Advanced Placement English Language and Composition
Ellen Shelton - eashelton@tupeloschools.com / eshelton@olemiss.edu
Website: http://rcu.blackboard.com
Generic Login: Username – apstudent2009 Password - student
Course Overview
The purpose of this course is to not only to prepare students for the AP Exam, but to also help them develop as readers and writers in our modern world. From the May 2007/2008 AP Course Description: “AP course in English Language and Composition engages students in 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. Both their writing and their reading should make students aware 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 effectiveness in writing.”
In contemporary society, students must learn to be discerning readers and writers of print and non-print sources; they must learn to manipulate language to communicate purpose. They must understand the broader context of a text: the social, historical, cultural, and economic components that determine a text’s purpose. To achieve this, they must look at audience and style to discern and create meaning. They must understand and manipulate the rhetorical strategies of diction, imagery, details, syntax, repetition, organization, and structure to discern the impact on an argument. This course is designed with this focus in mind: to develop better readers and writers. “Students should be encouraged to place their emphasis on content, purpose, and audience and to allow this focus to guide the organization of their writing.”
The course focuses on two curricular concepts: the first is to recognize rhetorical strategies and to develop an understanding of author’s purpose; the second is to develop and manipulate argumentation in both comprehension and composition. While most of our reading selections are primarily from American writers, selections demonstrating multiple cultures and voices are included in the course syllabus. Two fictional texts are included in the course, but they are used as a basis for argumentation, historical, and cultural studies. “When students read, they should become aware of how stylistic effects are achieved by writers’ linguistic choices.”
Essentially, good readers are good writers; therefore, reading comprehension will be assessed in a variety of ways, including AP-style multiple choice questions, tests and essays on the assigned course readings, and the prompts for in-class essays.
Students typically engage in a variety of assignments and activities in class:
• Class discussions
• Debates
• Note-taking
• Small-group and independent work
• Writing conferences
• Impromptu writings
Out of class assignments include:
• Essay drafting, revision, and editing
• Required readings
• Journal writing and other informal writing assignment
Upon completing the AP English Language and Composition course, then, students should be able to:
• analyze and interpret samples of good writing, identifying and explaining an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques;
• apply effective strategies and techniques in their own writing;
• create and sustain arguments based on readings, research, and/or personal experience;
• write for a variety of purposes;
• produce expository, analytical, and argumentative compositions that introduce a complex central idea and develop it with appropriate evidence drawn from primary and/or secondary sources, cogent explanations, and clear transitions;
• demonstrate understanding and mastery of standard written English as well as stylistic maturity in their own writings;
• demonstrate understanding of the conventions of citing primary and secondary sources;
• move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to inquiry and research, drafting, revising, editing, and review;
• write thoughtfully about their own process of composition;
• revise a work to make it suitable for a different audience;
• analyze image as text; and
• evaluate and incorporate reference documents into researched papers.
Grading Policies
Workshop Points - Workshop points will consist of simply coming to class prepared with assigned texts and homework. This is an easy grade to maintain. Students will be given 100 points at the beginning of each grading period to count as a major grade. However, points can be lost by not having books or assignments ready for class, tardies, unexcused absences, etc.
AP Grading Scale: Major grades: 80%, Comprehensive Exam: 20%
* A Note on Progress Reports - Because essays, journals, and reading logs are not due until late in the grading period, progress reports reflect a minimum of the student’s grades. Journals, reading logs, and workshop grades are based on effort. It is the student’s responsibility to stay current with the assignments.
Please note the Academic Integrity Policy in the Student Handbook. For an AP class, I expect all work to be on the Honor Code.
Makeup Policy - Please refer to the Student Handbook for the THS Makeup Policy.
Late Grades: Work submitted after the assigned date will be penalized 20 points for one day and 50 points for work submitted later than one day past the due date. This applies to MAJOR Grades only. Homework is due DURING THE CLASS PERIOD!
Absences - Please review the policy regarding absences in the Student Handbook. The student will be held accountable for his/her absences, excused and unexcused.
