AP Language and Composition
Mr. Simmins
simmins_c@fairfieldcityschools.com
Embedded Files
Dear Parents,
Welcome to the Google Sites' page for AP Language and Composition. During the course of this school year, your student will prepare to take and pass the College Board AP Language and Composition exam in May. The class utilizes not only Google Sites but also No Red Ink, accessed via Clever, and Google Classroom along with Collegeboard's online account for AP testing preparation.
Above this letter, there is a link to my school email. Fee free to contact me anytime for any reason. You can also contact me via your Parent Square account. Below, you will see my phone number and the class Instagram page (purely for fun),. If you would like access to Google Classroom, I have provided the class code: es2p6ye
Here is also the invite to Google Classroom if the code is not enough: https://classroom.google.com/c/MTQ4NjI1NTI0NTcx?cjc=es2p6ye
Further down the page (bellow Socrates and Plato), you will find the class curriculum along with class rules. The top of this page has a scroll bar that will allow you to see all that will be explored this year.
As for myself, I have been a member of the Fairfield faculty since 2002. I have been teaching advanced English language arts for much of that time. AP Language and Composition achieved very good scores three of the last four years. 2025 saw the biggest AP Language Class ever: 155; this is almost a 50% increase from 2024. Where many schools restrict the number in AP Language students by requiring a certain GPA, Fairfield has an open door policy. Many students are attempting an AP class for the first time; therefore, a 71% pass rate is a huge win for Fairfield High School.
In 2023, Fairfield's 69.2% pass rate was nearly 6% better than the rest of Ohio and 13% better than the world. Furthermore, last year's 2022 test scores saw Fairfield students pass the AP Language and Composition test at a 65% rate which is a 10% higher rate than the global average. Traditionally, Fairfield has beaten the global average. When looking forward to your child's senior year, AP Literature and Composition regularly passes the exam at a higher rate; this means college credits gained and tuition money saved.
I look forward to leading that journey with your students this year.
Again, feel free to contact me for anything.
Corey L Simmins
July 2025
2023 AP Language Scores
2022 AP Language Scores
Advanced Placement English Language and Composition
Mr. Simmins (2025 - 2026)
Instagram: Transcendental_teacher
Email: simmins_c@fairfieldcityschools.com
Phone: 513-942-2999 Ext 512
How-to instructions for Google Classroom:
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See what happens when you practice what Whitman, Thoreau, and Emerson preached
English Department
Plagiarism Policy
In order to combat the plagiarism that has become a growing concern in the English department, the following rules are hereby proposed and to be followed by the entire department. This also includes using AI programs to write assignments.
1. Any copying of homework/classwork will result in an automatic zero, followed by a detention.
2. Any plagiarism of any writing assignment will result in a zero, with the following options for redemption:
a. The writing assignment can be rewritten in extended detention
b. The writing assignment can be rewritten in Saturday School
c. The writing assignment CANNOT be rewritten in In-School Detentions (ISDs)
d. The writing assignment CANNOT be rewritten at home
e. The maximum grade achievable on the rewritten assignment will be a 64 percent
f. If the rewritten assignment proves to be plagiarized, then the student will receive a zero with no chance to resubmit a third assignment, plus receive another discipline referral
g. If student submits another plagiarized assignment during the same school year, the student will receive a discipline referral with no possibility of submitting a rewritten submission
3. All members of the department will follow the procedure set forth in this policy. Students will receive discipline every time they submit plagiarized work.
4. Advanced Standing College English for Cincinnati State: Any plagiarism will result in an automatic zero with no possibility for recovering the grade. Furthermore, the student could be recommended for expulsion from the program.
STUDENT SIGNATURE: _______________________________________________________
STUDENT PRINTED NAME: ____________________________________________________
PARENT/GUARDIAN SIGNATURE: ______________________________________________
PARENT/GUARDIAN PRINTED NAME: _________________________________________
An AP English Language and Composition course cultivates the reading and writing skills that students need for college success and for intellectually responsible civic engagement. The course guides students in becoming curious, critical, and responsive readers of diverse texts and becoming flexible, reflective writers of texts addressed to diverse audiences for diverse purposes. The reading and writing students do in the course should deepen and expand their understanding of how written language functions rhetorically: to communicate writers' intentions and elicit readers' responses in particular situations.
An AP English Language and Composition course cultivates the reading and writing skills that students need for college success and for intellectually responsible civic engagement. The course guides students in becoming curious, critical, and responsive readers of diverse texts and becoming flexible, reflective writers of texts addressed to diverse audiences for diverse purposes. The reading and writing students do in the course should deepen and expand their understanding of how written language functions rhetorically: to communicate writers' intentions and elicit readers' responses in particular situations.
