The Wright Way:
A.P. Language and Composition—Portable 903
According to the College Board, which administers both the A.P. Exams and the S.A.T., A.P. Language and Composition should “be the equivalent to the introductory year of college composition work.” (Collegeboard.com). Thus, this course will focuse on 1) close reading and analysis and 2) crafting a well-supported argument.
In our school district, the junior year focuses on American writers. Thus, our course will focus primarily, though not exclusively, on American writers, with a particular emphasis on American nonfiction.
Communication Information
PHONE: (253) 804-5154, extension 7903
The best time to call is before 8:00, after 2:35, or during my planning period. Please leave a message if I am not able to answer the phone. In addition, I will contact you via phone if you son or daughter’s grade falls below a 70% for each grade reporting period.
EMAIL: or through my teacher webpage on the ARHS website
Regularly emails do not make it to me (I have no idea why). If you do not receive a reply within one school day, please assume the message did not make it through and call me.
ONLINE GRADES: Skyward Family Access
I regularly update online grades. If you do not have access to the grades and online information, please contact the registrar.
A.P. Language Course Goals
Everything we do will relate specifically to one of the following curricular goals.
Students will be able to . . .
· Read, understand and articulate the content, context, and purpose of a work.
· Analyze how the writer uses rhetorical strategies within a work.
· Explain how and why a writer’s strategies influence a text’s purpose, meaning, and effect.
· Understand and articulate multiple perspectives on a topic, and in relation to these positions explain their own thinking.
· Understand, evaluate, and use evidence or sources to illustrate and to support their reasoning.
· Make thoughtful rhetorical choices to support a written argument.
Secret Formula for Success
You will find this class challenging. Students who succeed will . . .
□ Regularly participate in class discussion and activities.
□ Budget their time. Don’t wait until the last minute to do assignments.
□ Persist. You will have to read a work more than once to understand its ideas. You will have to rewrite essays before they effectively convey your thoughts.
□ Get help when necessary.
□ Organize themselves. (Save everything this year!)
□ Create a study groups in case they miss school, need extra help, or want to play x-box.
The A.P. Language Exam
Students can earn Advanced Placement Language and Composition credit for the course. The class readings, discussions, and writing assignments will prepare the students for the test. The test is administered in May at a cost of $79. Financial assistance is available to help defray the cost of the test.
The AP test is three hours and fifteen minutes long and consists of two sections.
The first section consists of 45-60 multiple choice questions, and is worth approximately 45% of the overall grade.
The second section includes three essay prompts. One essay will require the students to read, analyze, and synthesize multiple sources in a cohesive argumentation essay, and the other two essays may ask the students to create an argument or analyze and evaluate a nonfiction selection.
Why would students want to take the test? If a score of 3-5 is earned (out of 5), the student may receive college credit depending on which university he or she attends. Also, every year students say the experience of taking the test was valuable. The exam results also provide me with a valuable assessment of my teaching.
Please know, however, that we do not consider this course a “test prep” class. Our primary concern is that you are challenged in the same ways that freshmen are challenged in a rigorous introductory year of college composition course work.
Course Readings
The course bibliography is as follows:
· A.P. Language Readings/Assignment Packet: You will receive a several hundred page packet with readings, essays, notes, and assignments. Do not lose it! You will be charged for additional copies.
· Scanlon, Larry, Renee H. Shea and Robin Dissin Aufses. The Language of Composition. Bedford, St. Martins, Boston: 2008.
· Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. 1953. Ballantine Books: New York, 1987.
· Douglass, Frederick. A Narrative of Frederick Douglass, a Slave. 1845. Dover Publications: New York, 1995. Print. (COST: $1.50)
· Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing. W.W. Norton & Company, New York: 2010.
· Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. 1939. Penguin Classics: New York, 2006. Print
· Two independent reading books: You will choose your selection from a reading list, and will read and discuss your books in a reading group.
Some of our readings will engage the students in discussions of mature topics. As A.P. Language is a college-level course, we expect students to be able to respectfully to read about and to engage in conversation on controversial topics.
Materials You Will Need
You will need the following for the class:
□ A 1.5 inch binder for your course readings
□ 2-4 highlighters of different colors
□ #2 pencils
□ Blue or black ball-point ink pens
□ A second binder at home for storing graded assignments & essays
Writing Assignments: What can you expect?
