help students become skilled readers and writers through engagement with the following course requirements:
• Composing in several forms (e.g., narrative, expository, analytical, and argumentative essays) about a variety of subjects
• Writing that proceeds through several stages or drafts, with revision aided by teacher and peers • Writing informally (e.g., imitation exercises, journal keeping, collaborative writing), which helps students become aware of themselves as writers and the techniques employed by other writers
• Writing expository, analytical, and argumentative compositions based on readings representing a variety of prose styles and genres
• Reading nonfiction (e.g., essays, journalism, science writing, autobiographies, criticism) selected to give students opportunities to identify and explain an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques1
• Analyzing graphics and visual images both in relation to written texts and as alternative forms of text themselves
• Developing research skills and the ability to evaluate, use, and cite primary and secondary sources
• Conducting research and writing argument papers in which students present an argument of their own that includes the analysis and synthesis of ideas from an array of sources
• Citing sources using a recognized editorial style (e.g., Modern Language Association, The Chicago Manual of Style)
• Revising their work to develop o A wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively; o A variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination; o Logical organization, enhanced by techniques such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis; o A balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail; and o An effective use of rhetoric, including tone, voice, diction, and sentence structure.
Advanced Placement English Language and Composition gives students the opportunity to earn college credit while still in high school through rigorous college-level instruction and College Board Testing. All students completing the course take the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition exam in May. A score of 3, 4, or 5 on this exam may result in college credit depending on the credit allowed by the institution of higher learning.
III. Expectations:
· Be prepared for class everyday by:
1. Bringing a pencil/pen as well as your binder for note taking/handouts.
2. Bringing your charged laptop.
3. Reading the material for discussion prior to class when assigned.
ACTIVE LISTENING and PARTICIPATION
Your attention to and participation in class instruction and activities is VITAL for your learning experience and the experience of others. This means paying active attention to any speaker with eyes tracking the speaker and all distractions such as cell phones, headphones, and computers put away. Active listing and participation also means putting aside other concerns (including work for another class) and limiting side conversations to focus on our task at hand.
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
We will do a variety of individual and group activities, and I will be very clear when ideas are to be individual vs. shared. It is NEVER acceptable to copy someone else’s work to hand in as your own. Even in groups, you must do your part to receive any credit. I will also be very clear when it is acceptable to look up ideas from the internet (and I will teach you how to document researched information) and when your writing must come exclusively from your own ideas. It is NEVER acceptable to copy from the internet and hand this in as your own work, even if you put the information into your own words. You must bring your own ideas to the table in EVERY assignment. Cheating will result in a zero for the assignment and may result in a discipline referral (see Behavior Learning Guide). You will also be posting writing assignments to Turnitin.com, a plagiarism checker.
PRESENT and ON TIME
Students are expected to be in class each day and on time each day. Students must procure make-up work classwork and notes when absent. In addition, all homework and major assignments will be posted on Edmodo. Work from an EXCUSED absence may be made up without penalty. An unexcused absence will result in late penalties for make-up work. Writing may be revised and resubmitted according to my rewrite policy (see handout with instructions).
IV. Grading Practices:
Percentage60% Standards Based Summative Assessments (Major Grades) / Assessments that determine standards mastery
including performance based assessments such as writing assessments and projects
40% Formative Assessment and Assignments
(Classwork and Homework) / In-class assignments/homework that directly reflect and support mastery of course standards
If any student does not complete an assignment a “1” will be used as a placeholder in INOW. The highest possible grade that can be earned is a 70%.
Assignments are weighted (with points) according to the nature of the assignment.
1 day late=70%
2 days late=65%
3 days late=60%
4 days late=55%
5 days late=50%
6 days late=45%
7 days late=40%
8 days late=35%
9 days late=30%
10 days late=1%
Note: The percentages above reflect the highest possible grade that may be earned.
If there are any questions about grades, please contact me at .
Grades are based on the approved Huntsville City Schools grading scale:
A=90-100%
B=80-89%
C=70-79%
D=60-69%
F= below 60%
This is a weighted class for GPA calculation (1.1x).
Support Systems:
· Please let me know if you are having difficulty. AP review sessions will also be offered during power hour—specifics TBA. I am also available by appointment before school, during Power Hour, and after school. In order to pass AP Language and Composition, a student must achieve a grade of 60% or better based on the grading procedures. A progress report will be sent home with each student halfway through each nine weeks. Any student who does not have a passing grade at any point should see me in order to work out a strategy for grade recovery.
V. 18/36 Week Plan (units of study, reviews, and exams)
Major Works Studied:
The Language of Composition
The Things They Carried (Tim O’Brien)– (summer) Politics and Persuasion Unit
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)–American Dream Unit
Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer)- Nature and Survival Unit
Major Assessments:
PSAT/NMSQT- Wed. October 11
AP Saturday Session-Saturday, October
Semester Exam- Week of December 11-15
Mock Exam-Saturday, January
ACT Plus Writing- Tuesday, April 3
AP Saturday Session-Saturday, April
AP LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION EXAM-Wed. May 16, 2018 8:00 AM
Final Exams- Week of May 22-25 (exempt if you take the AP exam)
First Week/s
Introduction to Rhetoric, Close Reading, and Rhetorical Analysis
Overview
Using Chapters 1-3 in the class text, The Language of Composition, students review elements of rhetoric, practice close reading, and begin to analyze rhetoric. Topics covered include the Aristotelian triangle; types of appeals; patterns of development; rhetorical modes; analyzing style; talking with texts through annotation, dialectical journals, and graphic organizers; analyzing visual texts; formulating positions; and crafting rhetorical precis. Also, during the first days of the course, each student takes the sample multiple-choice questions from AP exams as a diagnostic test. Multiple choice practice passages administered regularly throughout the course of the year allows students to see their growth as active analytical readers over the course of the year.
