AP English Language & Composition Syllabus Course Overview

Students in this introductory college-level course read and carefully analyze prose written in a variety of time periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts, increasing their understanding of rhetoric and its effects. Through analytical reading and frequent writing, students develop their awareness of the interactions among a writers purpose, audience and rhetorical strategies, while strengthening their own effectiveness in composition abilities. Throughout the year, students write in several modesexpository, analytical, and argumentative. Students read, analyze, and respond to essays, letters, speeches, images, and fiction. Students increase their understanding of images as text by completing frequent analyses of various images throughout the course. Featured authors include Frederick Douglass, George Orwell, Sophocles, Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Henrik Ibsen, Alan Patton, Chinua Achebe, Albert Camus, Voltaire, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Patrick Henry, Jonathon Swift. Summer reading and writing are required. Students prepare for the AP English Language and Composition Exam and may be granted advanced placement, college credit, or both as a result of satisfactory performance. Primary course textbooks include the following: Cohen, Samuel. 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. New York: Bedford/St. Martin's. Fowler, H. Ramsey, and Jane E. Aaron. The Little, Brown Handbook. New York Longman. Miller, George, ed. The Prentice Hall Reader. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Roskelly, Hephzibah, and David Jolliffe. Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing. New York: Longman. Course reading and writing activities help students gain analytical skills, making them more adept at identifying and explaining an authors use of rhetorical strategies. As well as extensively analyzing other writers strategies, the students will also learn how to apply those effective techniques in their own writing. With timed in-class writing and extended out of class written assignments, the students will acquire and hone skills in all phases of the writing process, from the inquiry phase to the revising and editing phase. As this is a college-level course, performance expectations are appropriately high, and the workload is challenging. Students are expected to commit to a minimum of five hours of course work per week outside of class. Often, this work involves long-term writing and reading assignments, so effective time management is vital. Although the course will delve deeply into an authors choice of rhetoric, including his or her grammatical choices, students must bring to the course sufficient command of grammatical and mechanical conventions and an ability to read and discuss prose. Vocabulary lists from each assigned selection that include definition, part of speech, root identification and any prefix or suffix clues from words unfamiliar to the student are accumulated in a personal notebook along with the student's original sentences. Students are required at the end of each semester to define words and use correctly from their individual lists a variety of teacherdriven choices.

The course is constructed in accordance with the guidelines described in the AP English Course Description. First Quarter: Introduction to close reading and annotation, rhetoric and analysis, evaluation of summer reading (August 16-October 13) Texts: Douglass, Frederick. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Barnes and Noble: NY, 2003. Coulson, Joseph, Mike Levine, and Steve Hettleman. Readers Guide to the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave. Great Books Foundation: ___, 2004 Orwell, George. 1984. Penguin: New York, 1977. The course opens with an evaluation of the summer reading assignment over Frederick Douglasss The Narrative of an American Slave. Students discuss the work and write analytical essays over the language and rhetorical strategies Douglas used to convey his themes. Major assignment: After reading and discussing Douglasss book, students are given handouts from Readers Guide to Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, dealing with issues related to the novel. Students write an essay challenging, defending, or qualifying Douglasss statement in the book that slavery harmed not only the slaves but the slave owners as well. Students write a formal synthesis paper in which they use four or more of these outside sources and images to establish their support for their thesis. Students are required to write a formal paper, using the MLA format as well as using correct standard English. Students are guided through the process by writing a rough draft, documentation, revision, and a then a final copy. Students continue with rhetorical strategies by examining Patrick Henrys speech to the Virginia Convention. Students identify strategies and discuss the effectiveness of such strategies for Henry to achieve his purpose. Reinforcement for rhetorical skills through SOAPS was given to further analytical skills. Further rhetorical skills and strategies are used to introduce Orwells 1984. Students read essays over privacy issues to discuss and analyze effective rhetorical strategies and purposes: Margaret Carlsons Someone to Watch Over Me (July 16, 2001 Time), Charles Krauthammers How do you Think We Catch the Bad Guys? ( Time 2006), and Bob Barrs Presidential Snooping Damages the Nation (Time 2006). Students use the novel 1984 to discuss its relevancy to history and current events. Students engage in both essay writing as well as discussion to further analyze the novel.

