11 AP Language and Composition

Fall 2015 - Spring 2016

Mr. Miller (kmiller@csh.k12.ny.us – 631-367-6919)

Course Description: The AP Language and Composition exam in May is our primary objective. This exam focuses on non-fiction writing and how authors use rhetorical devices to argue and persuade. Therefore, we will be reading a wide variety of essays, articles, and memoirs to develop analytical skills and a working knowledge of rhetorical terms. Additionally, students will be taking the NYS English Common Core Regents exam in June. We’ll be reading several works of fiction to prepare students for certain tasks on the Regents. The fiction will also help to acquaint students with the concept of literature as argument and will create a forum and opportunity to connect and dissect related non-fiction pieces in continued training for the AP exam.

Grading:

Homework and Classwork (25%): All homework must be completed before arriving to class. Absent students are responsible for the assignment. Homework will be graded on content (what you say) and execution (how you say it) with a check (100) for complete homework and a check minus (65) for incomplete or limited homework. Missing homeworks receive a 0. Student has one day to make up the homework for a 65. If not, it remains a 0. A student who receives a high classwork grade will consistently and respectfully participate in class discussions and exercises and will come to each class with all required materials. Students need a separate binder for English, containing the following six (6) sections: Fiction, Non-fiction, Rhetoric, Writing, Miscellaneous, and Words and two separate folders.

Journal and Columnist Study (25%): Students will bring a bound journal (with the student’s name and “11AP English” on the cover) with them to every class and will be responding to questions and prompts, which will encourage them to think deeply about the relationship between language and our world (all entries must be dated). Additionally, to adapt to the AP exam’s tendency to include current issues in the essay questions and to provide an opportunity for independent rhetorical analysis and argument generation, students will be following a different national columnist (to be given shortly) to read and respond to weekly in their journals.

Essays, Projects, and Presentations (25%): These in-class and out-of-class assignments will be given throughout the year and are designed to prepare students for the writing tasks on the Regents and the AP exam. There will also be optional extra-credit assignments (TBA shortly).

Tests and Quizzes (25%): Students will be tested on literature, rhetorical and argumentative terms and vocabulary (WOTD). AP multiple choice quizzes will be given frequently to gradually familiarize students with the format, methods and language of the exam.

Books We Will Be Using This Year:

Fiction:

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, The Crucible by Arthur Miller,

Non-Fiction:

The Best American Essays of the Century edited by Joyce Carol Oates, The Language of Composition edited by Renee Shea, Lawrence Scanlon and Robin Aufses, Selected essays