AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

SYLLABUS

 

Instructor: Poole

Room: B205

E-mail: bdpoole@okcps.org  

Website: www.oocities.org/vpaenglish

 

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

 

This course is designed to provide students with the tools of effective and critical thinking, reading, and writing skills they will need to be successful in all their college courses.  The syllabus reflects a careful study of the College Board’s publications about AP English Language/Composition, which then is crafted to fit our junior students who are Visual and Performing Arts Majors, and who want to have more of a challenge in their high school experience as well as to have the opportunity to test out of basic freshman composition with their AP scores.  The course is organized according to the requirements and guidelines of the current AP Course English Course Description.  Through close reading of prose from the 17-21st Centuries, covering biography and autobiography and memoir, essays, speeches, letters, as well as selected works of fiction and drama, the students will be guided through all  aspects of style analysis, of posing an argument and then supporting that position.  We will study all aspects of the synthesis essay, which requires a new literacy, that of the rhetoric of visual media such as photographs, films, advertisements (both print and TV), comic strips, and music videos, as well as charts, graphs, maps, etc. 

 

ASSESSMENTS:

 

The course grade is cumulative per the semester according to district policy. The categories of assignments and their weights are:

 

Timed Writings: 40%.  (It is estimated that the three timed essays that comprise the written portion of the AP test comprises about half of a student’s final grade. Therefore, participation and effort in the practice essays we do must be heavily weighted and emphasized. I estimate we can complete and grade about 6 of these timed writings per semester)

 

Quizzes/Typed Bibliographies and/or Papers: 20%

 

Journals/Circle Discussions/Outlines/Other Written Assignments: 20%

 

Group Projects/Individual Presentations: 20%

 

COURSE PLANNER:

 

The year’s study is designed around developing mastery of different rhetorical skills, and progresses systematically through the year, building the students’ understanding of the elements of effective communication both in writing and speaking. Students who succeed on the AP test are generally well-rounded, aware, educated and responsible citizens. Communicating the importance of this is one of the major objectives of this course.

 

COURSE PREREQUISITES:

 

This teacher prefers to have students who have successfully completed Pre-AP 10, or have the endorsement and approval of their English 10 teacher, a counselor’s recommendation, and high test scores in reading and writing.  Students who have not had Pre-AP classes should talk to the teacher and demonstrate an understanding of the demands of the AP course and their willingness to do the required work.

 

COURSE REWARDS:

 

In addition to fostering the kinds of thinking, reading, and writing skills which prepare them for college, students will take the AP Lang/Comp exam in May, and earn college credit if they are successful.  Graduates who have been through our AP program tell us that this particular course is the one that best prepared them for college, in all areas.

 

LITERATURE:

 

The primary thrust of the AP LANG test is lower level research skills and critical thinking and writing. Therefore, all classroom activities should encourage students to be aware of the world around them, increase their general knowledge of it, and communicate their ideas about it. Therefore, a majority of the reading the course requires will be non-fiction, autobiography, memoir, and essays from the American tradition. Fiction and poetry will be used very sparingly.

 

SUMMER READING:

 

The purpose of the summer reading and writing assignments is to keep students actively engaged with the kinds of reading and writing they will be expected to do all year, and to prepare them for some specific kinds of focusing by completing assessments that accompany that reading. This year, our students were expected to read Black Boy by Richard Wright and complete an accompanying open-book test.

 

PRIMARY TEXTS:

 

Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing, AP Edition. Roskelly and Jolliffe, 2005

The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric. Shea, Scanlon, and Aufses, 2008.

 

SECONDARY TEXTS MAY INCLUDE:

 

Elie Wiesel – Night

            Zlata Gilipovic – Zlata’s Diary

            The Freedom Writers Diary

            Frederick Douglass --The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

            Martin Luther King, Jr. – Why We Can’t Wait

            Ayn Rand – The Fountainhead (preparation for national essay contest in April)

            50 Essays: A Portable Anthology, Samuel Cohen, ed., 2004

            Elements of Literature, 5th Course and 6th Course

            Patterns of Exposition (Several editions on hand)

            The Norton Sampler, 3rd Ed., ed. Thomas Cooley, 1985      

            Writing Research Papers – McDougal Littell, 2001

            Frames of Mind: A Rhetorical Reader with Occasions for Writing. Eds. DiYanni and Hoy, 2005

            Self-Reliance and Other Essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1993

            Civil Disobedience and Other Essays, Henry David Thoreau, 1993

            Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass, 1995

            Hiroshima, John Hersey

            The Jungle, Upton Sinclair.