Language exercises on rhetoric and tone continue with practice passages from previous AP Language tests. Second Quarter: Evaluating and Analyzing Argument and Its Purpose, Understanding Images as Text, and Using Non-fiction Works to Deepen Understanding of Tone (October 16-December 20) Texts: Sophocles. Oedipus.____________ Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. During the second semester, students are introduced to the Toulmin method of argument analysis, which they use to evaluate and analyze arguments from a variety of sources: famous speeches, literary works, and political cartoons. Major Assignment: With background knowledge of rhetoric, appeals, and argument, students read Sophocles Oedipus. During the unit, students participate in close reading and annotation of the play. The students write an essay in which they analyze Creons rhetoric in his speech declaring his innocence. In addition to using the Toulmin method of argument analysis, they are asked to consider such elements as appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos, organizational and diction choices, and audience. After completing Oedipus, the students also write the Ecclesiastes (Knowledge brings sorrow) prompt, in which they have to use the character of Oedipus as one of their supporting points to agree or disagree with or qualify the given statement. Approximately every 2-3 weeks throughout the semester, students receive the Upfront magazine, the student news magazine published by the New York Times. In every edition of Upfront are found various images the students analyze as text: graphs, charts, and political cartoons. As they do with text, the students analyze the images considering speaker, audience, tone, and purpose, as well as the organizational and rhetorical choices made in order to accomplish the intended purpose. Major Assignment: After the Oedipus unit, students read Shakespeares Macbeth. During the unit, students analyze several arguments in the play: Macbeths soliloquy talking himself out of killing Duncan, Lady Macbeths denunciation of Macbeths backing down from Duncans murder, and Macbeths persuasion of the two murderers to kill Banquo and Fleance. After reading, annotating, and analyzing each sections rhetoric, the students compare and contrast two of the chosen scenes regarding purpose, audience, tone, and rhetorical choices. In their comparison, the students discuss how effective each speaker is in accomplishing his or her purpose and what choices were made in the discourse to allow the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the argument. After studying Macbeth, the students read several essays out of 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology, including The Ways We Lie by Stephanie Ericsson. During their close reading of the essays, the students annotate, paying careful attention to the authors tone and language. The students should be able to notice each authors rhetorical choices and analyze the effects of those choices. After the close reading and discussion of each essay,

the students answer the Multiple Choice Questions taken from the Instructors Manual for 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology, as well as write several of the simulated AP essays. Third Quarter: Evaluating and Developing an Argument, Recognizing and Analyzing Satire and Its Effects and Research Skills (January 4-March 9) Texts: Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Anchor Books, Doubleday: New York, 1994. Paton, Alan. Cry, the Beloved Country. Scribner: New York, 1995. Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Random House: New York, 1998. Moliere, Jean-Baptiste. Tartuffe and Other Plays. Signet: New York, 1981. Voltaire (Francois-Marie Arouet). Candide. Bantam Books: New York, 1981. Cohen, Samuel, ed. 50 Essays, a Portable Anthology. Bedford/St. Martins: Boston, 2004. Much of the third quarter is spent analyzing the validity of assumptions, claims and warrants, as well as the specific details that support those contentions. An early Nixon address on television to convince the American public to allow him to run for vicepresident after inconsistencies in his finances were revealed allows students to identify logical fallacies. While reading a series of novels set in Africa (Things Fall Apart, Cry, the Beloved Country, and The Stranger), students analyze speeches that deal with freedom beginning with Thomas Jeffersons Declaration of Independence and Elizabeth Cady Stantons Declarations and Sentiments (50 Essays edited by Samuel Cohen) to discern the validity of the assumptions and to defend or challenge these assumptions in a well-argued essay. Major writing assignment: This assignment provides their first major writing for the third quarter. While examining Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart both for its political implications as well as its rhetorical style, students are asked to create their own Declaration of Independence for Okonkwos tribe, making valid arguments for their return to independence after European control. This writing is due after an extensive discussion of the Toulmin method of analyzing and making an argument. In addition, students evaluate editorial stands, particularly in opposing articles that deal with war on a foreign soil. Special analysis of opposing editorials appearing in Time(?) magazine that discuss President Bushs approach to the war in Iraq to discern logical fallacies creates the opportunity to evaluate two sides of an argument and find which side is more compelling. Major writing assignment: Finally, in the second major writing assignment of the quarter, students support one side of the argument after discussing the pros and cons of both sides and include specific support for the writers chosen point of view. A unit focusing on satire begins with a study of editorial cartoons and the literary approach that cartoonists use. Upfront (a newsmagazine from The New York Times), provides cartoons that allow students to analyze those techniques that make an effective argument. Class discussion focuses on evaluation of each cartoon for its effectiveness first in small groups who then share their evaluation in an all-class forum. A concentrated