Contact Information: If you need to contact me, my number at school is 841-8970, and my home phone is 869-2607. My email address is eashelton@tupeloschools.com or eshelton@olemiss.edu . Please do not hesitate to call or email if you have questions.
Summer Reading Selections – Choose two from the list at the bottom of the page
How to Read Literature Like a Professor : A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas Foster - All Year
In this practical and amusing guide to literature, Thomas C. Foster shows how easy and gratifying it is to unlock those hidden truths. Ranging from major themes to literary models, narrative devices, and form, How to Read Literature Like a Professor is the perfect companion for making the reading experience more enriching, satisfying, and fun.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald - 1st Term
Realistic portrayal of the artistic, social, political, and economic climate of the 1920s; legend of the illusive "American Dream" and corruption, intolerance, prejudice, and self-interest leading to tragedy; criticism of materialistic Jazz Age.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - 2nd Term
Often considered a nonfiction novel, Capote's In Cold Blood established a new genre in literature. The book relates the story of a 1959 murder in Kansas.
Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass - 3rd Term
In 1845, just seven years after his escape from slavery, the young Frederick Douglass published this powerful account of his life in bondage and his triumph over oppression. The book, which marked the beginning of Douglass's career as an impassioned writer, journalist, and orator for the abolitionist cause, reveals the terrors he faced as a slave, the brutalities of his owners and overseers, and his harrowing escape to the North. It has become a classic of American autobiography
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison - 3rd Term
African Americans in the mid-twentieth century; initiation of a naive but sensitive young man; human invisibility; existentialism as it impacts modern man; the blues motif as it defines the African-American experience; death and resurrection.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau - 4th Term
Account of Thoreau's two years living near Walden Pond that includes his ideas about work, society, government, self-reliance, and nature; advocates simplicity, individuality, and peaceful means; nature holds the answer to life's mysteries.
Summer Reading Selections – Choose Two
Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer - A non-fiction, personal account of danger and death on Mt. Everest in 1996; explores perseverance, responsibility, and dangers of risk-seeking behavior.
Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger - Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bissinger spent 1988 in Odessa, Tex., a town obsessed with its champion high-school football team, the Permian Panthers. PW called this a "superb, if disquieting, portrait of heartland America."
The Color of Water by James McBride - A family with roots in the South persevere amid racism and hardship in New York City from the 1930s to 1980s; focus on education, faith as a means to overcoming poverty.
The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston - Anti-romantic portrayal of a woman growing up Chinese-American; tensions between cultures, genders, and generations; roles of secrecy and truth, fact and imagination; search for self.
Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi - a moving testament to the power of art and its ability to change and improve people's lives. In 1995, after resigning from her job as a professor at a university in Tehran due to repressive policies, Azar Nafisi invited seven of her best female students to attend a weekly study of great Western literature in her home. Threaded into the memoir are trenchant discussions of the work of Vladimir Nabokov, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, and other authors who provided the women with examples of those who successfully asserted their autonomy despite great odds.
If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home by Tim O’Brien - O'Brien paints an unvarnished portrait of the infantry soldier's life that is at once mundane and terrifying--the endless days of patrolling punctuated by firefights that end as suddenly and inconclusively as they begin; the mind-numbing brutality of burned villages and trampled rice patties; the terror of tunnels, minefields, and the ever-present threat of death.
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson – Author Bill Bryson provides an account of his experiences hiking the Appalachian Trail with a childhood friend, telling of how they survived a blizzard, got lost, and had encounters with eccentric characters, and rude yuppies along the way. He introduces us to the history and ecology of the trail and to some of the other hardy (or just foolhardy) folks he meets along the way–and a couple of bears.
Summer Assignment for AP English Language and Composition
Materials: Choose a journal (approx 5"x7" to 8"x11" in size) in which to submit your summer assignment. The assignment is due on the second day of school.
