Used as an analysis strategy as well as a method for teaching thoughtful thesis writing.

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AP English Language & Composition

Course Overview

The objectives and overview for this course are taken from the AP English Course Description

published by the College Board. Reading

Students read and analyze a rigorous range of nonfiction prose selections, study rhetoric, and how language works. Reading is predominantly nonfiction. The purpose of the course is to emphasize the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication therefore; the reading selections provide models for such writing. Through close reading and frequent writing, students develop the ability to work with language and text with a greater awareness of purpose and strategy, while strengthening their own composing abilities. Writing provides the focus for study and analysis of language, rhetoric, and argument both prose and image based.

Writing

Writings in response to reading include narrative, expository, analytical, argumentative, critical analysis papers, explication, and research based analysis. Critical essays demonstrate a close textual analysis of structure, style and public policies, popular culture, etc.. Writing includes in-class workshops for assessing effective critical writing. Writing as a recursive process includes multiple drafts of papers, peer review, teacher conferences and charting of mechanical / stylistic commentary for each draft (Writer’s Notebook).This reflective tool examines style’s contribution to meaning and purpose and identifies writing problems (repetitiveness, possible run-ons or fragments, weak verbs, vocabulary, sentence structure, organization, transitions detailing, tone, voice, diction and lack of syntactical variety).

All essays are accompanied by a profile or information page and a rubric (scoring guideline). Each rubric has a self-assessment component to help students learn how to be better assessors of their own writing development.

Including:

Essays that proceed through composition as a recursive process: drafting stages, revision, peer review and teacher conferencing within the weekly writing workshops.

on-going peer review/commentary for content/voice analysis (writing as a recursive process) including criteria for effective critical writing. teacher commentary and composition

conferences within regularly scheduled workshops

Assessment of AP preparation through timed in-class writings, and AP multiple choice questions A Writer’s Notebook….

Identification of writer’s assertions – a defense or challenge of those assertions Alternative points of view, annotation, techniques and styles of writers, imitation exercises and personal reactions

Strategies

Subject-Occasion-Audience-Purpose-Speaker-Tone (SOAPSTone)

Used as an analysis strategy as well as a method for teaching thoughtful thesis writing. Speaker: the individual or collective voice of the text

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Audience: the group of readers to whom the piece is directed Purpose: the reason behind the text

Subject: the general topic and/or main idea Tone: the attitude of the author

Overview-Parts-Title-Interrelationships-Conclusion (OPTIC) The study of visual text.

O is for overview—write down a few notes on what the visual appears to be about. P is for parts—zero in on the parts of the visual. Write down any elements or details that seem important.

T is for title—highlight the words of the title of the visual (if one is available). I is for interrelationships—use the title as the theory and the parts of the visual as clues to detect and specify the interrelationships in the graphic.

C is for conclusion—draw a conclusion about the visual as a whole. What does the visual mean? Summarize the message of the visual in one or two sentences.

Course Planner

First Quarter - Understanding Rhetoric

Complete a summer reading assignment and the Writer’s Notebook writing about author’s purpose, determining what’s remarkable in Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood and Jill Ker Conway’s The Road from Coorain.

Consider rhetorical context—purpose, audience, and strategies through

close reading. Study the introduction to OneHundred Great Essays; annotating, accounting for purpose and context, and recognizing strategies andtactics. Consider the substance and context of William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

Readings representing a wide variety of prose styles include but are not limited to: “Everything’s an Argument,” Chapter 1 in Everything’s an Argument

One Hundred Great Essays

“Living like Weasels” by Annie Dillard -One Hundred Great Essays

“Death of the Moth” Virginia Woolf - The Norton Sampler

“Once More to the Lake,” E. B. White - “Light of the Long Night,”AndreDubus

“On the Pleasure of Hating,” William Hazlitt “The Ugly Tourist,” Jamaica Kincaid “Of Smells.” Michel de Montaigne

