Language and Composition

AP® English

Language and Composition

Course Objective:

Based on the state curriculum for this course, the school district has created the following general statement regarding the junior year curriculum:

Junior English has an integrated curriculum consisting of reading, writing, and listening/speaking/media. In reading, we focus primarily on works from American authors, and in writing we create personal, business, and critical pieces, including documented essays with primary and secondary sources. Treatment of grammar and mechanics is usually individualized to meet a particular student's needs within the writing process. Vocabulary generally comes from works read so that the words are meaningful and not isolated; however, we will study vocabulary words (and etymology) that are used frequently on the SAT. Listening/ speaking/ media is generally integrated with the reading and writing, although we also look at the ways that the particular presentation of an idea (medium) affects our comprehension of it.

While the junior course for AP® credit must work within the above framework, the rigor of the course exceeds that of the non AP® course in that different texts and assignments are used with the design “to enable students to read complex texts with understanding and to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers” (AP® English Language and Composition Online Course Description 6).

Upon completing the AP English Language and Composition course, then,

students should be able to:

• analyze and interpret samples of good writing, identifying and explaining an

author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques;

• apply effective strategies and techniques in their own writing;

• create and sustain arguments based on readings, research, and/or personal

experience;

• write for a variety of purposes;

• produce expository, analytical, and argumentative compositions that

introduce a complex central idea and develop it with appropriate evidence

drawn from primary and/or secondary sources, cogent explanations,

and clear transitions;

• demonstrate understanding and mastery of standard written English as well

as stylistic maturity in their own writings;

• demonstrate understanding of the conventions of citing primary and

secondary sources;

• move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful

attention to inquiry and research, drafting, revising, editing, and review;

• write thoughtfully about their own process of composition;

• revise a work to make it suitable for a different audience;

• analyze image as text; and

• evaluate and incorporate reference documents into researched papers.

Curricular Requirements:

C1 – The teacher has read the most recent AP® English Course Description

C2 – The course teaches and requires students to write in several forms (e.g., narrative, expository, analytical, and argumentative essays) about a variety of subjects (e.g., public policies, popular culture, personal experiences).

C3 – Students write essays that proceed through several stages or drafts, with revision aided by teacher and peers.

C4 – Students write in informal contexts designed to help them become increasingly aware of themselves as writers and of the techniques employed by the writers they read.

C5 – Expository, analytical, and argumentative writing assignments are based on readings representing a wide variety of prose styles and genres.

C6 – Nonfiction readings (e.g., essays, journalism, political writing, science writing, nature writing, autobiographies/biographies, diaries, history, criticism) are selected to give students opportunities to identify and explain an author's use of rhetorical strategies and techniques. If fiction and poetry are also assigned, their main purpose should be to help students understand how various effects are achieved by writers' linguistic and rhetorical choices.

C7 – Students analyze how graphics and visual images both relate to written texts and serve as alternative forms of text themselves.

C8 – The course teaches research skills, and in particular, the ability to evaluate, use, and cite primary and secondary sources. The course assigns projects such as the researched argument paper, which goes beyond the parameters of a traditional research paper by asking students to present an argument of their own that includes the analysis and synthesis of ideas from an array of sources.

C9 – Students learn to cite sources using a recognized editorial.

C10 – The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students' writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop these skills:

(a)  wide-ranging vocabulary

(b)  variety of sentence structures

(c)  logical organization, enhanced to increase coherence, using techniques such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis

(d)  balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail

(e)  an effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure

Course Evaluation:

Daily Grades – 50%:

·  quizzes

·  annotation [C6]

·  early drafts of writing [C10, C4]

·  AP timed writings or similar [C10, C5]

·  graded class discussions [C4, C6]

Major Grades – 50%:

·  multiple choice (objective) tests

·  essay tests [C2, C4, C5, C10]

·  final drafts of process writing assignments

·  projects [C4]

·  AP timed writings or similar [C10, C5]

Course Texts and Resources:

Allen, Janet, et al. Literature: American Literature. 1st ed. Evanston, IL: Holt McDougal, 2010. Print.

Trimmer, Joseph. The Riverside Reader. Alternate Edition. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009. Print.

