Idea Transcript
AP LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION (ENGLISH III) St. Martin High School Instructor: Mrs. Rachele Moran Course Description This is a semester-long 11th grade merged study of composition, American literature, argumentation, critical reading, and rhetorical analysis. The literature component is a chronological overview of American literature, building on analytical skills students have been developing throughout high school. The language and writing component of the course trains students to analyze prose style and rhetoric; and to write effective analytical, persuasive, and document-based essays. Students are expected to read critically, think analytically, and communicate clearly both in writing and speech. We will work within the framework of American literature; therefore, the AP students may read many of the same literary texts as classmates in regular English III, but in greater depth, and will encounter other texts, mainly nonfiction, written in a variety of modes, genres, and contexts. Students will become increasingly comfortable working with purpose, audience, and rhetorical strategies. We will also study the rhetoric of visual media such as music videos, comic strips, advertisements, films, and photographs. The College Board outlines the following curricular requirements for a course to be designated as “AP English Language and Composition”: C1. The course teaches and requires students to write in several forms (e.g., narrative, expository, analytical, and argumentative essays) about a variety of subjects. C2. The course requires students to write essays that proceed through several stages or drafts, with revision aided by teacher and peers. C3. The course requires students to write in informal contexts (e.g., journal keeping, collaborative writing, and in-class responses) designed to help them become increasingly aware of themselves as writers and of the techniques employed by the writers they read. C4. The course requires expository, analytical, and argumentative writing assignments that are based on readings representing a wide variety of prose styles and genres. C5. The course requires nonfiction readings (e.g., essays, journalism, political writing, autobiographies/biographies, diaries, history, and criticism) that are selected to give students opportunities to identify and explain an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques. When fiction and poetry are assigned, their main purpose should be to help students understand how various effects are achieved by writers’ linguistic and rhetorical choices. C6. The course teaches students to analyze how graphics and visual images both relate to written texts and serve as alternative forms of text themselves. C7. The course teaches such research skills as the ability to evaluate, use, and cite primary and secondary sources. The course assigns projects such as the researched argument paper, which goes beyond the parameters of a traditional research paper by asking students to present an argument of their own that includes the analysis and synthesis of ideas from an array of sources. C8. The course teaches students how to cite sources using a recognized editorial style (e.g., Modern Language Association, The Chicago Manual of Style). C9. The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students’ writing assignments, both before and after students revise their work, that helps the students develop these skills: a.
A wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively
b. c. d. e.
A variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination Logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis A balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail An effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, an achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure.
**College Board course expectations and activities have been labeled (in parentheses) according to these numbered expectations. These course expectations have been designed with the AP English Course Description in mind.
Course Organization Each unit requires students to acquire and use advanced vocabulary, to use standard English grammar, and to understand the importance of diction and syntax in a passage. (C9a) Therefore, students are expected to develop the following: • a wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively; (C9a) • a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination; (C9b) • logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis; (C9c) • a balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail; (C9d) and • an effective use of rhetoric including tone, voice, diction, and syntax. (C9e) Course Objectives The objectives for this course are in compliance with those outlined in the current AP English Course Description. • Reflectively respond to a range of fiction and nonfiction passages by analyzing, summarizing, and interpreting the text. (C5) • Research and compose for a variety of purposes. (C2,4,7,8) • Recognize the cultural context of language. (C5) • Apply writing, speaking, reading, and listening skills in completing independent projects. (C1,4,5,6,7,8) • Gain familiarity with the types of questions and expectations for answers on the AP Language and Composition exam. (C9a, 9e) Assessments Reading quizzes that check for understanding of meaning and strategies (C9) Vocabulary quizzes derived from the readings as well as the Sadlier Oxford program (C9a) Grammar checks from units involving syntax and structure (C9a,b) Objective tests on each unit (C4) Writing assignments (C1,2,4,7,8) Group presentations (C2,9) Class discussions (C1,5,6,9) Sample AP Language and Composition Exams (C1,4,5,6,7,9) Exams at the end of each term to reflect cumulative knowledge and to mirror the AP exam
Grading Scale In compliance with Jackson County School Board policy, grades for this course will be assigned as follows.
