AP English Language
and Composition
Course Overview
The Advanced Placement English Language and Composition class is designed as an introductory college-level course in the reading and the writing of critical analyses of a compendium of essays from the human experience. This process involves the understanding of how authors communicate their thoughts through language as a rhetorical enterprise, and it involves the appreciation of the human phenomenon we call language.
The objectives and goals of this course are based on the College Board’s AP ENGLISH Language and Composition Course Description (May 2007, May 2008).
The course focuses on the reading of a rich diversity of essays, the analysis of the genres of essays, the writing of critical analyses as well as personal reflections and responses to these essays which originated from a “variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts.”
Course Planner
Summer Reading
Two texts are required for summer reading:
Springer, S. P. & Franck, M.R. (2005). Admission matters: What student and parents
need to know about getting into college.
Steinberg, J.
(2003). The gatekeepers: Inside the admissions process of a premiere college.
Fall Semester
Unit 1 – Referenced
Expository Writing (6 weeks)
The Fall begins with a review discussion and informal personal writing of the summer reading texts. Students personally reflect on the key concepts presented in the two texts. Students take Cornell Notes on the summer readings, on additional research in periodicals and websites, and on class discussions as a preparation for the gathering of sources for a formal expository paper on the topic of college selection and planning. Students use the Modern Language Association (MLA) to cite their sources in the writing of the referenced expository essay. Students practice the writing process by drafting and revising several versions of their referenced expository paper. Students learn to “read primary and secondary sources carefully, to synthesize material from these texts in their own compositions, and to cite sources…”
Course Texts
Kirszner,
L. G. & Mandell, S. R. (2001).
Patterns for college writing: A rhetorical reader and guide. ed.
8.
An assortment of non-fiction from the human experience found chiefly online.
Unit 2 – Referenced Analytical Writing (6 weeks)
The Fall semester continues with
the reading and analysis of various genres of essays which include narration,
description, and exemplification. Along with reading examples of these types of
essays, students learn to write these essays using the American Psychological
Association (APA) convention to cite their sources. Students practice
analytical writing making arguments from additional sources to support their
analysis of the material with fully referenced citations. Students learn to
synthesize the arguments from several sources to create an effective essay of
their own.
Narrative essays read and analyzed include
Maya Angelou: Finishing School,
Donna Smith-Yakel: My
Mother Never Worked,
Martin Gansberg: Thirty-eight
Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police,
George Orwell: Shooting an Elephant and
Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
An American Slave.
Descriptive essays read and analyzed include
Marty Gordon: More than Just a Shrine: Paying Homage to the Ghosts of
N. Scott Momaday: The
Way to Rainy Mountain,
Mark Twain: Reading the River, and
Michel de Montaigne’s On Cannibals.
Exemplification essays read and analyzed include
Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull’s seminal work, The Peter Principle,
Brent Staple: Just Walk on By: A Black Man Ponders His Power to Alter Public Space,”
Jonathan Kozol: The
Human Cost of an Illiterate Society and
Theodore Kaczynski: Against Technologies: Human Suffering. 167-180.
In the composition of their essays, students learn to “place their emphasis on content, purpose and audience and to allow this focus to guide the organization of their writing.” The students use the essays listed above as a model and as a source of inspiration to achieve this focus. Students also learn to synthesize the arguments from several sources to create an effective essay of their own.
Unit 3 – Referenced
Argumentative Writing (6 weeks)
The last part of the Fall semester
concludes with the reading, analysis and writing of argumentative essays under
the genres of process essays, cause and effect essays, definition essays, and
classification and division essays. Students learn to write these essays using
the Chicago Manual of Style convention to cite their sources. Students learn
both the Document-Note and the Author-Date options offered in the Chicago
Manual of Style. Students practice argumentative essay writing by investigating
additional sources to support their analysis of the material with fully
referenced citations.
