AP Language and Composition 2013 – 2014 Planner. Note: the planner is subject to additions and other amendments.

Qtr. / Texts / Rhetorical analysis & skills / Writing skills / Assessments
1 / “The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf (NS)
“Holy the Firm” by Annie Dillard (NS)
“How I Wrote the Moth Essay – and Why” by Annie Dillard (NS)
Current events from topical magazines and newspapers
New York Magazine cover
“Miss Dennis School of Writing” by Alice Steinbach
“None of This Is Fair” by Richard Rodriguez
“Losing Private Dwyer” by Lawrence Downes
“Champion of the World” by Maya Angelou (BR)
“Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan (NS)
“Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan (BR)
“Like Mexicans” by Gary Soto
“Climbing Golden Arches” by Marissa Nunez / Rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos
SOAPStone
DIDLS for nonfiction text in a rhetorical context
Visual literacy
Modes of rhetoric: description
Modes of rhetoric: narrative
Modes of rhetoric: example
Modes of rhetoric: classification
Modes of rhetoric: process
Modes of rhetoric: comparison
and contrast
Modes of rhetoric: definition
Modes of rhetoric: cause/effect
Rhetorical essay deconstruction
Tropes & Schemes
Multiple choice - analysis
Analysis of student responses to past AP rhetorical essay prompts / Reading like writers (DIDLS and other observations)
How to mark text
Journal writing
Essay introductions and body paragraphs
Maintaining related grammatical subjects (US, 125)
Paragraph breaks
Transitions and topic sentences
Sentence types
Cumulative sentences
Periodic sentences
Participial phrases
Absolute phrases
Vocabulary
Active/passive voice / Summer assignment – current events
Current events quiz
Summer assign. – annotation
Modes imitations
Descriptive essay
Writing process essay
College essay
SOAPStone exercise
DIDLS exercise
Paragraph implementing another’s writer’s stylistic device
Timed rhetorical analysis essays
AP multiple choice practice tests
Reflection essay
2 / Current events from topical magazines and newspapers
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” – MLK
“Antigone” by Sophocles / Parts of a syllogism
Fallacious arguments
Argument in image and video
The synthesis essay
Analysis of student responses to past AP open essay prompts
Modes of Rhetoric: Argument (exemplify, counter-argue, acknowledge, intensify, digress, conclude)
Toulmin method of argument
Rogerian method of argument
Deductive, inductive, and dialectic reasoning
Research argument/ debate
Multiple-choice test strategies
Vocabulary / Argument prompt deconstruction
Research skills – MLA citations
Research current events
Research timeline info.
Variety of sentence lengths
Other sentence styles / Timeline
Debate on current events
Timed argument essays
Timed rhetorical analysis essays
Glossary project
AP multiple choice practice tests
3 / The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, and four other related primary and secondary sources
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Current events from topical magazines and newspapers
“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
Articles from the Onion / Reading 18th and 19th century texts
Schemes and tropes
More multiple-choice test strategies
Analyze more student responses to past AP synthesis essay prompts
Vocabulary: prefixes and word roots
Irony and satiric method Satiric method (litotes, satire, euphemism, hyperbole, understatement, metonymy, antiphrasis, sarcasm, Horatian satire, Juvenalisn satire, irony) / Patterns of old and new information
Transitional devices
Coordinate structures
Subordinate structures
Emphasis and stress
Rhythm
Varying sentence lengths
Other sentence styles
Synthesis project – expansion of ideas in Blink / Synthesis essays
Socratic seminar
Times essay (using satire or other forms of irony)
Student-designed multiple-choice questions
Blink questions
Blink synthesis project
Schemes and tropes booklist
Satire video project
4 / “In Time of ‘The Breaking of Nations,’” a poem by Thomas Hardy
“A Matter of Chance,” a short story by Vladimir Nabokov
“Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown” by Virginia Woolf
“Once More to the Lake” by E. B. White
John Ruskin essay
Current events from topical magazines and newspapers / Rhetorical argument in fiction and poetry / Timed rhetorical analysis essay
Timed argument essay
Timed synthesis essay
Multiple choice questions / Timed rhetorical analysis essay
Timed argument essay
Timed synthesis essay
Multiple choice questions
Timed multiple-choice questions
Short story project (after exam)

Key to abbreviations:

NS = Norton Sampler, Seventh Edition; US = Understanding Style, Second Edition; BR = The Bedford Reader

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