Ap English Language And Composition Syllabus

AP English Language and Composition Syllabus Course Objectives: The purpose of this course is to help students understand and analyze expository, analytical and argumentative writing so they can effectively communicate for various audiences and purposes to fit the needs of their future lives. The course is organized around particular forms including description, narration, exposition and argumentation, an organizational possibility described in the May 2007, May 2008 AP English Course Description. During this course, students will learn to read critically and to write analytically. By the end of the course, student essays should demonstrate depth of analysis and stylistic maturity. Course Structure: This course consists of 18 weeks on a 90minute block schedule. Students must have taken Honors English 11, a preAP English Language course, before they may enroll in AP Language and Composition. Grading System: Essays 30%: Students write descriptive, narrative, expository, analytical and argumentative essays. Most essays begin with inclass writing or planning and progress through two or more rough drafts that include peer and/or teacher editing to a final copy that is graded. All drafts must be turned in with the final copy. Tests 25%: Each unit includes a test that includes multiple choice questions and one passage analysis essay. Multiple choice questions test knowledge of the readings and application of the rhetorical devices studied in the unit. Each passage chosen for the analysis essay is new material that reflects the rhetorical form and rhetorical strategies discussed for the unit. Quizzes 25%: Quizzes over the literature check for reading. Vocabulary, grammar terms and concepts, and rhetorical terms are also tested on quizzes. Homework 20%: Homework includes grammar and vocabulary exercises, AP multiple choice sample passages, short writings, steps in the writing process for an essay, practices from Voice Lessons, journal entries for novel choices and other short assignments given. Most lessons begin with a warmup anticipatory task. These focus on a journal writing on one of

the two novels students may select from a reading list, a short lesson from Voice Lessons, vocabulary exercises, or grammar exercises. These activities will include the first five or ten minutes of class.

Unit 1 Description

Reading: • Dillard, Annie, “Heaven and Earth in Jest” • Dillard, Annie, “The Giant Water bug” • O’Conner, Flannery, “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” • Updike, John, “The Brown Chest” • Crane, Steven, The Red Badge of Courage – Chapter 7 • Wright, Richard, “Between the World and Me” Assessments: Quizzes: Reading quizzes that check for meaning and strategies Quiz: Vocabulary from reading Quiz: Grammar for unit Test: Multiple choice and passage analysis Composition: Analysis Analyze how Annie Dillard uses tone shifts to convey her shifting view of herself and nature in “The Giant Water Bug.” Remember to consider the rhetorical devices we discussed as part of your support. Composition: Analysis Analyze how Flannery O’Conner uses direct characterization and indirect characterization to portray Mr. Shiflet as a grotesque character. Be sure to use description as one of the defining factors in your discussion. Composition: Descriptive essay Prompt: Choose one place in which you have experienced two different atmospheres, each of which had some significance to you. In a wellorganized essay, use the tools of language we have discussed in this unit create the atmosphere and to make the significant clear to the reader. You may write in first or third person. Visual Connections: Choose two advertisements from a magazine that evoke different emotions through the pictures used in the ads. Staple a paper to the back of each picture that identifies the emotion you felt and the specific details in the photograph that help create that emotion. You will ask the class to discuss the same aspects and compare them with your ideas. Timed Writings: Descriptive writings from recent AP Exams as time permits

Example: Mary Oliver’s “Owls”

Unit 2 Narration

Reading: • Momaday, N. Scott, “Names” • Nye, Naomi Shihab, “Mint Snowball” • Harjo, Joy, “Suspended” • Malcolm X, “Coming to an Awareness of Language” • Hughes, Langston, “Salvation” • Winston, Barry, “Stranger Than True” • Orwell, George, “Shooting an Elephant” • OgundipeLeslie, Molara, “The Stranglehold of English Lit.” • Sanger, Margaret, “The Turgid Ebb and Flow of Misery” Assessments: Quizzes: Reading quizzes that check for meaning and strategies Quiz: Vocabulary from reading Quiz: Grammar for unit Test: Multiple choice and passage analysis Composition: Analysis In “Shooting an Elephant” Orwell tells us repeatedly that his sympathies are with the Burmese. Does the language Orwell uses to describe them support his claim? Discuss Orwell’s complex view of the Burmese people based on the language he uses to describe them in his narrative. Composition: Analysis Analyze the importance of the vague pronoun usage in “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner, especially “we” and “our.” How does the point of view reflect Faulkner’s view of Southern society during the period? Does he use the pronoun “we” to have even wider significance? Use specific references from the text to support what you say. Composition: Analysis Discuss the rhetorical strategies that Margaret Sanger uses to convey her view of the plight of poor women in “The Turgid Ebb and Flow of Misery.” Composition: Narrative Essay Using MalcolmX’s essay as a model, narrate an experience that gave you a new awareness of yourself. Use enough telling detail in your narrative to help your reader visualize your experience and understand its significance to you.

