AP Lang abridged syllabus (15)

Grade 11 AP English Language and Composition: ENG 3UI

2015-2016

Overview

Enduring Understandings of AP English Language and Composition

It is important to establish and understand how to develop one's own written and spoken voice.

A strong and unique voice is developed by exploring ideas, by developing those ideas orally, in writing, and through various media, and by sharing them in various forms.

All communication has an audience, and the message and its form should be chosen with audience and purpose in mind.

It is important to read critically: to question motives, authenticity, and purpose of the pieces we read, in all their forms.

To participate fully in our society, we must understand, appreciate, and be able to use rhetoric in all its forms (written, oral, visual), and for its various purposes.

Pre-requisite: Grade 10 Advanced English (ENG2D)

Class meeting times: 75-minute periods every other day, full-year

Total instructional time: 110 hours

This enriched course, designed to help sharpen close reading skills and to develop the student’s ability to compose university-level prose, both meets the Ministry of Education requirements at this grade level, and prepares students to write the English Language and Composition Advanced Placement exam in May. The four strands in the government-mandated English curriculum, Oral Communication, Literature Studies and Reading, Writing, and Media Studies, are addressed.  As do their counterparts in ENG3U, students will read some imaginative literature to satisfy the ENG3U requirements for reading imaginative literature; however, the focus in ENG3UI (AP) for such texts is instead on rhetoric, argumentation, and ideas for synthesis. Students will also encounter a significant number of non-fiction texts written in a variety of modes, genres, and contexts. Students will become increasingly comfortable working with purpose, audience, and rhetorical strategies and increasingly skillful in their own use of the English language.

As an equivalent to a first-year university course, AP Language and Composition requires a commitment to independent learning and strong study skills. The focus in this course is on becoming a critical thinker and a “citizen rhetor” – an individual aware of the world around her and capable of communicating her ideas about it strongly and purposefully.

All students are expected to write the AP English Language and Composition exam. A Mock AP exam in early May counts as the course’s final exam and serves as preparation for the real exam later in May. There is no June final exam for this course.

Bibliography

Students read the following over the summer:

Thank You For Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion by Jay Heinrichs (Chapters 1-13)

On Writing by Stephen King

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

THREE EDITORIALS/COMMENTARIES/ESSAYS FROM NEWSPAPERS OR MAGAZINES 

Course Materials

 All students purchase and use copies of the following texts:

Graff, Gerald, Cathy Birkenstein, and Russell Durst. They Say / I Say: The Moves that Matter in Persuasive Writing. W.W.Norton, 2009.

Hacker, Diana. A Pocket Style Manual. most recent ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Heinrichs, Jay. Thank You For Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion. (2nd ed., 2014)

Orwell, George. 1984. (any edition)

One choice of: Feed (Anderson); Fahrenheit 451 (Bradbury); The Circle (Eggers); When She Woke (Jordan)

Students may also be assigned one or more additional short or full-length texts (fiction and/or non-fiction) and/or documentary films for independent or class study to coincide with author visits, independent reading projects, etc., as time allows.

Students may be provided with selections from sources such as the following:

Dean, Nancy. Voice Lessons. Gainesville: Maupin House, 2000.

Losh, Elizabeth, Jonathan Alexander, Kevin Cannon, Zander Cannon. Understanding Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2014.

Lunsford, Andrea A. and John J. Ruszkiewicz. Everything’s An Argument. 3e. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.

Roskelly, Hephzibah and David Jolliffe. Everyday Use. United States: Pearson Education, Inc., 2005.

Shea, Renee, Lawrence Scanlon and Robin Dissin Aufses. The Language of Composition. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008.

Released AP Language and Composition exams and other exam material available on AP Central (open questions, student exemplars, etc.).

Online Writing Lab at Purdue University

Various other online sources as needed and available, including released exam materials from AP Central

The College Board outlines the following curricular requirements for a course to be designated as “AP English Language and Composition”:

1. The course teaches and requires students to write in several forms (e.g., narrative, expository, analytical, and argumentative essays) about a variety of subjects (e.g., public policies, popular culture, personal experiences).

2. The course requires students to write essays that proceed through several stages or drafts, with revision aided by teacher and peers.

3. The course requires students to write in informal contexts (e.g., imitation exercises, journal keeping, collaborative writing, in-class responses) designed to help them become increasingly aware of themselves as writers and of the techniques employed by the writers they read.

4. The course requires expository, analytical, and argumentative writing assignments based on readings representing a wide variety of prose styles and genres.