Class Modeled around four (4) essential threads
Class Modeled around four (4) essential threads
RHETORICAL SITUATION (RHS)
Enduring Understanding (RHS-1): Individuals write within a particular situation and make strategic writing choices based on that situation.
CLAIMS AND EVIDENCE (CLE)
Enduring Understanding CLE-1: Writers make claims about subjects, rely on evidence that supports the reasoning that justifies the claim, and often acknowledge or respond to other, possibly opposing, arguments.
REASONING AND ORGANIZATION (REO)
Enduring Understanding REO-1: Writers guide understanding of a text's lines of reasoning and claims through that text's organization and integration of evidence.
STYLE (STL)
Enduring Understanding STL-1: The rhetorical situation informs the strategic stylistic choices that writers make.
WARNING
WARNING
CONTROVERSIAL TEXTUAL CONTENT
CONTROVERSIAL TEXTUAL CONTENT
Issues that might, from particular social, historical, or cultural viewpoints, be considered controversial, including references to ethnicities, nationalities, religions, races, dialects, gender, or class, may be addressed in texts that are appropriate for the AP English Language and Composition course. Fair representation of issues and peoples may occasionally include controversial material. Since AP students have chosen a program that directly involves them in college level work, participation in this course depends on a level of maturity consistent with the age of high school students who have engaged in thoughtful analyses of a variety of texts.
This is a millennial FALSEHOOD. Destroy your phone.
SYLLABUS (Revised 2025)
Parental/Student Introduction: This class explores mainly American authors along with their impression of the world during their time, and the direction they feared it may be heading. This class follows the guidelines of the College Board which administers the Advanced Placement Language and Composition Exam. Furthermore, the class will work in chronological order and be matched up to A.P. Government whenever possible. Another benefit, the non-fiction nature of the course will help prepare students for A.P. U.S. History. It is the goal of the Advanced Placement teachers to get students through the following humanity courses by graduation: AP World, AP Language, AP Government, AP Literature, and AP US History. Students who pass three A.P. exams will be recognized as A.P. Scholars by College Board.
AP Language vs Honors English: The majority of the students placed in A.P. Language were placed due to PSAT or PACT scores from the previous year. The goal of the class is to prepare, take, and pass the A.P. Language exam in May; furthermore, the curriculum has been revised to align with A.P. U.S. History with hopes of improving not only the understanding of what it means to be an American, but to increase every student's chance of passing both exams (AP Language in junior year; AP History and AP Literature in senior year). Also, AP Language does not mean MORE work than Honors; it means different work than Honors. Honors will follow a traditional curriculum in preparation for either AP Literature, Cincinnati State College English, or a senior elective. The object of AP Language and Composition is to take and pass the AP Language exam, study and prepare for the PSAT in pursuit of National Merit Honors, excel on the ACT, achieve status as an AP Scholar, and then proceed to AP Literature. AP Language and Composition will also explore the art of rhetoric and the history of the English language.
Course Description: This Advanced Placement Course follows the national guidelines set down by College Board and developed by the Fairfield English Department. The class will work closely with A.P. U.S. history and A.P. Government instructors in hopes of finding overlap and common ground in order to benefit students taking multiple AP courses; furthermore, the course works to vertically align itself with the senior level AP Literature and Composition.
Material Needed: Fairfield is one-to-one. Bring your computers to school; we use them daily.
PHONES: Banned in the classroom.
Grading System: The class has a simple point system. There will be reading quizzes, participation grades, vocabulary tests, and essays. Students will receive 3-5 grades per week; attendance is vital. Parents! Your student will have his/her grades posted on-line daily. You can follow his/her progress constantly. Feel free to email me anytime concerning anything.
Discipline: Electronics and tardy issues will be covered in the rules.
Parental Contact: I have an email address and a class web page. My email is open on my desktop all day. If you are concerned about your child I encourage email, and if the internet is unavailable feel free to send a note or give me a phone call. Email is the most convenient, for both parties do not have to be available at the same time to communicate. My students always know their grades. I believe the parent and the student should always know where they stand. Also, feel free to join Google Classroom and get regular updates of assignments.
Scope of Material: See the syllabus posted below.
Classroom Procedure: Being a course that prepares students to pass a college test, this class will push the student to excel in writing, rhetoric, and reasoning.