A B C D F
90-100 80-89 70-79 65-69 Below 65
The student’s average will be derived from the following: Tests………………………………20% Quizzes……………………………15% Compositions/Practice tests……….15% Homework/Classwork…………….15% Research Paper…..………………..15% Exam………………………………20%
Statement on Plagiarism Plagiarism is the use of words, facts, ideas, or opinions of someone else without a specific acknowledgement of their source. It is the attempt –deliberate or unintentional—to pass off as one’s own what in fact has been borrowed. It is likely that students will be using printed or oral sources when they write for this course; to fail to indicate that one has used such sources and/or to fail to identify them constitutes plagiarism. COURSE PLANNER Dialectical Reading Notebook Students will keep a Dialectical Reading Notebook throughout the course. Dialectic means “the art or practice of arriving at the truth by using conversation involving question and answer.” What they will do in the journal is dialogue with themselves, writing down their thoughts, questions, insights, and ideas while they read. This is not a diary; it is rather an important means by which students will develop a better understanding of the texts they read. It is the place where the students will incorporate the ideas discussed in class, their own ideas about literature and the specific texts they study, and their relationship with those texts. A successful journal includes the following: detailed, meaningful passages; plot and quote selections; thoughtful interpretation and commentary about the text which avoids clichés; comments about literary elements such as diction, imagery, syntax and how these elements contribute to the meaning of the text; insightful personal connections; thought-provoking, insightful questions; and coverage of text which is complete and thorough. Vocabulary Vocabulary will be addressed in both reading selections and in student writing. Word study will be supplemented using the Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop program, Level F. Weekly assessments will be given for each unit. Bellwork Students will encounter a mini-lesson each day in diction, detail, imagery, syntax, and tone from Nancy Dean’s Voice Lessons. The lessons will be due each Friday and will constitute a daily grade for the week. Outside Reading As most of the works we will cover in class will be nonfiction pieces, students will be required to read many of the fiction works assigned independently outside of class. Student reading will be evaluated using questions modeled off of AP prompts, particularly those concerning style.
Elements of Writing The writing handbook On Writing Well will be used to review with students the previously introduced elements of tone, diction and syntax, as well as to increase their awareness of the proliferation of clutter in modern writing. To further improve the quality of their writing, students will identify and use phrases and subordinate clauses in sentence imitation exercises. They will also practice loose, periodic, and cumulative sentence patterns. In subsequent writing assignments, students will receive feedback on their sentence structure and variety from the instructor and from their peers and will be given opportunities for revision on both graded and ungraded assignments. The text, Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing, will be used to instruct students on the elements of the rhetorical triangle of speaker, audience, and purpose, along with appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos. Exercises from the text will reinforce these skills. Multiple Choice One to three AP multiple choice passages will be assigned each month, including the sample passage which requires students to answer questions drawn from citations and footnotes. Students will read a passage and answer the questions under simulated test conditions. The exercise will be scored and returned to the student. Students will then be required to work with fellow students to correct incorrect responses, indicating why their response was incorrect and why the correct response is a better choice. Unit One Readings and Assignments This unit will be devoted to distinguishing author’s purpose in a variety of modes. Students will begin to analyze stylistic devices, such as diction, imagery, syntax, and tone, and will determine how those aspects of a piece reflect author’s purpose. Students will be required to annotate these pieces in their dialectical journals and will compose analysis essays for at least two of the selections. A third essay will be an attempt to mirror the chronological style of a narrative from this unit. The major paper of this term will require students to juxtapose several works from this unit in an analysis of authors’ use of diction, imagery, style, syntax, and tone to establish purpose. The readings for this term are as follows: William Bradford’s “Of Plymouth Plantation,” Anne Bradstreet’s “Upon the Burning of Our House, 1066,” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband,” Mary Rowlandson’s “Narrative of the Captivity,” Olaudah Equiano’s “The Very Interesting Narrative of theLife of Olaudah Equiano,” Christopher Columbus’s “Journal of the First Voyage to America,” Cabeza de Vaca’s “A Journey through