Most of our writing assignments will fall into one of two categories: process papers and timed writes. We’ve explained below the processes we will use for each to help you succeed with each type of writing.
PROCESS ESSAYS
1. Careful analysis of the prompt and readings (if applicable)
2. Class discussions, Socratic seminars, or small group discussions
3. Presentation of essay models We’ll look at and discuss the merits/problems of various essays on the topic that we’ve collected over the years.
4. Pre-writing: journaling, cluster mapping, outlining, charts, or questions (This is where you’ll begin to map out a meaningful response to the prompt)
5. Drafting (You’ll always complete this stage at home, and this is where you’ll put your ideas into cohesive written work.)
6. Peer revision and/or teacher writing conferences
7. Final draft (I will always provide generous feedback on your essays; this usually includes brief verbal feedback.)
8. General class feedback: We always provide 2-3 examples of excellent essays before returning your final drafts
9. Corrections assignment/revised final draft: If you earn a 7 or above, you only have to respond to my feedback via a journal entry stapled to the top of your essay. Essays earning a 6 or less should be rewritten using teacher feedback
TIMED WRITES:
1. Analysis of prompt
2. Whole class discussion
3. Independent pre-writing (homework: writer’s choice of method)
4. Draft in class (timed write)
5. Class feedback / debrief
6. Explanation of rubric
7. Multiple anchor essays (high to low scoring), with discussions—whole class, small groups, partners--on the merits and areas needing work of each. At this point, we will address such issues as the writer’s organization, use of evidence, explanations and generalizations, tone, voice, methods of emphasis, transitions, word choice, and use of syntax.
8. Self-evaluation of timed write, with specific comments regarding writer’s strengths and weaknesses.
9. Peer evaluations of timed write, with specific comments regarding writer’s strengths and weaknesses.
10. Teacher score with brief written or verbal comments.
11. Rewrites of timed writes can be optional, required, or not allowed depending on the assignment; I require one-on-one conferences during office hours prior to rewrites so each student knows exactly what to revise and edit. During these conferences, we’ll focus on one or two areas for you to focus on, such as organization, etc
First Semester Curriculum
INTRODUCTION TO RHETORIC: Ancient & Modern, Fiction & Nonfiction
Readings:
□ Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
□ “Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Misinterpreted”
□ “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato
Skills:
ü Read, understand and articulate the content, context, and purpose of a work.
ü Analyze how the writer uses rhetorical strategies within a work.
ü Explain how and why a writer’s strategies influence a text’s purpose, meaning, and effect.
Assignments:
□ Imitative writing and reflection (Bradbury)
□ Summer reading journal
□ “Great ideas” or thematic group notes
LANGUAGE: How does language reveal who we are?
Readings:
□ “Mother Tongue” (Amy Tan)
□ “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” (Gloria Anzaldua)
□ “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood) (Richard Rodriguez)
o Chapter 2 of They Say, I Say
□ PUNCTUATION: “In Praise of the Humble Comma” (Pico Ayer)
Skills:
ü Read, understand and articulate the content, context, and purpose of a work.
ü Analyze how the writer uses rhetorical strategies within a work.
ü Explain how and why a writer’s strategies influence a text’s purpose, meaning, and effect.
ü Understand and articulate multiple perspectives on a topic.
ü Understand, evaluate, and use evidence or sources to illustrate reasoning.
Assignments
□ Journal assignments
□ Word choice/diction/figurative language/levels of diction analysis
□ Summary of Anzaldua using sentence frames
□ TIMED WRITE: Baldwin quote from 1995 exam in relation to Anzaldua, Rodriguez, and Tan.
POLITICS: What is the nature of the relationship between the citizen and the community?