Selected essays from Satire or Evasion? Black Perspectives on “Huckleberry Finn,” edited by James S. Leonard, Thomas A. Tenney, and Thadious M. Davis

“Reading and Writing Arguments,” Chapter 2in Everything’s an Argument

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“Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards

“The Qualities of the Prince” by Niccolò Machiavelli (A World of Ideas) Excerpt from A Definition of Justice by Aristotle (A World of Ideas) “Structuring Arguments,” Chapter 8 in Everything’s an Argument

“Proposals,” Chapter 12in Everything’s an Argument

“Figurative Language and Argument,” Chapter 14 in Everything’s an Argument

Writing

Writing assignments introduce the structure of arguments and varying styles of argumentative essays. Students complete major arguments, each one consisting of 750 to 1,000 words and each one fully described in, Everything’s an Argument: an argument of proposal, an argument of definition, and an argument of evaluation. These essays proceed from the proposal stage through formative drafts to a final draft. In addition, students write a criticism of The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn ( summer reading requirement) and an essay responding to Niccolò

Machiavelli’s “The Qualities of the Prince.”

Writer’s Notebook – annotation, observation, questions, analysis Writing Workshops –

• the recursive process, peer review, teacher conferences

• Self assessment of writing development through analysis of essay information pages in Writer’s Notebook

Second Quarter – Justice

Readings representing a wide variety of prose styles include but are not limited to:

“Second Inaugural Address” by Abraham Lincoln (2002AP English Language and Composition Exam)

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass

“Reply to A. C. C. Thompson’s Letter” “I Am Here to Shed Light on American Slavery” “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (A World of Ideas) “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau (A World of Ideas)

“The Battle of the Ants” by Henry David Thoreau (The Longwood Reader) “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King Jr. (A World of Ideas) “The Position of Poverty” by John Kenneth Galbraith (A World of Ideas)

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez by Richard Rodriguez

“Arguments of Definition,” Chapter 9 in Everything’s an Argument

“Evaluations,” Chapter 10 in Everything’s an Argument.

Daniel Starer. Hot Topics, Simon & Schuster, NY. 1955 Writing

Writing assignments continue the structure of arguments and varying styles of argumentative essays. Students complete arguments and rhetorical analysis, each one consisting of 750 to 1,000 words. An essay of analysis from the visual as an argument. These essays proceed from the proposal stage through formative drafts to a final draft. In a focused discussion on the importance

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of considering audience and context, two essay/photo combinations are considered: “And My Hats Were Prettier,” an essay/photo combination by Nancy Carpenter from Picturing Texts and Donald Murray’s “The Stranger in the Photo Is Me,” taken from the August 27, 1991, Boston

Globe. These tasks require students to read closely and account for how language and rhetoric

are purposefully employed.

Working with Everything’s an Argument approach argument from a variety of angles to deepen appreciation of context, audience, and purpose. Consider provocative

images in Picturing Texts that appear to promote a particular viewpoint.

Write a research argument paper from sources selected related to an aspect of Justice selected for the project. Demonstrate hypothesis, research, analysis and conclusion using five sources. Cite direct and indirect information using MLA format; include a Works Cited page.

Writing Workshops –

End of Semester-

Two 40-minute exams featuring two AP free-response questions from released exams— one focusing on prose analysis and rhetoric, the other on argument.

Third Quarter: Rhetoric for Personal Power [ Say & See]

Readings representing a wide variety of prose styles include but are not limited to: Continue working with nonfiction: argumentative essays, letters, and speeches.

Excerpt from Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion (The Longwood Reader) “Once More to the Lake” by E. B. White (The Art of the Personal Essay)

“The Courage of Turtles” by Edward Hoagland (The Art of the Personal Essay) “In Bed” by Joan Didion (The Art of the Personal Essay)

“The Knife” by Richard Selzer (The Art of the Personal Essay) Selected essays from One Hundred Great Essays

“Causal Arguments,” Chapter 11in Everything’s an Argument.