Texas,” John Smith’s “The General History of Virginia,” William Byrd’s “History of the Dividing Line,” Jonathan Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” Queen Elizabeth’s “Farewell to Diana” speech, the Earl of Spencer’s “Eulogy for Princess Diana,” Interwoven in this unit are also several visual images in which students will distinguish and explicate the speakers’ use of rhetorical elements. Among these are ads from magazines and billboards, commercials, and film clips. Students will utilize Joliffe’s rhetorical analysis as a tool to evaluate these pieces. A thorough discussion and analysis of students’ summer reading project, Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, will mark both the beginning and ending of this unit. During the opening days of school, students will complete a multiple choice exam and two essay questions for the novel, one in-class response and one takehome response. At the conclusion of this unit, students’ essays will be returned with annotations from the teacher, and the students will be required to make revisions and resubmit these essays. Revised essays should reflect growth in commentary about author’s purpose as revealed through the use of diction, imagery, style, syntax, and tone. Unit Two Readings and Assignments Within this unit, students will begin to explore argumentation. The readings of this unit will engage students in the art of persuasion. Students will be required to identify the rhetorical elements of each piece as well as explicate their role in the effectiveness of the argument. Students will submit two essays of analysis, and this unit will culminate in a major paper in which students will juxtapose at least two of the works from this term in an analysis of effective argumentation in each. Students will also compose a short piece in which they mirror the author of their choosing from this unit. The readings for this unit are as follows: Benjamin Franklin’s “The Autobiography,”and “Poor Richard’s Almanac,” Robert Fulgham’s “All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” Thomas Jefferson’s “Autobiography,” and The Declaration of Independence, Thomas Paine’s “The Crisis, Number 1,” Patrick Henry’s “Speech in the Virginia Convention,” Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff,” John F. Kennedy’s
“Inaugural Address,” Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” USA Today’s “Lawyer’s Leave Poor Behind,” Robert Weiner’s “Pro Bono Work Still Valued,” George W. Bush’s “9/11 Address,” Franklin D. Roosevelt’s post Pearl Harbor attack “Petition to Wage War on Japan,” General Hester’s address to his troops on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and Cam Fine’s “Main Street America— Awakening a Sleeping Giant.” In addition to these pieces, students will also study chapters one and two of Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis, in which they will encounter the means to analyze classic and modern approaches to argument. As practice for the utilization of the rhetorical devices used in argumentation, students will evaluate ads both individually and in groups for effectiveness and identification of fallacies. Students will work in small groups to create ads of their own which reflect rhetorical strategies and are fallacy free. Students will also view a series of ads for their analysis, and will compose an analytical essay juxtaposing these ads and their effectiveness. Unit Three Readings and Assignments The focus of this unit will remain on argumentation, with an introduction to the synthesis essay. Students will explore the methods of argumentation with the establishment of ethos, logos, and pathos within works. The unit will culminate with a trial run of a synthesis essay. The essay will be annotated by the instructor and the students will have the opportunity for revision. The readings for this unit are as follows: Abigail Adams’s “Letter to Her Daughter from the New White House,” Jean deCrevecouer’s “Letters from and American Farmer,” Phyllis Wheatley’s “To His Excellency General Washington,” and “An Hymn to the Evening,” from Alex Hayley’s Roots, Norman Rockwell’s painting, Freedom of Speech, Stephen Vincent Benet’s “A Creed for Americans,” and Robert Tristram Coffin’s “America Was Schoolmasters.” Students will also read the chapters on the synthesis essay from several texts including David Joliffe’s “Preparing for the 2007 Synthesis Question: Six Moves Towards Success.” Unit Four Readings and Assignments By this time, students should be adept at distinguishing purpose and elements of argument within works of non-fiction. The focus of this unit will be to identify these same elements within fictional works as well. Students will encounter pieces of fiction as well as commentaries of non-fiction written by the same authors. This is also a study of the Romantic literary movement in literature, which is a reflection of evolution in the writing that Americans produced. Works to be read during this unit are as follows: Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker,” and “Rip Van Winkle,” from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Raven,” and “The Philosophy of Composition,” several poems from the Fireside Poets including the works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Cullen