Process essays read and analyzed include
Malcom X: My First Conk,
Jessica Mitford: The Embalming of Mr. Jones,
Cause and Effect essays read and analyzed include
Linda M. Hasselstrom: A Peaceful Woman Explains Why She Caries and Gun
Comparison and Contrast essays read and analyzed include
Bharati Mukherjee:
Deborah Tannen: Sex, Lies, and Conversation
Classification and Division essays read and analyzed include
William Zinsser: College
Pressures
Alleen Pace Nilsen: Sexism
in English: Embodiment and Language
Stephanie
Ericsson: The Ways We Lie
Argumentative essays read, analyzed and debated include
Ethnic Housing Debate
Rebecca Lee Parker: Why Special Housing for Ethnic Students
Makes Sense
Dena S. Davis: College Housing Should Avoid Ethnic and Religious Balkanization
Date Rape Debate
Camille Paglia: It’s a Jungle Out There
Susan Jacoby: Common Decency
In the composition of their argumentative essays, students learn to write papers that are “based on reading, not solely upon personal experience and observation.” It is argued by this teacher that every paper written in college makes an argument of some sort. This course emphasizes that “researched argument papers help students to formulate varied, informed arguments.” Thus a heavy focus is placed upon researched argument papers. Students learn to synthesize the arguments from several sources to create an effective essay of their own.
The first semester culminates with Jonathan Swifts’ argumentative essay, A Modest Proposal. Students analyze its rhetorical strategies and devices. Then students write referenced argumentative proposals of their own – some modest, others not.
Spring Semester
Segment 1 – AP Exam
Practice
With the warming of the weather comes the approach of the month of May and the AP exam season. Direct attention is paid to the components of AP English Language and Composition exam. Students take mock AP exams. They analyze sample multiple-choice questions. Student also practice writing the analytical and open-ended essays taken from previous AP exams. Students also learn strategies that will help them write the synthesis essay. Included among these strategies is visual literacy where students learn to comprehend and analyze graphics and visual images. The students are exposed to published AP sample material such as the released AP English Language and Composition 1991 Exam and the downloadable samples from the College Board website. Mock AP exams are given throughout the Spring semester until the day of the exam itself.
Segment 2 –
Along with AP exam practice, students will still read from a wonderfully diverse compendium of essays. The best way to prepare for the AP exam is to “become aware of how stylistic effects are achieved by writer’s linguistic choices.” This is achieved through the reading and analysis of richly written essays. These essays are read throughout the semester.
Essays read and analyzed in the second semester include excerpts from
Plato: The Republic
Sun Tzu: The Art of War
Religious Literature from the Bible, Koran, Bhagavad
Gita
Machiavelli: The Prince
Marx & Engels: The Communist
Manifesto
John Donne: Meditation 17
Charles Darwin: The Origin of the Species
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Nature
Mohandas Gandhi: Speech to the Indian Congress
Barak Obama: Convention Speech 2004
Epictetus: The Enchiridion
Segment 3 – Writing
Rich Content and the Use of Rhetorical Strategies
One can hardly separate the reading of wonderful essays from the writing analysis of analytical responses. Through the writing of their own essays, students practice the rhetorical devices and strategies they have read and analyzed. Students write essays, personal reflections, observations; they write formally and informally throughout the Spring semester.
Segment 4 – Review of
Writing Conventions and the Review of Citation Styles
Students review “standard English grammar… and writing conventions at all levels.” Students also review the citation styles learned in the first semester: the APA, MLA, and Chicago Manual of Style. This review is performed throughout the second semester.
Segment 5 – Post AP
Exam: A Time of Reflection
As the school year rapidly draws to a close, students are encouraged to reflect upon their learning, reading, writing and analysis through a series of projects. Reflective essays and projects force students into metacognition. Many of these students are seniors and they will be asked to reflect upon their entire high school and K-12 experience. Learning takes place upon reflection. Time permitting, students continue to read, analyze and write provocative essays, just as they have all year.
Student Evaluation
Students are taught to utilize the AP Exams 9 point rubric. From the rubric, points are at time derived to fit the 100%, 90%, 80% etc. grading convention. Both formal and informal assessments are used. Formal assessments include pre-formative, formative and summative assessments such as journals, exams, quizzes, timed-writings, mock AP exams, vocabulary assessments, peer editing, various projects (both individual and group) and researched/referenced essays. Informal assessments also include pre-formative, formative and summative assessments such as personal reflections and observations, peer editing, personal response system (prs) polling, wiki-writing, blogs, and podcasts/RSS feeds. Informal assessments are also both individual and group designed.
Hybridized Classroom
Component
This AP class meets traditionally in a classroom. However, in order to meet individual needs, this course will also hybridized beginning in the Fall 2007 with the use of an online teaching platform, BlackBoard. Current students are familiar with the classroom use of teacher-made movies, the use of a personal response system (prs), wikis, RSS Feeds/PodCasts, blogs, and of course the Internet where the instructor has posted resources for this class.