Readings:
□ National Guard advertisement
Puritans
□ From “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (Jonathon Edwards)
The American Revolution
□ From “Speech to the Virginia Convention” (Patrick Henry)
□ The Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson)
o Washington Crossing the Delaware (painting: NEH great works project)
o Washington portrait (painting: NEH great works project)
Women’s Rights
□ “Declaration of Resolutions and Sentiments” (Elizabeth Cady Stanton)
□ “Aren’t I a Woman?” (Sojourner Truth)
Non-Violent Resistance
□ “Civil Disobedience” (Henry David Thoreau)
o TIMED WRITE: “Is Government by the Majority Right?” (Frederick Douglass)
□ “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)
o “Public Statement by Eight Alabama Clergymen”
Abraham Lincoln
□ “The Gettysburg Address” (Abraham Lincoln) from 50 Short Essays
□ “The Second Inaugural Address” by Abraham Lincoln
o Lincoln Photography (Alexander Gardner)
Imaginative Writing: Whitman & Dickinson
Walt Whitman
□ “I Hear America” & “I, Too, Am America” (Hughes)
□ “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”
□ Selections from “Song of Myself”
□ “O Captain! My Captain!”
Emily Dickinson
□ Because I Could Not Stop for Death
□ We Grow Accustomed to the Dark
□ The Bustle in a House
□ I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died
□ Others TBD
Skills:
ü Read, understand and articulate the content, context, and purpose of a work.
ü Analyze how the writer uses rhetorical strategies within a work.
ü Explain how and why a writer’s strategies influence a text’s purpose, meaning, and effect.
ü Understand and articulate multiple perspectives on a topic.
ü Understand, evaluate, and use evidence or sources to illustrate and to support their reasoning.
ü Make thoughtful rhetorical choices to support a written argument.
Assignments:
□ Journal assignments
□ Analysis: National Guard ad (paragraph)
□ Analysis: Patrick Henry’s “Speech to the Virginia Convention” (paragraph)
□ Analysis: Declaration of Independence (unfolding of the text approach)
□ Analysis: “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (exploring the connection among textual surface features, the appeals, and larger structure/argument)
□ Timed write on “Second Inaugural Address”
Independent Reading Book #1
Reading choices (subject to change):
□ It’s Not About the Bike (Lance Armstrong & Sally Jenkins)
□ Into Thin Air: A Personal Memoir about the Mount Everest Disaster (Jon Krakauer)
□ Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions (Ben Mezrich)
□ Freakanomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Steven Levitt and Stephen Dunbar)
□ Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (Barbara Ehrenreich)
□ The Glass Castle (Jeanette Walls)
□ The Soloist (Steve Lopez)
□ The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Amy Chua)
□ Look Me In the Eye: My Life With Asperger’s (John Elder Robison)
□ The Outliers (Malcolm Gladwell)
Skills:
ü Read, understand and articulate the content, context, and purpose of a work.
ü Analyze how the writer uses rhetorical strategies within a work.
ü Explain how and why a writer’s strategies influence a text’s purpose, meaning, and effect.
ü Understand and articulate multiple perspectives on a topic.
ü Understand, evaluate, and use evidence or sources to illustrate and to support their reasoning.
ü Make thoughtful rhetorical choices to support a written argument.
Assignments:
□ 4-5 reading quizzes
□ Notes from small group discussions
□ TWIST analysis
□ Essay presenting the book’s argument, then defending/challenging/qualifying the argument using evidence from your reading, experience, or observation.
INTRODUCTION TO SYNTHESIS
Readings:
□ 2009 & 2010 Synthesis Questions
□ Student anchors
□ 5-6 articles on a topic (to be selected by students)
Skills:
ü Read, understand and articulate the content, context, and purpose of a work.
ü Understand and articulate multiple perspectives on a topic.
ü Understand, evaluate, and use evidence or sources to illustrate and to support reasoning.
ü Make thoughtful rhetorical choices to support a written argument.
Assignments:
□ Graphic organizer for synthesis
□ Process paper
□ Timed write on chosen topic
FREEDOM (Frederick Douglass, Jacob Lawrence, & Langston Hughes): How do we define freedom?
Readings:
□ The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, a Slave
□ Frederick Douglass series, Jacob Lawrence
□ Poetry of Langston Hughes (“I, Too” and others)
□ “Bop” (Langston Hughes)
Skills:
ü Read, understand and articulate the content, context, and purpose of a work.
ü Analyze how the writer uses rhetorical strategies within a work.
ü Explain how and why a writer’s strategies influence a text’s purpose, meaning, and effect.
ü Understand, evaluate, and use evidence or sources to support reasoning.