study of the 2005 AP test question from the Onion requires students to analyze the written strategies that create satire and to incorporate those into a well-organized analysis in their third major writing assignment. At this point students are introduced to rangefinder papers from the College Board and they analyze strengths and weaknesses of those provided essays using the AP rubric for the satire question. This exercise gives students the opportunity to evaluate their own work as well and place it in context with AP expectations. The class moves on to Jonathon Swifts A Modest Proposal to focus on the historical aspects of satire and to isolate such techniques that were present in the Onion article as well. This discussion of logical fallacies culminates in a short in-class essay where students are encouraging some satirical solution to a school-related problem. Two final pieces covered in the third quarter are Tartuffe and Candide, again to highlight the power of satire to persuade. Research component: Students select a short-story writer of their choice whose work has produced a body of literary criticism. After studying at least three short stories (a minimum of fifty pages), students must formulate a thesis pertaining to an over-riding social commentary in their primary texts that is still relevant today. After study of literary criticism, primary text and current published information (five sources, at least one from each of these source types must be accurately quoted or paraphrased in the paper) about the chosen topic, students write a seven-to-ten page MLA documented paper that supports their thesis. A correct Works Cited page as well as an outline and a previously-graded rough draft must be included with the final product. Fourth Quarter: Developing and Deepening Synthesis Skills, Focused Preparation for the AP English Language and Composition Exam (March 12-May 25) The fourth quarter begins with a continuing discussion of satire that now turns to the synthesis format. After a review of the steps to create a forceful argument supported by specific detail and elements of satire, students are given a packet on the dangers of squirrels supplied by Paul Stevenson, Edison Preparatory School, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Major writing assignment: students are given a 55 minute class period to read a packet of six sources all dealing with reports of miscreant squirrel behavior. Then, in an essay that synthesizes at least three of the sources for support, the student takes a position that defends, challenges, or qualifies the claim that squirrels represent an imminent danger to mankind. Major assignment: To develop the synthesis skills necessary for the new synthesis prompt on the upcoming AP exam, the students read four articles about the value of photography in shaping human perception: The Falling Man by Tom Junod, The Schiavo Case by Ginia Bellafante, The Exquisite Corpse by Ashraf Rushdy, and the On Photography excerpt by Susan Sontag which was on the 2001 AP exam. After reading all the articles, the students select one of several given positions on photography to support, refute, or qualify. The students also find one or two photographs to use as the basis for the evidence with which they support their position. With the photo or photos

as the foundation for their essay, the students also use a quote from all four articles to bolster their argument. Students will engage in different practice methods to prepare for the AP test. These include multiple choice practices from the Acorn books as well as previous years tests (1991, 1996 and 2001), individually and collectively in groups. Students will further their writing skill with various in-class writing assignments from previous AP prompts, both argument and rhetorical analysis. Discussions will follow each of the writings. Sophisticated writing style and analysis will be analyzed from these essays scored by the summer readings. Students will be encouraged to analyze more depth and to learn writing techniques and strategies that reach a more mature writing level.