Bryant, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier, an in-depth study of the Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Minister’s Black Veil,” as well as a recap of Romantic elements in The Scarlet Letter, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans, as well as from Notions of the Americans (The Literature and the Arts of the United States, from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s works including Nature and Self-Reliance, as well as from Henry David Thoreau’s works Walden and Civil Disobedience. Among the nonfiction readings that reflect the Romantic movement are Meriwether Lewis’s “Crossing the Great Divide,” and John Wesley Powell’s “The Most Sublime Spectacle on Earth,” as well as from the more modern Seeing the Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and from The Writing Life by Annie Dillard. In addition to these readings, students will be asked to produce modern examples that reflect Romantic characteristics, such as Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” and other environmental pieces, and yes, even the Batman series. Students will submit an analysis juxtaposing a work of their choice from the unit with a work of their choice from a more modern period that reflects Romantic elements. This paper will be the product of a thorough look into the writing process. Students will prewrite, share, draft, share, revise, submit, receive feedback from the instructor, revise and resubmit. Unit Five Readings and Assignments This unit will reinforce students’ analysis skills as they explore differences in author’s purpose and tone. Most of the readings for this unit reflect the movement of Realism and include the following: Ambrose
Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Stephen Crane’s “The Mystery of Heroism,” from Frederick Douglass’s My Bondage and My Freedom, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” and “Desiree’s Baby,” Willa Cather’s “A Wagner Matinee,” Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the influence of the newsmedia, Abraham Lincoln’s “The Gettysburg Address,” “Second Inaugural Address,” and Emancipation Proclamation, Robert E. Lee’s “Letter to His Son,” from Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, Warren Lee Gross’s “Reflections of a Private,” Stonewall Jackson’s “An Account of the Battle of Bull Run,” Randolph McKim’s “A Confederate Account of the Battle of Gettysburg,” from Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi and Connecticut Yankee, from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, Miriam Davis Colt’s “Heading West,” and Chief Joseph’s “I Will Fight No More Forever.” In addition to these pieces, students will analyze more modern reflections of this movement through Sojurner Truth’s “ An Account of an Experience with Discriminiation,” Molly Moore’s “Gulf War Journal” from A Woman at War, from Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and from President Obama’s “Inauguration Speech,” and “Commemoration of the NAACP.” Unit Six Readings and Assignments The focus of this unit will be on the analysis of the effectiveness of author’s voice. The pieces of this unit feature writers from a modern era. Students will be learning to construct a critical review. Students will review music and art as well as literature. The art review will reinforce student preparation for the graphic element of the synthesis question. The review, a critical evaluation of a text, event, object, or phenomenon, must make an argument. The most important element of the review is that it is a commentary, not merely a summary. The student must enter into dialogue and discussion with the work’s creator and with other audiences. Among the works to be read for this unit are the following: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Edward Purinton’s “Big Ideas from Big Business,” T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Ezra Pound’s “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste,” “The Turtle,” from John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, as well as from Travels with Charley, Ernest Hemingway’s “In Another Country,” as well as from “On Writing,” Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path,” and from “On Becoming a Writer,” Katherine Anne Porter’s “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” from Sherwood Anderson’s newspaper columns, William Faulkner’s “Race at Morning,” and his Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, poems by Robert Frost, James Thurber’s “The Night the Ghost Got In,” from E.B. White’s Here Is New York, from Zora Neale Hurston’s Dust Tracks on a Road, Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” as well as from “The Fiction Writer and His Country,” from N. Scott Momaday’s The Names, Ian Frazier’s “Coyote v. Acme,” Sandra Cisneros’s “Straw into Gold: The Metamorphosis of the Everyday,” Rita Dove’s “For the Love of Books,” Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue,” Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Authur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and from On Social Plays (a critical commentary), Tennessee Williams’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Nicholas Sparks’s A Walk to Remember. Unit