Prior to Entering:

Required Reading -

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point

Recommended Preparation -

successful completion of Pre-AP English I & II

OR

highly-successful performance in on-level English I & II with great interest and desire to seek further challenges in analytical reading and writing

Units of Study:

Unit 1 – Introduction to Rhetorical Analysis

Readings:

·  Excerpt Iroguois Constitution [C6]

·  Close reading of selections from The Crucible by Arthur Miller

·  Close reading of selections from The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

·  John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address [C6]

·  Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address [C6]

·  Queen Elizabeth’s Tilbury Speech 1588 [C6]

Viewings:

·  Patton’s Speech to the Third Army from Patton [C7]

·  Speech to the Highland Army from Braveheart [C7]

·  Speech to the Air Force from Independence Day [C7]

·  Current magazine ads from Instyle, Popular Science, People, Good Housekeeping, Gentlemen’s Quarterly, etc. [C7]

Writing:

·  Timed Writing – Analysis of Summer Reading Selections [C2, C4, C5, C10]

o  possible prompts:

§  In Passage A form The Tipping Point, Gladwell explains the power of Context on the tipping point of an epidemic. Passage B is from Arthur Miller’s Overture to The Crucible. In a well-organized essay, compare and constrast the language each author uses to argue the power of environment on the impetus to engage in a certain kind of behavior.

§  Passage A from Malcolm Gladwell’s text The Tipping Point elaborates on the necessity of “stickiness” to the spreading of an idea. In Passage B, taken from the Overture of The Crucible, Arthur Miller explains how the Puritans of Salem were able to “stick” in the new world. In a well-written essay, compare and contrast the language of the two authors as they discuss how ideas, or in the case of Salem, communities, are made to stick.

·  Timed Writing – 1992 AP Language and Composition Prompt: Queen Elizabeth I with teacher conference and revision into final, typed draft [C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C10]

·  Timed Writing – 2005B Maria Stewart Speech with peer evaulation [C2,C6]

·  Magazine Ad Visual Rhetorical Analysis [C5, C7]

o  What visual argumentative and/or persuasive techniques are being employed? In what way(s) are these techniques successful and/or unsuccessful?

o  What subtexts can be inferred from this ad? In what way(s) do these subtexts influence their intended and unintended audience(s)?

Skill/Technique Focus:

·  Rhetorical Triangle – Rhetor (Writer), Audience, Subject (Context)

·  SOAP – Subject, Occasion, Audience, Purpose

·  DIDLS – Diction, Imagery, Details, Language, Syntax

·  Syntax Vocabulary and Analysis of Syntactic Purpose

o  sentence types: declarative, imperative, interrogative, exclamatory, hortative

o  sentence lengths: telegraphic, short, medium, long/ involved

o  sentence patterns: simple, compound, complex, compound-complex

o  sophisticated syntax: loose (cumulative) vs. periodic, hypotactic vs. paratactic, inversion, split order, juxtaposition, parallelism, antithesis, asyndeton, polysyndeton, ellipsis, apposition, parenthesis, rhetorical question

o  syntactic pacing

·  Rhetoric Vocabulary:

o  anaphora

o  epistrophe

o  anadiplosis

o  antimetabole

o  simile/metaphor

o  imagery

o  pun

o  hyperbole

o  conceit

o  apostrophe

o  analogy

o  synecdoche, metonymy

o  zeuguma

o  ellipsis

o  asyndenton, polysendton

o  chiasmus

o  anadiplosis

o  inversion (anastrophe)

o  antithesis

o  inference

o  thesis (writing and analysis)

o  ethos, pathos, logos

Assessment

·  Timed Writing: Gladwell & Miller Analysis [C2, C5, C6, C10]

·  Multiple-choice Assessment of Close-reading of The Crucible with emphasis on rhetorical vocabulary and author’s purpose [C6]

·  Outline and Discussion of Advertising Analysis [C4, C7]

·  Rhetorical Analysis Timed Writing Essay (Queen Elizabeth and Maria Stewart Prompts) [C2, C4, C5, C6, C10]

Unit 2 – American Romanticism and Transcendentalism

Readings:

·  Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter [C6]

·  Ralph Waldo Emerson’s

o  excerpts from “Nature” [C6]

o  excerpts from “Self Reliance” [C6]

·  Henry David Thoreau’s

o  excerpts from Walden [C6]

o  “Resistance to Civil Government” [C6]

·  Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” [C6]

Viewings:

·  Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society, 1989

·  Films for the Humanities & Sciences’ The New England Transcendentalists, 2004

Writing:

