Welcome to AP English Language and Composition/UCONN Honors Eng 1010: Seminar in Academic Writing
Ms. Schmidt 526-5328 x2414
or
Prep, after school by appointment
“My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written
to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see.
That—and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find
there, according to your desserts, encouragement, consolation, fear,
charms, all that you demand—and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth
for which you have forgotten to ask.” Joseph Conrad
Paramount to me, as your teacher of writing, is helping you produce lively, fresh, flinty, clear writing which demonstrates deep understanding of your subject. K. Schmidt
Note: This syllabus is intended as a guide. The course will be adjusted according to interest and ability.
This course is designed to meet standards articulated in the AP English Language and Composition Course description designed by the College Board as well as requirements laid forth by the University of Connecticut Early College Experience. Students examine and interpret expository, narrative, and persuasive prose from interdisciplinary, nonfiction readings of many time periods. Students will identify and explain rhetorical strategies and techniques, apply these techniques to their own writing, and synthesize sources to create and sustain analytical arguments. Timed AP free response writing and multiple choice practice, oral presentations incorporating technology, and AP vocabulary are included. Students are required to take the AP test in English Language and Composition.
Emphasis is on Socratic seminar skills and peer conferencing. Students should expect to revise papers many times and keep a writer’s notebook for shorter, exploratory writings. The goal is student mastery of generalization and use of specific, illustrative detail. We also study the relationship between visual media and rhetoric, analyzing how graphics and images relate to text and serve as text. In an effort to expand the writing audience and reinforce the notion of writing in community, students will also be required to regularly check and contribute to www.vrhsroom414.wikispaces.com and www.edmodo.com/wordsmithtutor.
Since this is a college course, far fewer items are graded than in a traditional high school class and therefore each counts more. Late assignments lose a full letter grade per day late. Extensions will be granted only if I am consulted within a timely manner. If you are absent, you must meet deadlines and gather missed work due upon your return via the wikispace, edmodo or from friends.
Course Requirements: extensive reading, writing and rewriting
· summer readings and writings
· Socratic seminar discussion on readings and written student work
· a series of process essays (many begun in class and most revised multiple times) including narrative, expository, analytical, argumentative, interpretive and response papers with particular attention to diction, syntax and grammar
· daily shorter writings kept in a writer’s notebook (minimum of 1 entry per week)
· frequent, repeated peer and teacher consultation (1:1 and group) on multiple drafts
· a minimum of 50+ pages in portfolio format of revised expository prose demonstrating complex organization, sophisticated vocabulary choices and grammatical constructions, and extended argument
· MLA format
· mastery of essential literary vocabulary (weekly quizzes) and grammar
Materials needed in class everyday:
· 3 ring binder
· writer’s notebook
· flash drive or “jump” drive
· assigned readings with annotations
Texts:
Thank You For Arguing, Jay Heinrichs
Peterson’s Master AP English Language and Composition
Various non-fiction articles, speeches, essays, memoirs, etc., as detailed in the syllabus
Various handouts culled from current events and publications including newspapers,
academic journals, magazines, and the internet
Various photos, cartoons, and video clips as relevant to units of study, readings, and
student writing
Assessment and Grading:
Grades will vary among number grades on scales from 0 to 100, holistic scaled scores (like AP essays) of 0 to 9, to pure commentary on rough drafts to non-graded daily writing. The English Department Literary Analysis rubric or school wide reading, writing and speaking rubrics may be used sparingly; most college courses do not use rubrics. I will regularly assess performance and progress as evidenced by papers “workshopped” in Socratic seminar and/or handed in, in-class tasks, quizzes, exams, timed practice, and participation in discussion. Individual and group conferencing will take place frequently both in person (in class, after school) and via e-mail.