Drawing on texts from different cultural and historical milieus increase

familiarity with the various rhetorical modes. Images and war – analyze prose – rhetoric and images of war –photos. Determine influences of rhetorical arguments and arguments of image. Writing

Continue to develop argumentative structures: causal argument, argument of proposal, rhetorical analysis and visual arguments in essays of 750 to 1,000 words.

Writer’s Notebook – determine progress from information of personal writing notes Writing Workshops

Fourth Quarter: A Final Look at Argumentation (eight weeks)

Readings representing a wide variety of prose styles include but are not limited to: One Hundred Great Essays

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Stephen S. Hall “The Troubled Life of Boys” Marge Piercy. “BarbieDoll”

Essays by Alistair Highet, M. G. Lord, Anna Quindlen, Christine Rosen, and Jane Smiley.

“The Four Idols” by Francis Bacon (A World of Ideas)

“Nonmoral Nature” by Stephen Jay Gould (A World of Ideas)

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

“Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society” by Mary Wollstonecraft (A World of Ideas)

“Shakespeare’s Sister” by Virginia Woolf (A World of Ideas)

“Black Women: Shaping Feminist Theory” by bell hooks (A World of Ideas)

“Visual Arguments,” Chapter 15 in Everything’s an Argument

“Fallacies of Argument,” Chapter 19 in Everything’s an Argument.

Writing

Continue to develop argumentative structures: causal argument, argument of proposal, rhetorical analysis and visual arguments in essays of 750 to 1,000 words.

Writer’s Notebook – determine progress from information of personal writing notes Writing Workshops –

Timed Writings

During the third and fourth quarters, complete timed essays working with the reflective essay, students complete the 2002AP English Language and Composition Exam free-response question on an excerpt from Virginia Woolf’s memoirs; for pre-twentieth-century essayists, complete the 2004 exam question on Lord Chesterfield’s letter to his son; and complete the question from the 2003 exam comparing and contrasting Dillard’s and Audubon’s styles.

GRADING GUIDELINES: (know the score)

STANDARDS BASED GRADING: Grades are based on Educational Learning Objectives (ELOs) and Advanced Placement

Standards – College Board

STANDARDS

PERFORMANCE/SKILLS NUMERIC SCALE SEMESTER GRADE

Distinguished 90 – 100 95

Advanced 89 – 80 85

Minimum 79 – 70 75

Below Standards 69 and below 69 and below

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CATEGORIES FOR GRADING/EVALUATION CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION

I. Reading (16th c. to 21st c.) Reading (16th c. to 21st c.)

a) Experience of literature a) width and depth

b) Interpretation of literature b) analysis/assessment

c) Evaluation of literature c) quality of conclusions

2. Writing Writing‐holistic AP criteria used for

Exams (see samples)

a) Understand a) response / reaction

b) Explain b) analysis / interpretation

1. Language

2. Structure

c) Evaluate c) evaluate (judge‐explain) analysis, Interpretation, argument

a. Artistry

b. Social and cultural values

d) Synthesis / Create d) bring together‐

a.information

b.experience

Create something new

PURPOSE: Students concentrate on learning (knowledge and skills) rather than on numbers.

All work is due on the designated date; students are responsible for their own assignments. Students absent on a day an assignment is due must hand in the assignment on the day they return to school. Make provisions for make-up work before classes begin or during homeroom. If absent from class, first check with Web CT and other students; if the assignment is still not understood, check with the teacher before class, after class, during lunch or during Academic Advisory. All assignments will be completed.

Do not attempt to clarify missing assignments during a class activity. Note:

Students are held responsible for their personal hand‐held electronic devices – both for the safety of the

device and for the content accessed by students. The Teacher of this course is not responsible either for

the safety of student’s personal property or the content selected by students although use will be

monitored.

This will be a good year!

_________________________________ _________________________________

Jacqueline Pederson Harry Goette, Principal

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I have received and read the Standards Based Grading policy for English IV CP, AP, Dual enrollment students.

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Print Student’s name

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Parent name Date