SYLLABUS

This is an advanced English course at a college Freshman level designed for the student working above grade level who is university bound.  In addition to being an Honors level course, it also makes students eligible to gain college credit through the Advanced Placement Exam in May. Much of this syllabus comes from the College Board AP Language and Composition Course Exam Description, which can be found HERE.

COURSE OVERVIEW:

An AP English Language and Composition course cultivates the reading and writing skills that students need for college success and for intellectually responsible civic engagement. The course guides students in becoming curious, critical, and responsive readers of diverse texts, and becoming flexible, reflective writers of texts addressed to diverse audiences for diverse purposes. The reading and writing students do in the course should deepen and expand their understanding of how written language functions rhetorically: to communicate writers’ intentions and elicit readers’ responses in particular situations. The course cultivates the rhetorical understanding and use of written language by directing students’ attention to writer/reader interactions in their reading and writing of various formal and informal genres (e.g., memos, letters, advertisements, political satires, personal narratives, scientific arguments, cultural critiques, research reports).

Reading and writing activities in the course also deepen students’ knowledge and control of formal conventions of written language (e.g., vocabulary, diction, syntax, spelling, punctuation, paragraphing, genre). The course helps students understand that formal conventions of the English language in its many written and spoken dialects are historically, culturally, and socially produced; that the use of these conventions may intentionally or unintentionally contribute to the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of a piece of writing in a particular rhetorical context; and that a particular set of language conventions defines Standard Written English, the preferred dialect for academic discourse. 

CURRICULAR REQUIREMENTS:

Course content is dictated by College Board Advanced Placement requirements and includes the following: 

CR1 The course is structured by unit, theme, genre, or other organizational approach that provides opportunities to engage with the big ideas throughout the course: Rhetorical Situation, Claims and Evidence, Reasoning and Organization, and Style.

CR2 The course requires an emphasis on nonfiction readings (e.g., essays, journalism, political writing, science writing, nature writing, autobiographies/ biographies, diaries, history, criticism) that are selected to give students opportunities to identify and explain an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques.

 CR3 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills in Skill Category 1 – Rhetorical Situation (Reading): Explain how writers’ choices reflect the components of the rhetorical situation.

CR4 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills in Skill Category 2 – Rhetorical Situation (Writing): Make strategic choices in a text to address a rhetorical situation.

 CR5 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills in Skill Category 3 – Claims and Evidence (Reading): Identify and describe the claims and evidence of an argument.

 CR6 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills in Skill Category 4 – Claims and Evidence (Writing): Analyze and select evidence to develop and refine a claim.

 CR7 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills in Skill Category 5 – Reasoning and Organization (Reading): Describe the reasoning, organization, and development of an argument.

CR8 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills in Skill Category 6 – Reasoning and Organization (Writing): Use organization and commentary to illuminate the line of reasoning in an argument.

CR9 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills in Skill Category 7 – Style (Reading): Explain how writers’ stylistic choices contribute to the purpose of an argument.

CR10 The course provides opportunities for students to develop the skills in Skill Category 8 – Style (Writing): Select words and use elements of composition to advance an argument.

CR11 The course provides opportunities for students to write argumentative essays synthesizing material from a variety of sources. This, at times, will include utilizing research skills, and in particular, the ability to evaluate, use, and cite primary and secondary sources.

CR12 The course provides opportunities for students to write essays analyzing authors’ rhetorical choices.  

CR13 The course provides opportunities for students to write essays that proceed through multiple stages or drafts, including opportunities for conferring and collaborating with teacher and/or peers.

CONTROVERSIAL TEXTUAL CONTENT:

Issues that might, from particular social, historical, or cultural viewpoints, be considered controversial, including references to ethnicities, nationalities, religions, races, dialects, gender, or class, may be addressed in texts that are appropriate for the AP English Language and Composition course. Fair representation of issues and peoples may occasionally include controversial material, including current and recent politics. Since AP students have chosen a program that directly involves them in college-level work, participation in this course depends on a level of maturity consistent with the age of high school students who have engaged in thoughtful analysis of a variety of texts. The best response to controversial language or ideas in a text might well be a question about the larger meaning, purpose, or overall effect of the language or idea in context. AP students should have the maturity, skill, and will to seek the larger meaning of a text or issue through thoughtful research and discussion.

REQUIRED TEXTBOOKS (provided during registration):

Foster, Thomas C.. How to Read Nonfiction Like a Professor: A Smart, Irreverent Guide to Biography, History, Journalism, Blogs, and Everything in Between. First edition. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2020. Print.

Shea, Renée Hausmann, et al. The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric. Bedford, Freeman & Worth, 2019.