West Babylon High School
Advanced Placement Language and Composition
Course Overview and Summer Prerequisites
Introduction
The purpose of this course is to prepare students for college-level study as well as to prepare them for the Advanced Placement Exam in English Language and Composition. The expectations are demanding, and only those students who continue to demonstrate outstanding maturity and commitment succeed in this course.
Attendance
The attendance policy established by the West Babylon Board of Education is strictly followed: please refer to the student handbook. It is the student’s responsibility to keep track of his/her absences and to make up any missed class time. Tests will be made up the day of the student’s return to class at a time determined by the teacher. Missing homework assignments cannot be made up.
Homework
Homework and long-range projects are assigned in advance. All assignments are due on those dates or before, whether or not you are in attendance. Penalties will be applied to late papers. Students who do not plan wisely will find the workload overwhelming, and reluctant readers will find themselves falling behind. You may want to form study groups early in the year to aid your understanding and interpretation of the assignments. Avoid plagiarism, however. If academic dishonesty of any degree is identified, the student(s) will earn a zero for the assignment and may be subject to removal from the course.
Course Materials
The College Board has designed Advanced Placement to enable high school students the opportunity to earn college credit during high school. As a result, students will read college-level works of literature and complete college-level assignments. Therefore, in addition to the usual two-inch binder with pocket folder and black or blue ink pens, students may choose to purchase several texts, as described in the course syllabus.
Summer Prerequisites
Completion of all three pieces of the summer assignment is a prerequisite to the course. Summer assignments are due on the first day of class. Failure to complete the summer assignment in its entirely will result in removal from this course.
A. Completely annotate William Zinsser’s On Writing Well (30th anniversary edition). This must be a new, not used book. This is due on the first day of classes. A test on this will be given at the end of the first week of school.
B. Complete the following essay in less than one hour (Please adhere to this time limit; you will have the opportunity to rewrite this essay):
In his 1998 book Life the Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality, Neal Gabler wrote the following:
One does not necessarily have to cluck in disapproval to admit that entertainment is all the things its detractors say it is: fun, effortless, sensational, mindless, formulaic, predictable and subversive. In fact, one might argue that those are the very reasons so many people love it.
At the same time, it is not hard to see why cultural aristocrats in the nineteenth century and intellectuals in the twentieth hated entertainment and why they predicted, as one typical nineteenth century critic railed, that its eventual effect would be ‘to overturn all morality, to poison the springs of domestic happiness, to dissolve the ties of our social order, and to involve our country in ruin.’
Write a thoughtful and carefully constructed essay in which you use specific evidence to defend, challenge, or qualify the assertion that entertainment has the capacity to “ruin” society.
THIS MUST BE HAND-WRITTEN. DUE: First day of classes
C. No less than 24 hours after you have finished writing this essay use the “Essay Evaluation” sheet to help you complete a concise, honest self-evaluation of your essay. In this self-evaluation you must score your essay and address the “Questions to Ask Yourself.” This must be typed (Times New Roman 12 font with 1” margins). DUE: First day of classes
We look forward to working with you in this challenging and rewarding experience!
-Ms. Connolly-Hickey () Ms. Jabour ()
Ms. Ludwig ()
Essay Evaluation
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER ABOUT YOUR WORK
A. What score would you honestly give your essay (see below)?
B. What do you feel is strongest about this piece? Why?
B. What do you see as needing improvement? Why?
C. Which paragraph would you change the most? Why?
QUALITIES OF A HIGH-RANGE (8-9) AP ESSAY
A. Correctly identifies thesis presented
B. Effectively presents own position re: author’s ideas
C. Successfully defends position
D. Presents carefully reasoned arguments
E. Makes appropriate reference to specific examples
F. Exhibits clear and effective organization
G. Effectively manipulates language
H. Demonstrates a clear writer’s voice
I. Few, if any, syntactical errors
AP SCORING GUIDELINES (COLLEGE BOARD)
9 – Essays earning a score of 9 meet the criteria for 8 papers and, in addition, are especially sophisticated in their argument or demonstrate particularly impressive control of language.
8 – Essays earning a score of 8 recognize the complexity of the claim that entertainment has the capacity to “ruin” society and successfully establish and support their own position by using appropriate evidence to support their argument. Their prose demonstrates an ability to control a wide range of the elements of effective writing but is not flawless.
7 – Essays earning a score of 7 fit the description of 6 essays but are more distinguished by more complete or more cogent argumentation or a more mature prose style.
6 – Essays earning a score of 6 demonstrate an adequate understanding of the claim and adequately establish and support their own position a out entertainment’s ability to “ruin” society. Their arguments are generally sound and provide sufficient evidence, but they are less developed or less cogent than essays earning higher scores. The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but generally the prose is clear.
5 – Essays earning a score of 5 may have a less adequate understanding of the claim and/or may offer limited, inconsistent, or unevenly developed positions of their own. The writing may contain lapses in diction or syntax, but it usually conveys the writer’s ideas adequately.
4 – Essays earning a score of 4 respond to the prompt inadequately. They may have difficulty understanding the claim or establishing their own position and/or may use evidence that is inappropriate or insufficient to develop their own position. The prose generally conveys the writers’ ideas but may suggest immature control of writing.
3 – Essays earning a score of 3 meet the criteria for the score of 4 but demonstrate less success in developing their own position or less control of writing.
2 – Essays earning a score of 2 demonstrate little success in understanding the claim and/or in developing their own position. These essays may misunderstand the prompt, fail to present an argument, or substitute a simpler task by merely responding to the question tangentially with unrelated or inappropriate evidence. The prose often demonstrates consistent weaknesses in writing, such as a lack of development or organization, grammatical problems, or a lack of control.
1 – Essays earning a score of 1 meet the criteria for the score of 2 but are especially simplistic in their argument or are weak in their control of writing.