5. The course requires nonfiction readings (e.g., essays, journalism, political writing, science writing, nature writing, autobiographies/biographies, diaries, history, criticism) that give students opportunities to identify and explain an author's use of rhetorical strategies and techniques. If fiction and poetry are also assigned, their main purpose should be to help students understand how various effects are achieved by writers' rhetorical choices. (Note: The College Board does not mandate any particular authors or reading list.)

6. The course teaches students to analyze how graphics and visual images both relate to written texts and serve as alternative forms of text themselves.

7. The course teaches research skills, and in particular, the ability to evaluate, use, and cite primary and secondary sources. The course assigns projects such as the researched argument paper, which asks students to present an argument of their own that includes the analysis and synthesis of ideas from an array of sources.

8. The course teaches students how to cite sources using a recognized editorial style guide (e.g., MLA Style Manual, The Chicago Manual of Style.)

9. The AP teacher provides instruction and feedback on students' writing assignments, both before and after the students revise their work, to help the students develop the following skills:

   1. Control of a wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively

   2. Mastery of a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination

   3. Logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis

   4. A balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail

   5. Effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure 

In the Unit Outlines that follow, College Board course expectations and activities have been labeled (in parentheses) according to these numbered expectations. These course expectations have been designed with the most recent AP English Course Description in mind.

UNIT 1 – Me, Myself, and Language (September-mid-October)

Unit essential question: How do speakers and writers use different means to create their voices?

Unit Focus: Essays and Modes of Writing; Close Reading; Use of Detail

This unit focuses on non-fiction forms of expression and writing as a process of reasoning, with an emphasis on the intricate connection between language choices and meaning, and on the different forms that essays may take. Students learn to work orally (in discussion) and in writing to identify, analyze, and emulate organizational, stylistic, and rhetorical strategies within the various texts studied. Writing tasks aim to help students hone their own skills in expository and narrative writing.

UNIT 2 – The Speaker and the Message (October – January)

Unit essential questions: How does understanding the tools used by effective writers and speakers inform our own communication?

Unit Focus: Rhetorical Analysis

Through textual analysis, students explore the ways in which language is used effectively in non-fiction and in public discourse, with a focus on principles of rhetoric and methods of persuasion. Essays, speeches (historical, contemporary), visuals, and other non-fiction texts introduce students to the ways in which strong communicators appeal to their audiences, and the ways in which they tailor their approaches to achieve their purposes. After analyzing  the surface and underlying arguments in the satire of Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, they will create their own "Modest Proposals" using the techniques they have observed and an introduction to scholarly research.

UNIT 3 – Entering the Conversation (January – March)

Unit essential question: How do we use effective reasoning and persuasion to define issues for discussion and to propose and evaluate approaches and possible solutions? 

Unit Focus: Analyzing and Creating Arguments

Students will examine ideas of public discourse, framed around a study of dystopic novels, starting with Orwell's 1984. In studying dystopia as social satire, they will develop arguments about the text itself and the ways in which its seminal concepts are reflected in contemporary society. Orwell’s critique of power and language provides an opportunity to discuss a variety of issues in student-run discussion circles based around choices of additional dystopic novels, and to argue in writing such topics as: the role of media outlets in framing our awareness as individuals and as citizens; personal and collective responsibility; the impact of technology on the human experience; the nature of knowledge and its impact on society. Examinations of logic and fallacy help students become more confident in their own argumentation skills as they write persuasive speeches and deliver their work orally, and as they transfer those skills to written arguments.

Depending on time and the opportunities offered during a given year, students may also prepare for a visiting Canadian author workshop by reading and completing work inspired by the reading of selected works by that author.

UNIT 4 – The “Citizen Rhetor” (April – June)

Unit essential question: How does a responsible use of critical thinking and rhetorical strategies help us understand and engage with our local and global communities?

Unit Focus: Current Issues in the Media; Research and Synthesis; Civic Engagement

Students compile materials for a researched argument that evaluates and synthesizes information about a self-chosen topic. They will focus on how the topic’s recent coverage fits into a larger personal, historical, societal, and media context, with a goal of using their own voices to take an informed and supported position as part of the larger conversation on the topic. Students will be encouraged to draw on a wide variety of textual forms, including newspapers and periodicals, longer non-fiction texts, visual material such as charts, graphs, and political cartoons, film and television, and social media. Evaluation of sources for relevance, reliability, usefulness, and interaction with their own views and the views of others will be a major focus of class study and independent work. The topic-in-context study will lead to the final evaluation in May/June, following their practice AP exam in April and the external AP exam in May.