What truly makes someone successful?  Does the year—or the month—you are born really matter?  How are teachers like sumo wrestlers (other than the use of muscles: intellectual or otherwise)?  Is the American Dream dead—or is it alive and kicking?  Is it possible to be a modern day transcendentalist?  What is dumpster diving anyway, and what does it have to do with your life?  What can you do for your country?  Will serving babies for dinner really make poverty go away?  All these questions—and more—will be answered during this course, if you are brave enough to take the challenge! AP Language follows parts of the traditional American Literature curriculum; however, much of what we do involves the study of rhetoric.  What is rhetoric?  Quite simply, rhetoric is the art of speaking well; it is the art of persuasion. Think you don’t need to know how rhetoric works?  Think about the last time you asked your parents to buy you a car. (Or at least borrow theirs).  Or the time that you attempted to convince your teachers not to give you homework.  Or the moment you asked your crush to go out with you.  We use rhetoric all the time, and the more skillful you are at learning—and using—rhetoric, the more likely you can perform rhetorical jiu-jitsu on your “opponent” and will be successful in getting what you want.  As such, this course will focus on developing your analytical and writing skills.  You will work at becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts, and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes.  You will need to learn to become aware—in both writing and reading—of the interactions among a writer’s purposes, audience expectations, and subjects, as well as the way generic conventions and the resources of language contribute to the effectiveness in writing. This course is designed as a college-level English class, and as such, the course objectives are geared to prepare students for the required Advanced Placement Test in Language and Composition, which is given by the College Board in the spring.