Authors and works may include:
Nancy Mairs’ passage (Cripple)
Joan Didion passages (Phi Beta Kappa)
Sample Assignments:
Define rhetoric. Evaluate whether all language is persuasive.
Write a rhetorical précis analyzing the basic elements of rhetoric.
Using the annotation in the text as a model, annotate an essay supplied by the teacher. Discuss annotations with peers in small groups.
.
Unit One (First Nine Weeks/Second Nine Weeks)
War: Politics and Persuasion
Overview:
This unit will explore the use of language for persuasion in politics, focusing on documents, speeches, and articles from American history and other nonfiction works dealing with current political issues facing our nation as well as other nations. Readings will explore the relationship between the citizen and the state, and readers will analyze persuasive techniques including establishing common ground with the audience, clearly defining the issue, appealing to logic and emotion, refuting possible objections, etc. Students will also identify and analyze logical fallacies or propaganda devices in these persuasive works and evaluate the effectiveness of others’ persuasive pieces as well as craft persuasive writings of their own.
Authors and works may include:
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
Art Buchwald’s Haak Plan
Selection of political cartoons and photos
Picasso’s Guernica (painting)
Selection’s from Tim O’Brien’s autobiography If I Die in a Combat Zone
Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est”
Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade”
Yusef Komunyakaa’s “Facing It”
Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a’Changin’
Churchill’s speech (WWII)
George W. Bush’s speech (Iraqi War)
Patrick Henry’s speech to the Virginia Convention
Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence
Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
Henry David Thoreau’s “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
JFK’s Inaugural Address
Queen Elizabeth’s speech to her troops at Tilsbury
Sample Assignments:
Analyze a political cartoon, photograph, and/or painting as visual rhetoric (speaker’s assertion, purpose). Analyze explicit details and implicit message. Write a precis or paragraph analyzing the message and details used to create the message.
Analyze language techniques such as repetition, vivid language, parallelism, etc. appropriate for crafting persuasive arguments used by a speaker in a speech or other passage. Present your conclusions in a well-developed essay (or sometimes graphic organizer or chart), revising and resubmitting after peer and teacher feedback on organization and style.
Research project/presentation-Vietnam War (as background for The Things They Carried) Use digital media to research and present.
Write a fictionalized narrative using language techniques to create meaning and effect.
Write an argument defending, challenging, or qualifying a quote about war (“[War] is always a defeat for humanity”).
Write a synthesis essay (argument synthesizing sources) developing and defending a position on Susan Sontag’s claim that we should view images of violence only when viewing leads to action or knowledge.
Unit Two (Second Nine Weeks/Third Nine Weeks)
The American Dream: Money, Class, and Work in America
Overview:
It is the promise that drew and still draws millions to our shores-- the American Dream. But what is it: financial success, happiness, freedom, opportunity? Lionel Trilling stated that America is the “only nation that prides itself upon a dream and gives its name to one.” Poet Archibald MacLeish said, “There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right, it is. It is the American dream.” Noble words, but what is the American Dream and what, if anything, does it mean today? Is the promise empty? What happens to a country’s people when they can no longer count on the dream? This unit will explore the various meanings of the phrase “American Dream” and how that dream or the failure of it has shaped and influenced our lives.
Authors and works may include:
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
Walt Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing,” “Song of Myself”
Carl Sandburg’s “The People, Yes” and “Chicago”
Langston Hughes’ “Dream Deferred,” “I, Too,” “Mother to Son,” “Let America Be America Again”
Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”
Jeff Parker’s “The Great GAPsby Society” (cartoon)
Henry David Thoreau, from Walden (on economy from the first chapter)
Peter Singer’s “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”
Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Serving in Florida” and other selections from Nickled and Dimed
David Callahan’s “The Cheating Culture”
William Haxlitt’s “On the Want of Money”
Selections from Richard Rodriguez’s autobiography
Lewis Lapham’s “Money and Class in America”
Koyoko Mori’s “School”
Margaret Talbot’s “Best in Class”
Selection of research articles on the American education system
Selections from Emerson’s “Education”
Ostrom’s “Emily Dickinson and Elvis Presley”
Letters between Coca-Cola company and a representative of Grove Press
Sample Assignments:
Brainstorm concepts related to the phrase “the American Dream.” Utilizing strategies for defining (giving examples, analyzing qualities, attributing characteristics, defining negatively, using analogies, and giving functions) define the American Dream.
After discussion of the American Dream, generate questions for research which, if answered would help evaluate whether the US is fulfilling the promise of the American Dream. Use these questions to guide research, evaluating internet sources for objectivity, usefulness, and reliability. Create presentations using technology which assess the status of the American Dream in the various areas of the definition. Cite sources correctly in MLA format.
Thomas Wolfe wrote “I believe that we are lost here in America, . . . I think that the true discovery of America is before us. I think the true fulfillment of our spirit, of our people, of our mighty and immortal land is yet to come.” Defend or challenge this quote.