Timed writings: Narrative essays from recent AP Exams as time permits. Example: Virginia Woolf’s “Two Dinners”

Unit 3 Exposition

Process Analysis Readings: Roberts, Paul, “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words” Giovani, Nikki, “Campus Racism” Comparison and Contrast Readings: Twain, Mark, “Two Ways of Seeing a River” Britt, Suzanne “Neat People vs Sloppy People” Division and Classification Readings: Viorst, Judith, “The Truth about Lying” Definition Readings: Mairs, Nancy, “On Being a Cripple” Cause and Effect Readings: Katz, Jon, “How Boys Become Men” Ackerman, Diane, “The Face of Beauty” Exemplification Readings: Tannen, Deborah, “Sex, Lies, and Conversation” Assessments: Quizzes: Reading quizzes that check for meaning and strategies Quiz: Vocabulary from reading Quiz: Grammar for unit Test: Multiple choice and passage analysis Composition: Analysis Discuss the rhetorical strategies Twain uses to relate the change of attitude he underwent as a result of seeing the river from the perspective of a steamboat pilot. Be sure to identify the two attitudes and explain how he views the change. Composition: Write an essay in which you discuss Tannen’s organizational method and tone in “Sex, Lies, and Conversation.” Explain both. What is the effect of each in achieving her purpose? Composition: Comparison and Contrast Essay Viorst wrote “The Truth About Lying” for Redbook, a woman’s magazine. If you were writing this essay for a men’s magazine, would you change the examples? If so, how would you change them? If not, why not? Do you think men are more likely to tell lies of a certain category? Explain. Write an essay in which you discuss whether men and women share similar perspectives about lying.

Composition: Definition Essay Think for a while about the slang of students at school. Is the language of high school students different from that of middle school students? From adults? How does their language allow students to distance themselves from their teachers or parents? In an essay, identify some current buzzwords or catchphrases that you and other students use, explain what each means, speculate how each word or phrase evolved and discuss the purpose each phrase might serve. Timed Writings: Expository essays from recent AP Exams as time permits. Example: Herman Melville/ Charles Darwin “Description of the Galapagos Islands”

Unit 4 Argumentation

• Angelou, Maya, “Living Well. Living Good.” • “LeGuin, Ursula K. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” • King, Martin “I Have A Dream” • Cruz, Victor Hernandez, “Today Is a Day of Great Joy” • Forche, Carolyn, “The Colonel” • Auden, W.H. “The Unknown Citizen” • Swift, Jonathan, “A Modest Proposal” • Brooks, Gwendolyn, “The Children of the Poor” • Gaylin, Willard, “What’s So Special about Being Human?” • McKibben, Bill, “A Path of More Resistance • Van den Hag, Ernest, “For the Death Penalty” • Morrow, Lance, “Why I changed my Mind on the Death Penalty” Assessments: Quizzes: Reading quizzes that check for meaning and strategies Quiz: Vocabulary from reading Quiz: Grammar for unit Test: Multiple choice and passage analysis Composition: Compare and Contrast essay Look at The New Yorker cartoon that follows Maya Angelou’s essay. Compare and contrast the points each is making; then write a personal definition of what it means to be “rich.” Can one be rich without happiness? Can one achieve happiness without being materially rich? How could one achieve a balance? What would it entail? Composition: Synthesis Essay How can the individual find fulfillment in modern society? In an essay that synthesizes

and uses for support at least three of the readings from this year, discuss the choices an individual has or does not have for finding happiness and meaning in his or her life. Remember to attribute both direct and indirect citations. Refer to the sources by authors’ last names or by titles. Avoid mere paraphrase or summary. Visual Connection: Bring in two editorial cartoons that satirize an element of modern day society. Be prepared to tell the class what the cartoon satirizes with details to support what you say. Research Paper: The Documented Essay Choose a current event that reflects an issue that you see as important. Research the topic through different types of sources (newspapers, magazines, news stories, interviews, online sources, visuals, etc.) Take careful notes, making sure that you cite your sources accurately using MLA format. Develop an argument about this topic. Establish a claim. Integrate a variety of sources into a coherent, wellwritten essay. Use the sources to support your position; avoid mere paraphrase or summary. Your argument should be central. Remember to attribute both direct and indirect citations, using MLA format. (Give credit where credit is due.) Create a Works Cited page using MLA format. Plagiarism will result in a zero. Final Exam: Students have two hours to take their final exam. It includes the multiple choice and essay sections of an AP Released English Language and Composition Exam. The essays are graded one the AP rubric ninepoint scale.

Course Texts: Abcarian, Richard and Klotz, Marvin. Literature The Human Experience. 6th ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996. Dean, Nancy. Voice Lessons. Gainesville, Fla.: Maupin House. 2000. Eschholz, Paul and Rosa, Alfred. Subjects/ Strategies. 9th ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s,

2002. Prentice Hall Literature: The American Experience. Glenview, Ill.: Prentice Hall, 2002. Prentice Hall Grammar and Composition: Communication in Action. Glenview, Ill.: Prentice Hall, 2002