Literary Canon (I hope to provide all novels) :
Literary Canon (I hope to provide all novels) :
*18th Century and back*
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift
Founding Fathers Documents
Dr. Samuel Johnson
*19th Century*
Walden - Henry David Thoreau
Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman
Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau
Self-Reliance - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bartleby, the Scrivener - Herman Melville
*20th Century*
Brave New World (full text) - Aldous Huxley
On the Road (excerpt) - Jack Kerouac
1984 (full text)- George Orwell
The Sun Also Rises (full text) - Ernest Hemingway
Autobiography of Malcolm X (excerpt) - Alex Haley
Angela's Ashes (excerpt) - Frank McCourt
The Glass Menagerie (full text) - Tennessee Williams
Into the Wild (full text) - John Krakauer
Travels with Charlie (excerpt) - John Steinbeck
Various Speeches - Winston Churchill
Of Mice and Men (full text) - John Steinbeck
*21st Century*
Various Pieces (see page) - Thomson Reader
Ameritopia 2075 - Corey L. Simmins (for those who dare!)
Book of LOFI - Corey L. Simmins (for those who dare!)
Warning!: In the process of developing literature’s greatest class, saving the world, solving Earth’s problems, becoming a mountain climber and pseudo astronomer, composing novels, and maintaining my secret identity, I sometimes have a mental lapse between my frontal lobe and typing hand. Any typo must be construed as purposeful, a faux pas, or God’s will. I am partial to the latter.
CLASS RULES FOR MR. SIMMINS (Revised 2025)
Class will consist of the following:
A) Close Reading Students are expected to "close read" nearly every article given to them throughout the course of the school year. Also, each student receives a novel that will be "close read." This skill is indispensable for college success and critical for comprehension. Grades are given frequently in an attempt to master this skill.
B) Essays There are three major essays for AP Language. All three styles that are represented on the AP Language exam will be administered during the school year: Synthesis, Rhetorical Analysis, and Argument.
C) Participation Grade Quite frequently participation grades will be given, such as: when watching an educational film, taking notes through lecture or PowerPoint presentation, or reading in class. Unauthorized phone usage will earn a zero. This grade is generally weekly or bi-weekly; it factors in restroom breaks, tardies, locker passes, and engagement in class activity.
D) Quizzes Quizzes will usually be given after material is read in class or read at home. All quizzes will be scheduled. This includes vocabulary and reading quizzes. Any phone usage during a quiz will result in a zero--no matter if the student has finished (see Electronic Devices section).
E) Tests All tests are announced and cover all the material discussed in class-especially material presented upon the Smartboard. Tests consist of fill in the blanks, multiple choice, open-ended questions, open-response, and essays. Any phone usage during a test will result in a zero--no matter if the student has finished. Many tests are "formative" in nature and scores are curved (see Electronic Devices section).
F) ELECTRONIC DEVICES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cell phones can be in one of five places during class: (1) The phone pouch with your corresponding number (since they are now banned in the classroom), (2) your locker under your heaviest textbook, (3) buried in your purse or backpack under a cinder block hopefully crushing the screen, (4) at home floating face down (or up for that matter) in a jar of battery acid; or (5) finally, the bottom of the sea, Crater Lake, or deposited in an active volcano (your choice).
Places the cell phone will NOT be: your hand, your pocket, your desk. If I see it, it is mine. This same rule applies to ear buds and head phones. You can be a digital zombie the other 23 hours of the day. Learn to disconnect. It is for your own health.
Don't just take my word for it; trust the science:
Also, here is a book that explores the destructive nature of the smart phone:
https://www.amazon.com/Glow-Kids-Screen-Addiction-Hijacking/dp/1250097991
My Policy on.......
1) Make up work: If you are absent, it will be your responsibility to find out what we did during your absence. If there was an assignment given, ask me for the assignment. Rules for make up work are the same as the school rules in the agenda. Feel free to email or @ me on Instagram when out sick.
2) Missing a quiz or a test: If you are absent during a quiz or test, you will be expected to make up the quiz or test when you return. It will be your responsibility to ask to make up the quiz or test.
3) Handing in assignments: I will not accept late assignments. If you do not have your assignments with you when it is due, it will be counted as a zero. An assignment handed in at the end of the day will be counted as a half credit. Hall passes to one’s locker to get an assignment will not be given. If you are absent the day of the assignment, it will be due the next day the class meets.
4) Grades: All grades given are based on points. All points are simply added up, and then divided by the maximum number. Tests, quizzes and papers are worth the most.
5) Extra Credit: A minimum of extra credit is given. Usually, extra credit is spontaneous.
6) Cheating: Cheating, such as copying homework, looking at another student’s paper during a test or quiz, using a “cheat sheet,” giving answers to other students, plagiarism, including sharing homework with one another, will result in a zero for the students involved.
7) Tardies: Any time a student is late for class it will be recorded in the teacher’s log. Students lose participation points for every tardy. Habitual tardiness will be dealt with using discipline. Tardiness is defined as not being in the room when the bell rings.
8) Disrespectfulness: Any actions such as profanity or any other form of disrespectfulness to the teacher or fellow student will result in being held after class, immediate disciplinary referral, or sent to the principal--depending on the severity of the act. Sleeping applies here!