Summer Texts- Choose two of the following:
• Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
• Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger
• The Color of Water by James McBride
• The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
• If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home by Tim O’Brien
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
Summer Assignment –Pivotal Passage and Response
I chose this assignment because I thought it would invite you to think about what’s important in your texts and would avoid some of the busy, sometimes mindless page-filling that too often serves as the writing accompanying summer reading assignments. You do not have to produce a bajillion notecards or fill a spiral notebook. You just have to read well and think deeply. Here’s what to do:
Find four pivotal passages FOR EACH TEXT upon which to reflect. The passages may be as short as a few lines or as long as a page or two. The passage should be interesting, thought-provoking, and significant to the work’s meaning(s) as a whole. You may find, for example, a passage that exposes a work’s central theme(s), conflicts, or motifs. You may find that a passage is heavily symbolic or reflects the core of the text’s plot. A passage may reveal character in a rich, significant way or may be especially poetic and beautiful. You should get ideas and make mental notes about important passages as you’re reading, and you may be tempted to stop and whip out your response in a fit of passion. Hold off, future munchkins: Read through the entire text before choosing your passage—you have to be able to connect it to the work as a whole. DO NOT SUMMARIZE THE BOOK OR THE PASSAGE.
Ground Rules:
•Get past the beginning: Choose a passage that occurs at least one quarter of the way into the work (approximately).
•Copy (photocopy, write, or type) the entire passage and include it at the beginning of your response.
•Write a thoughtful, detailed discussion of your passage. THINK EXTENDED JOURNAL RESPONSE – NOT FORMAL ESSAY! Each response should be at least 700 words, neatly handwritten (not word-processed). In your response, discuss what drew you to it and why it’s important in the work. Why did you pick it? What do you notice about style, description, theme, figurative language, or other aspects of the passage that make it important in the work as a whole? Your response should analyze the passage specifically and discuss its most important elements, and you should demonstrate in your response that you have read the entire work. Do not merely summarize or translate the passage, but instead, talk through your thinking about the passage and the meanings you are making about its place in the entire text. Feel free to use first person in your writing.
Summer Assignment Rubric
A (8-9)
All the requirements of a “B” journal entry (see below) are in evidence, but with a greater degree of effort, analytical insight and writing sophistication. The entry balances
generalizations with specific illustrative details with considerable skill, maintains coherence through thoughtful transitions from one point to another, goes beyond mere structural integrity to establish a voice through which the analysis is maintained, and is engaging and enjoyable to read. Furthermore, the entry is unusually insightful and shows an uncommon sensitivity to the language and ideas of the text, especially as language and ideas relate to each other.
B (6-7)
The entry is well-written and constitutes evidence of thoughtful interaction with the text.
That evidence is displayed through some or all of the following:
• Characters and events are analyzed and meaningfully compared to other characters and events in the text, different text(s), and/or personal or “real world” experience;
• Structure and/or style is analyzed in relation to meaning, especially regarding the narrative voice and point of view;
• The author’s tone is analyzed and connected to theme, with textual substantiation.
Excerpts from the text are cited and thoughtfully elaborated on, meaningful questions are asked, difficulties with the plot or the writer’s style are grappled with and explored with sensitivity and intelligence. Creative tangents with clear connections to the text may be present.
C (5)
The entry aspires to reach all of the requirements of the “B” level entry (see above), but falls short by no more than two of the following: 1) writing about the text superficially, without meaningful exploration of characterization, tone, theme, etc.; 2) not providing enough textual substantiation for your assertions; 3) not clearly connecting the evidence to the assertions in a meaningful way, thus causing confusion; 4) writing about plot at the expense of other literary elements; and 5) writing sloppily or poorly.
F (1-4)
The entry falls short of the requirements of the “B” level entry (see above) by more than two of the deficiencies explained above (see the “C” level entry), or with one or more of those deficiencies with an unusual degree of severity.
(Journal grade equivalencies on a 0-100 scale: 9=100, 8.5=95, 8=90, 7.5=88, 7=85, 6.5=83, 6=80, 5.5=75, 5=70, 4.5=68, 4=65, 3.5=63, 3=60, 2.5=50, 2=40, 1.5=30, 1=20, .5=10, 0=0)