Seven Readings and Assignments The focus point of this unit will be the evolution of American English. Students will explore the nuances of the language as it has evolved within the scope of literature. Students will analyze linguistic changes that have occurred in America. Among the readings for this unit are the following pieces: Richard Lederer’s “The Development of American English: Our Native American Heritage,” Noah Webster and the American Language,” “The Truth about O.K.,” “Mark Twain and the American Language,” “Slang as It Is Slung,” and “Brave New Words,” “Newspeak” from Orwell’s 1984, and several pieces from Richard Lederer’s Crazy English. Unit Eight Readings and Assignments Ideally, students will be adept at analyzing and constructing argument at this point in the course. In preparation of the AP exam, students will hone their skills with practices from Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis. Students will engage in multiple writing assignments, both peer edited and teacher annotated. Students will revise an essay of their choosing to reflect a change in audience and another to reflect a change in purpose. Students will evaluate speeches which establish the same purpose that come from different speakers. The Comparative Essay: Students will read “Civil Disobedience” and “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” They will complete a prewriting guide which develops the similarities and differences of the positions
taken in both essays. Students will develop an original argument on which of these two essays is the more successful argument and why. They must cite the essays for support. Students will create a preliminary draft which will be brought to class for peer review. Students will submit a final draft in correct MLA format. The Researched Argument: Using “Six Steps for Success” by David Joliffe discussed in class, students will write a researched argument which will be developed over several weeks. After doing preliminary research, students will select a novel from the required list and develop a research question. They will submit their question. The teacher will conference with the students and indicate approval. Following the research process, students will be required to select a minimum of four sources to cite in their argument. Students will complete an outline and typed draft of their argument which will be brought to class for peer review. Students will also conference about their draft individually with the teacher. Students will turn in their final draft, along with a copy of every resource used. The student must include a works cited page in MLA format. Speed “Dating” Students will receive a prompt. They will have five minutes to get acquainted with it. They will examine its meaning and decide how to make conversation with it for a pre-write. They do not actually have to write the essay; just flirt with the concepts, brainstorming and listing what they would do if they had to spend forty minutes, a serious commitment in terms of AP dating/ writing. At the end of five minutes, the teacher will call time and they will pass the prompt on to the next student, receiving a new one in turn. After twenty-five minutes, time will be called and responses will be assessed. Teacher Resources and Course Texts Beach, Thomas, Gilmary Beagle, Daniel J. Ebert, and Brigid O’Donoghue. Honors American Lterature, 2nd ed. The Center for Learning, 2001. Brassil, John, Sandra Coker, and Carl Glover. Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis. Saddle Brook: Peoples Education, 2008. Dean, Nancy. Voice Lessons. Gainsville: Mauphin House, 2000. Dietsch, Betty M. Reasoning and Writing Well, 5th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2009. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Hacker, Diana. A Writer’s Reference, 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter. Joliffe, David. “Preparing for the 2007 Synthesis Question: Six Moves Toward Success.” Laskin, David. A Common Life. Hanover: University Press of New England, 1994. Lederer, Richard. Crazy English. New York: Pocket Books, 1989. Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. Miller, George. The Prentice Hall Reader, 9th edition. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2010. Murphy, Barbara L. and Estelle M. Rankin. 5 Steps to a 5, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2007. Orwell, George. 1984.
Prentice Hall Literature: The American Experience. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, Inc., 2002. Roskelly, Hephzibah, and David Joliffe. Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing. New New York: Longman. Shea, Renee H., Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Dissin Aufses. The Language of Composition. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. Shostak, Jerome. Vocabulary Workshop. New York: Sadlier-Oxford, 2005. Sparks, Nicholas. A Walk to Remember. Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. Twain, Mark. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Twain, Mark. Huckleberry Finn. Wilde, Oscar. The Importance of Being Earnest. Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Zinsser, William K. On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction. New York: Harper and Row.