Quarter Grade:
75% Written work (required 50+ pages, essays, Writer’s Notebook, etc.), participation
25% Homework, quizzes
Final Course Grade:
Q1: 50% Q2: 50% Exam 1: 10% Exam 2: 10%
Students will participate in the school-wide summer reading program and additionally complete the following AP assignments (titles subject to change with relevance):
Nonfiction Required Reading:
The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing Our Brain by Nick Carr
Columbine by Dave Cullen
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (Pulitzer Prize winner)
A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell (New Yorker contributor and author)
OR
Freakonomics or SuperFreakonomics by Steven Levitt (writer for The NY Times)
Required Viewing:
Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture on www.youtube.com. At the time of his lecture, September 2007, Pausch (a Carnegie Mellon professor) was given six months to live. He had pancreatic cancer. Pausch died in August 2008. Watch Pausch deliver his lecture in its original medium at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo. This takes about one hour. I understand that viewing the lecture of a man dealing with his mortality may be difficult or hit too close to home for some of you. If that is the case, contact me for an alternative reading/writing assignment.
View The Story of Stuff at www.thestoryofstuff.com . This is about 20 minutes long.
Optional Reading:
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
These books are readily available at your local library, through interlibrary loan or iCONN (learn how to use it), or through most bookstores. I have extra copies of some—first come, first served. If you do not already possess a local library card, you should get one immediately.
Writing Asssignments:
After reading/viewing, I am asking you to complete the following writing assignments, due the first day of school, no exceptions. All assignments for this course must be typed and double spaced, Times New Roman size 12. In this college course, the expectation is that all papers are printed and collated BEFORE you arrive in class. I will not prescribe specific page lengths for these assignments because you are writing to learn and discover as you move away from “rubric thinking”. You must judge, as the writer, what is worth pursuing, is most interesting to explore, and when you have achieved deep analysis in an eloquent, artful way. These summer assignments provide me with my first glimpses of your writing ability before any course instruction has begun. You should aim to make a good first impression. If you are not interested in doing the summer work, and doing it to the best of your ability, you are taking the wrong course.
Writing Assignment 1:
Choose two of your summer readings (not The Last Lecture or The Story of Stuff) about which to write. These should not be the books you write about for assignment 3. The intellectual task of this paper is to “come to terms with” or think critically about each work. Without summarizing, discuss what you believe to be the author’s project. What ideas, central and subordinate, does the work explore? What issues drive the work and are most intriguing? Support your thoughts by quoting key words and phrases. Consider including your thoughts about how and to what extent the author’s expertise, writing style, organizational choices, and diction support or detract from his project. In other words, analyze the goals, purposes, intended audiences, and procedures (the methods) used to inform your perspective of the piece.
Writing Assignment 2:
Discuss why I assigned this entire collection of readings. Support your thoughts by quoting at least once from each work. Consider who is writing, what is being written about, and in what ways the works are written. How do these authors and their works speak to, challenge, or extend one another? Imagine Cullen reading Kidder or Pink meeting Carr for coffee to talk about Levitt’s book. How would Pink view the anecdotes included in Levitt? What would Carr think about Pink’s interactive chapters and web links? As they are speaking, Gladwell stops by with a copy of Foster’s book. How does the conversation carry on or evolve? Would any of these authors be prompted to revise or addend their original work? How so?
Writing Assignment 3:
To what extent do these texts matter? Select one of the VRHS AP English Language & Composition Summer Reading books or viewings to defend (stay) and one to challenge (slay) (not the two books you wrote about in assignment 1). In place of the challenged book, what would you substitute and why? What does your choice reveal about your family, education, race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.
You must establish, define, and explain your criteria through your interpretation.
Writing Assignment 4:
Without summarizing, write about the two books you have not discussed for assignments 1 or 3.
Writing Assignment 5:
Write your own Last Lecture. This could be in PowerPoint form or regular prose. If PowerPoint, print out the slides 3 to a page in Notes.
Writing Assignment 6:
Without summarizing, write about The Story of Stuff.
I have created a wikispace for all of my courses, but especially for APE. On it you will find required readings and many additional resources to help you be successful in the course. You are required to go to www.vrhsroom414.wikispaces.com to join the page.. The space is a living, working space and as such frequently changes. Check it out before the summer is over to view the syllabus and other salient features of the course. Check it weekly to see what’s new.
Weeks 1-3 ______Introduction to Writing Non-Fiction
Applying the Literary Elements of Rhetoric
Essential Questions:
How does non-fiction writing (and reading) differ from fiction writing (and reading)?
