AP Language and Composition

Course Description
Prerequisite for AP:      Honors Composition and Literature or teacher recommendation. 
Major Texts:                 The Language of Composition -  Shea

Supplements:                The Oxford Book of Essays; Current Issues and Enduring Questions; The Prose Reader; One Hundred Great Essays; Everything’s An Argument; A World of Ideas; English Language and Composition Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis; Advanced Composition Skills; Nickled and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America; Invisible Man; various journalism, advertising, and political cartoons.Advanced Placement Language and Composition prepares students with necessary, critical tools for the written explication and analysis of great works of rhetoric from a variety of eras, genres, and cultures.  As well, students practice the art of rhetoric by creating original compositions using rhetorical and literary strategies.  The class moves thematically through various examples of rhetoric through close reading, discussion, analysis, argument, and synthesis.  The culminating event of this course is a successful completion of the Advanced Placement exam at the end of the year. 

Form
While addressing concerns of form and style, students will engage texts based around three central themes.  These themes include the following: the concept of “Self” and the construction of identity, personality, and the factors socially, culturally, biologically, psychologically, etc., which play a part in “Self” as a construction or as pre-determined; illusion, reality, and perception and the presentation in literature of these through the use of character, dramatic point of view, etc.; ethics vs. morality, justice culturally, spiritually, politically, and historically as represented through the plight of men and women throughout the ages.

Content
Reading for the class will be broken into thematically relevant groupings of nonfiction, short stories, poems, and novels.  Students will be asked to be on the lookout for relevant materials (primarily poetry) and awarded bonus points for sharing insights and unseen works with the class.
 
Work
Each week the readings will include reading guide questions, in-class Socratic discussion, AP style prompt writing, and current event/editorial work.

Socratic Discussions: Students are evaluated based on their participation in each discussion.  Further, the grade they receive will reflect whether or not each comment they make is A= affirmative of a previous point, C=collaborating (adding support to a previously stated premise) or R=rhetorical.  Each student’s score will reflect the quality of their critical thinking and the “risk” in thought they are willing to take.

AP-Style Prompt Writing: Students will complete a timed essay response questions focusing on analysis, argument, and synthesis, the three essays which comprise the essay portion of the AP Language and Composition Exam.  Students will work in peer groups to review essays.  One of these essays will be chosen for each student, each week, to hand in for formal evaluation.  These essays will be graded for their use of appropriate structure and for their adherence to the prompt.  (In accordance with class policy, all writing may be re-submitted for grade advancement.)

Group Projects/Presentations:  Group projects will be demonstrative of specific content of a given text and determined by the group.  The group will distribute the project work amongst the members and design the rubric, with teacher approval, detailing the goals of the group.  Projects themes will be distributed amongst the class as a whole and be the product of whole-class input. 

Quizzes/Exams: Scheduled tests and unscheduled reading quizzes will be given regularly, particularly during near the end of a thematic.  These quizzes will cover content as well as themes presented in class lecture, and during discussion.  Exams will be in the form of the AP essay question(s) and graded on the same system of scoring as outlined above for AP-style essays.

Formal Essays: Formal essays, graded using our schools version of the NWREL six-trait rubric, will be assigned for every major work and for at least one poem per quarter.  Essays must be in MLA format and be clean of errors in conventions.  At least two comparative-analysis essays will be assigned during the course of the year.  All essays may be re-written, along with a letter of revision, for advancement in grade.

Grading:
Essays                                      40%
Class work/Homework           20% (includes Socratic discussions)
Quizzes/Exams                         40%

Grade Scale:
90%-100%      A
80%-89%        B
70%-79%        C
60%-69%        D
0%-59%          F