AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

Transcription

1 AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION COURSE DESCRIPTION* An AP course in English Language and Composition engages students in becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of periods, disciplines, rhetorical contexts and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes. Both their writing and their reading should make students aware of the interactions among a writer s purposes, audience expectations, and subjects as well as the way genre conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing. *Description taken in part from the AP College Board website: COURSE OVERVIEW This course will be organized thematically around a group of ideas or issues, using a variety of works from several literary periods and various genres. Although the bulk of the reading will be non fiction, students will read three novels and several poems throughout the year. Students will examine rhetorical strategies and stylistic choices authors make. Specifically, students will examine the interactions between speaker/persona, audience, subject, purpose/intent, context, and genre in texts. Understanding texts using the Five Canons of Classical Rhetoric (invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery) will also inform students analyses. For each reading, students will be required to provide extended, structured journal entries, which will help them analyze critically. In these responses, students will discuss adherence to theme, symbols, diction, tone, perspective, historical significance, and other rhetorical elements of importance. Periodically, students will be required to write imitation exercises, which allow students the opportunity to practice for mastery the rhetorical variations authors use in their writing. Students will also write essays that examine the rhetorical design of AP prompt formatted questions, which will be timed initially then revised and rewritten following self, peer, and teacher review/evaluation. In addition to writing about texts in analytical journal responses and essays and imitating professional writing, students will be required to synthesize information from a variety of sources (both textual and visual) in argumentative papers. Using both primary and secondary sources and citing appropriately using MLA style citation become increasingly important with these research style essays. Students will be encouraged to establish and maintain a unique voice, which is determinate upon specific word choices and syntactical arrangements.although critical reading and

2 writing are of paramount importance in this course, students also will benefit from vocabulary exercises and review (from context and in isolation) to inform and enhance studies. Students grammar and syntax errors or concerns will be addressed routinely throughout the course. Finally, released multiple choice exams from previous years will serve as timed practice, catalysts for discussion, and detailed examination. REQUIREMENTS Read assignments by required date Keep and maintain binder, complete with journal responses, imitation exercises, notes, vocabulary development exercises, graded papers/assignments Essays (both timed and extended), research paper, reflection papers, projects, and presentations Tests and quizzes (objective and subjective; formative and summative) Active participation Excellent attendance and preparation AP English Language and Composition Exam in early May MATERIALS Texts: Diyanni, Robert. Ed. One Hundred Great Essays. 2 nd ed. New York: Pearson Longman, Roskelly, Hephzibah, and David A. Jolliffe. Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing. AP ed. New York: Pearson Longman, Classroom Resources: Calabrese, Joseph, and Susan Tchudi. Eds. Diversity: Stength and Struggle. New York: Pearson Longman, Connelly, Mark. The Sundance Writer: A Rhetoric, Reader, Handbook. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, Cooley, Thomas. Ed. The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition. 5 th ed. Ney York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.

3 Kahane, Howard. Logic and Cointemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life. 7 th ed. Boston: Wadsworth Publishing Company, Knowles, Elizabeth. Ed. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. New York: Oxford University Press, Lunsford, Andrea A., John J. Ruszkiewicz, and Keith Walters. Everything s an Argument with Readings. 4 th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin s, Lutz, Tom, and Susanna Ashton. Eds. These Colored United States: African American Essays from the 1920s. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, Oxford Dictionary of Allusions. New York: Oxford University Press, Seyler, Dorothy U. Read, Reason, Write. 5 th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill College, Trimmer, Joseph F. The New Writing with a Purpose. 14 th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, COURSE SYLLABUS* QUARTER Quarter 1 THEMATIC UNIT TITLES Memories of Youth TEXTS (MAJOR ASSESSMENTS) The Dance Class by Edgar Degas (Painting) Growing Up by Russell Baker (One Hundred A Giant Step by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (The Norton Sampler) a song in the front yard by Gwendolyn Brooks (online) Graduation by Maya Angelou (One Hundred Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood by Richard Rodriguez (One Hundred Casa: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood by Judith Ortiz Cofer (One Hundred The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde*** Timed Writings from Dust Tracks on a Road: An

4 Quarter 2 Home and Family Autobiography by Zora Neale Hurston and A Summer Life by Gary Soto (Commercial Rhetorical Analysis**, Personal Statements Narrative Non Fiction Essay, Homework Synthesis Essay) The Banjo Lesson by Henry Ossawa Tanner (Painting) Choosing Families by Ellen Goodman (Read, Reason, Write) Neat People vs. Sloppy People Susanne Britt (online) A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift (One Hundred Mother Tongue by Amy Tan (One Hundred Great Essays) Like Mexicans by Gary Soto (Norton Sampler) Everyday Use by Alice Walker (Everyday Use) Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton*** Timed Writings from Richard Rodriguez, Jane Ansten and Charles Dickens, and a letter by Lord Chesterfield (SOAPStone Analysis Paper, Five Canon Presentation**, American Family Synthesis Essay, Semester Exam) Quarter 3 Gender Issues Nightlife by Archibald Motley (Painting) I Want a Wife by Judy Brady (One Hundred A Bachelor s Complaint by Charles Lamb (One Hundred Aren t I a Woman by Sojurner Truth (One Hundred It s a Woman s World by Eavan Boland (Everyday Use) A Wound in the Face by Angela Carter (One Hundred Women s Brains by Stephen Jay Gould (One Hundred As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who was Raised as a

5 Quarter 4 Death, Dying, and Decay Girl by John Colapinto*** Timed Writings from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a letter by Marian Evans Lewes, and The Company Man by Ellen Goodman (Gender Argument Annotated Bibliography, Point Counterpoint Video Presentation**, Gender Synthesis Essay Research Paper) Three Days and Three Nights by Paul Sierra (Painting) A Name Is Just a Name? by Cindy Schneider (Norton Sampler) The Allegory of the Cave by Plato (One Hundred On the Pleasure of Hating by William Hazlitt (One Hundred Black Men and Public Space by Brent Staples (One Hundred The Spider and the Wasp by Alexander Petrunkevitch (One Hundred The Masked Marvel s Last Toehold by Richard Selzer (One Hundred A Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Marques*** Timed Writings from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave by Frederick Douglass and On the Want of Money by William Hazlitt (Tone Scrapbook**, Writing Portfolio Self Assessment Paper, Moral Decay Synthesis Essay, Semester Exam) *This syllabus may be modified for various reasons throughout the school year. Students will receive oral and/or written notification of changes as needed. **Indicates group assignments ***Idicates a longer piece of fiction or non fiction