How do Literary Lenses (biographical, historical and cultural) help readers analyze
the written word? (critical reading through Reader Response, Marxist, Feminist,
Freudian lenses, etc.)
What is rhetoric and how is it used in different expository methods? (narration,
description, persuasion/argument, compare and contrast, classify and divide,
define, analyze process, cause/effect)
How do tropes and schemes help our understanding of what we read and strengthen our
own writing?
Why write?
Readings (virtually all readings and viewings are located on the wiki):
Orwell excerpts “Why I Write”
Schmidt “I Am a Writer Because I Write”
McMorran, Harris
Didion excerpts “On Keeping a Notebook”, “Why I Write”
Lessing “It Is the Storyteller That Will Create Us” Nobel Prize for Literature speech
Conley excerpts College Knowledge 101
Dillard “Notes for Young Writers”
Welty excerpt “One Writer’s Beginnings”
Adler “How to Mark a Book”
Bush 9/11 5th Anniversary Speech
Freire “The Banking Concept of Education” in Ways of Reading
Bader, Wahlberg, Talbot readings
Kohn From Degrading to De-Grading
Heinrichs, Ch. 1& 2 (essentially 1-2 chapters a week)
student drafts
Viewings/Visual Literacy:
Did You Know 2.0? <www.teacherstube.com>
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off “Voodoo Economics”
Father Guido Sarducci’s University and Law School <www.fathersarducci.com>
Mona Lisa Smile “History of Art” and “The New Syllabus” (big ideas, enduring
understandings and transfer)
TED Sir Ken Robinson Do Schools Kill Creativity?
Colbert Loyola Law School Grade Inflation
Don Jones 9/11 photo and caption
Taylor Mali
The Impotence of Proofreading
I’ll Fight You for the Library
What Teachers Make
Totally Like Whatever
Writings:
Major:
Summer Work Revisions
Introduction to the Writer’s Notebook (responses, reflection upon readings, current
events, pop culture, media icons and personal experiences and ideas through
various writing forms including double entry, expanded annotation)
“Why I Write” imitation personal essay
Minor:
Actor’s Studio/Proust Questionnaires
Resume
Response to movie clips
Response to 9/11 photo and anniversary speech
Response to Didion, “Your notebook will never help me, nor mine you.”
Response to D. H. Lawrence, “Education! Which of the various mes do you propose to
educate, and which do you propose to suppress?”
Response to Epictetus “Only the educated are free.”
Other:
AP practice timed multiple choice to serve as baseline
Socratic seminars emphasizing rhetorical analysis
Weeks 4-5 ______Rhetoric and the Art of Narrative:
Sensory Sensations
Essential Questions:
What are the conventions of narrative essays?
How do writers choose (diction) and use descriptive (imagery) language to vividly create
impression?
When is narrative most effective? Why?
How can annotation and close reading bring the reader to a better understanding of text?
How do graphics and visual images serve as text?
How do graphics and images work in conjunction with text?
Readings:
Orwell “A Hanging” (narration)
White “Once More to the Lake” (description)
Dillard Death of a Moth
Woolf Death of a Moth
Teacher as author Schmidt’s “Camper Days”
Murray “The Stranger in the Photo is Me” (photo essay)
Sontag excerpts “Regarding the Pain of Others”, “On Photography”
Patterson “Barriers to Seeing”
Life Magazine excerpt “The Power of Pictures”
Faigley Ch. 3, 4
Selections from NPR’s archives “This I Believe”
Heinrichs Ch. 3 & 4
sample college admissions essays
Tracy excerpt Eat that Frog!
Cat/Dog Point of View
student drafts
Viewings:
Dreamgirls “I’m Telling You” scene (voice)
Faigley Ch. 3, 4 photos/captions
Writings:
Major: White imitation (narrative description)
Murray imitation (photo essay)
College essay or personal statement (narrative)
Minor:
Respond in writer’s notebook to “We see the world, to a large extent, based on the
language habits of our community; they predispose us toward certain choices in
interpretation.” Sapir
Other:
Schmidty U
2002 Woolf (memoir) timed AP free response
2000 Dillard excerpt Holy the Firm Multiple Choice
Weeks 6-7 The Power and Precision of the Word: Expressions of