·  The Scarlet Letter discussion questions (student created questions to facilitate group discussion – submitted for approval prior to the discussion) relating to author’s purpose in the use of: [C10]

o  figurative language

o  allusions

o  thematic concerns

o  Gothic/Romantic elements

o  imagery

·  The Scarlet Letter dialectical notebook/ text annotation [C10]

·  Definition Paper—students will define and illustration a personal truth. Emphasis to be placed on thesis sentence, illustration, and effective syntactical structures. Papers will follow through stages of writing process. [C2, C3, C4, C5, C10]

·  Timed Writing – AP Argumentation

Skill/Technique Focus:

·  Rogerian argument

·  deductive reasoning

·  inductive reasoning

·  Toulmin logic

·  refutation

·  concession and counter argument

·  logic fallacies

o  begging the question

o  argument from analogy

o  ad hominem

o  hasty or sweeping generalization

o  false dilemma (either/or fallacy)

o  equivocation

o  red herring

o  tu quoque

o  doubtful authority

o  misleading statistics

o  post hoc, ergo propter hoc

o  non sequitur

·  Close reading and annotation of text (group/guided practice with “The Prison Door” from The Scarlet Letter

·  Evaluation of literature as argument (author’s purpose as a rhetor)

·  Multiple choice question strategy – AP® sample multiple choice section from the College Board

·  Students’ ability to use a variety of sentence structures and enhance coherence using transitions.

Assessment

·  The Scarlet Letter group discussion participation and facilitation

·  The Scarlet Letter objective test

·  Definition paper

·  Timed Writing from excerpt of The Scarlet Letter

·  Timed Writing – AP Argumentation Susan Sontag from On Photography

Unit 3 – American Realism and Satire

Readings:

·  Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

·  Bobby Henderson’s “An Open Web Letter to The Kansas School Board”

Viewings:

·  “Fun Run.” The Office. Season IV.

·  Great Books: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Discovery Channel School, 1997 (through www.unitedstreaming.com)

Writing:

·  AP Argumentation Timed Writing –English Language and Composition AP Test – 1997 – Question 3 (excerpt from Neil Postman discussing 1984 and Brave New World)

·  Satire analysis timed writing [C2, C4, C5, C10]

·  Script for satire project and description of the project [C2, C4]

Skill/Technique Focus:

·  literary criticism focus on

o  vocabulary of satire and author’s purpose for satire

§  satire (vs. comedy)

§  euphemism

§  hyperbole

§  juxtaposition

§  litotes (understatement)

§  burlesque

§  caricature

§  invective

§  lampoon

§  mock epic

§  travesty

§  irony

§  parody

§  bombast

§  tyro

§  bathos

§  picaresque

§  Juvenalian (anger, sarcasm, attack, diatribe)

§  Horatian (humor, wit, comedy)

§  satirical target

§  malapropism

o  freedom and oppression symbolism

o  interrogative vs. declarative themes

o  realism (vs. romanticism)

o  persona/ voice

o  tone

o  dialect; colloquialism

o  deus ex machina

o  bildungsroman

Assessment

·  Satire Project – Working in small groups, students will create a product of original satire. Students will select the subject and medium of the work, requires a script with required rhetorical elements such as irony, hyperbole, allusion, and juxtaposition. [C2, C3, C4, C5, C7, C10]

·  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn objective test [C6]

·  Timed Writing – Ellen Goodman’s “The Company Man” AP Prompt

·  Timed Writing – The Onion’s “MagnaSoles” AP Prompt

Unit 4 – American Modernism

Readings:

·  William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury [C6]

·  Selected literary criticism

·  F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby [C6]

·  Ernest Hemmingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and “Hills Like White Elephants” [C6]

·  T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” [C6]

·  Independent Fiction: Othello, Slaughterhouse Five, Death of a Salesman, A Raisin in the Sun, The Awakening, My Name Is Asher Lev [C6]

Viewings:

·  “Scott Fitzgerald.” Learning Materials

distributor: Thomas S. Klise Company [C7]

·  Great Books: The Great Gatsby. Discovery Channel School. 1997. unitedstreaming.

Writing:

·  Timed writing based on student-selected fiction and prompt; followed by second and final drafts; all second drafts receive in-class conferencing and further conferencing on intermediate drafts upon student request or teacher requirement [C10]

·  Research paper over fiction studied in class or student-selected work [C8, C9]: Possible topics include theme analysis as connected to literary argument, character development as connected to literary argument, style of the author as connected to the argument in the work, influences of biographical or historical context upon the work