Welcome to AP English Language & Composition

AP English Language and Composition

Ms. Wahdy

Al Salam College Preparatory

swahdy@alsalamdayschool.org

Course Overview

Students in this introductory college-level course read and carefully analyze a broad and challenging range of nonfiction and fiction prose selections, deepening their awareness of rhetoric and how language works. Through close reading and frequent writing, students develop their ability to work with language and text with a greater awareness of purpose and strategy, while strengthening their own composing abilities. Course readings feature expository, analytical, personal, narrative, and argumentative texts from a variety of authors and historical contexts. Students examine and work with essays, letters, speeches, images, and imaginative literature. Students frequently confer about their writing with peers and with the instructor.

Course reading and writing activities should help students gain textual power, making them more alert to an author’s purpose, the needs of an audience, the demands of the subject, and the resources of language: syntax, word choice, and tone. During the course, a wide variety of texts (prose and image based) and writing tasks provide the focus for an energetic study of language, rhetoric, and argument.

As this is a college-level course, performance expectations are appropriately high, and the workload is challenging. Students are expected to commit to a minimum of five hours of coursework per week outside of class. Often, this work involves long-term writing and reading assignments, so effective time management is important.

Central texts include The Language of Composition; Great Expectations; An Inconvenient Truth; Pride and Prejudice; Macbeth; Pygmalion

Course Organization

The course is organized by themes. Each unit requires students to acquire and use rich vocabulary, to use standard English grammar, and to understand the importance of diction and syntax in an author’s style. The following is an overview of the curriculum, but may be subject to change depending on student needs. The  majority of reading will be based on nonfiction selections taken from the central textbook The Language of Composition. However, each theme is also supplemented by an additional fiction text.

Semester 1:

--Unit 1 - Introduction to Rhetoric

--Unit 2 - Poetry & Argument (Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson)

--Unit 3 - Environment (An Inconvenient Truth)

--Unit 4 - Education (Great Expectations by Charles Dickens)

Semester 2:

--Unit 5 - Gender (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

--Unit 6 - Language (Macbeth)

--Unit 7 - AP Exam review

--Unit 8 - Identity (Pygmalion)

Ongoing Assignments

-- “Current Events Journal”: Students will be selecting and analyzing ONE nonfiction news article per week. Please see the attached sheet.

-- “Daily Language Study”: Students will examine mentor sentences to determine how diction, imagery, tone, syntax, or other grammatical features work successfully.

-- “Scribe Duty”: Students will sign up for a number of days per quarter in which to post the day’s agenda and notes on our class blog at https://mswahdyADSaplang.blogspot.com/

-- “Spelling/Vocabulary”: Students will build their vocabulary in preparation for the SAT/ACTs  by a systematic study of ten words a week based on Vocabulary for Achievement. Words are introduced on Monday, packets and test are on Friday.

--”Socratic Seminars”: Students will share their ideas and thoughts in response to a prompt, text, or theme using appropriate and academic language.

Grading System

Essays 40%: Most essays are first written as in-class essays and graded as rough drafts. Rough drafts are self-edited and peer edited before students type the final copies. Final copies make up 40% of the semester’s grade and are assessed according to an AP-style rubric.

Tests 20%: Most tests consist of multiple-choice questions based on rhetorical devices and their function in given passages. Some passages are from texts read and studied in class, but some passages are from new material that students analyze for the first time.

Quizzes 20%: Quizzes are used primarily to check for reading and basic understanding of a text. Other quizzes will check for understanding of vocabulary and rhetorical devices covered in class. Socratic seminars count as quizzes.

Daily 20%: Daily assignments consist of a variety of tasks. This includes the Current Events Journal (CEJ), annotation of texts, Scribe Notes, in-class rough drafts, and completion of other assignments.

ACADEMIC INTEGRITY DEFINED:

Cheating is defined as “the giving or receiving of unauthorized information to gain an unfair advantage in your work.”  Cheating includes, but is not limited to, plagiarism.  Plagiarism is defined as “the act of taking the language, thoughts, or ideas of another, including works of art and music, and presenting them as one’s own without acknowledgement.”

CONSEQUENCES OF CHEATING/PLAGIARISM

1.       FIRST OFFENSE:    “F” on the assignment.  “F” in conduct for the quarter.  Immediate referral to administration for consideration of additional actions.  All other teachers of the students will be notified as well as the student’s coaches, faculty advisors and counselors.  A Parent-teacher-counselor conference must be scheduled.

2.       SECOND OFFENSE: A second offense means any second cheating or plagiarism event in the same academic year.  Even if the second offense occurs in a different class, it will be considered a second offense.  The consequences of a second offense are:  “F” for the academic year in the subject in which the second offense occurs.  A referral to administration will be written for consideration of additional action.