9) Restroom Breaks: When it comes to restroom breaks, I am aware that at times one must be granted a pass during class. Time out of class will be tracked and regulated through Smart Pass.
10) Sleeping: There is no sleeping in class. Sleeping is defined as putting one’s head down on the desk with or without the eyes open. You can not focus lying down. This is Advanced Placement; therefore, this rule should be superfluous.
11) Purses: All purses are to be located on the floor under the chair or desk (away from the computers please).
12) Computers: These computers are EGGS; treat them like eggs. Students around the world WISH they had a personal computer. Be good to it.
13) Needed for class:
a) We use school issued emails attached to the student's identification number.
b) We use Google Classroom.
c) We use Parent Square and Instagram for class also.
Following Whitman, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Emerson, McCandless and the rest..........
Following Whitman, Kerouac, Steinbeck, Emerson, McCandless and the rest..........
"Simplify, simplify." This command by Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau could be the most important verb for the 21st century. Pay close attention to America's first philosophers; their words mean more now to the modern teen than they could have ever possibly imagined.
"Simplify, simplify." This command by Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau could be the most important verb for the 21st century. Pay close attention to America's first philosophers; their words mean more now to the modern teen than they could have ever possibly imagined.
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road" opens above with a positive philosophy on how an American should take to the road on a trip and on the road of life.
Walt Whitman's "Song of the Open Road" opens above with a positive philosophy on how an American should take to the road on a trip and on the road of life.
Yes, class will focus on rhetoric, the dreaded AP Language Exam, historical movements of culture, and the evolution of language and communication; however, the pieces are intended to direct you into becoming an introspective thinker and comfortable in your own skin.
Yes, class will focus on rhetoric, the dreaded AP Language Exam, historical movements of culture, and the evolution of language and communication; however, the pieces are intended to direct you into becoming an introspective thinker and comfortable in your own skin.
"Maw, rustle me up some grub afore I have to start eatin myself raw or some damn silly idee like that. And thow some beans in it." It was the Spirit of the West sitting right next to me.
These words written by Jack Kerouac in On the Road inspired me to try this dish in Kansas served in a hole-in-the-wall diner in Hays, Kansas. It is a cheeseburger smothered in Texas chili.
Kerouac, though a lost soul, experienced the road with the same spirit as Walt Whitman; tragically for him, Jack Kerouac couldn't appreciate the beans and burger without the drugs. Breathe in the positive experiences of life!
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.
12c0c7bbf2c64e30a45dd4a9aef6f1b1t.mp4Lesson Plans
Lesson Plans
AP Language and Composition
AP Language and Composition
General Overview of Course
General Overview of Course
AP Language and Composition
2022 Framework
Understanding Identity
Probable Readings listed (but are not limited to the following):
Unit One: The Art of Rhetoric and Summer Reading
Readings: Thomson Reader, Old Man and the Sea, Brave New World
Activities: Summer Reading Seminars
Activities: Outlining Chapters 1-3 of Thomson Reader.
Documentaries: Frontline: The Facebook Dilemma
Unit Two: Linguistic Identity
Readings: Brief History of the English Language
Readings: Essays spanning centuries about concerns over eroding of English Language
Activities: Based upon lectures and small, guided research
Unit Three: Enlightened Identity
Readings: Jonathan Swift, Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry, Jean de Crevecoeur, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton
Activities: Close-reading, small group discussion, and practice upon College Board suggested skills listed below.
Unit Four: American Identity
Readings: Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, John Steinbeck (Travels with Charley), Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scriviner”, On the Road by Jack Kerouac
Activities: Close-reading, small group discussion, and practice upon College Board suggested skills listed below.
Unit Five: Sexual Identity
Readings: Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Bharati Mukherjee, Ranjani Nellore, Bobbie Ann Mason
Activities: Close-reading, small group discussion, and practice upon College Board suggested skills listed below.
Unit Six: Racial Identity
Readings: Malcolm X (Autobiography), Richard Wright, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Henry Louis Gates, Frederick Douglass
Activities: Close-reading, small group discussion, and practice upon College Board suggested skills listed below.
Unit Seven: Political Identity
Readings: George Orwell, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Martin Luther King Jr., Wilfred Owen, Siegfreid Sassoon, Mahatma Gandhi, Mario Cuomo, Robert F. Kennedy
Activities: Close-reading, small group discussion, and practice upon College Board suggested skills listed below.
Unit Eight: Intellectual Identity
Readings: National Geographic, Time Magazine, Frontline
Activities: Close-reading, small group discussion, and practice upon College Board suggested skills listed below.
Unity Nine: Personal Identity
Readings: Into the Wild by John Krakauer and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Activities: Close-reading, small group discussion, and practice upon College Board suggested skills listed below.
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