AP Language and Composition
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AP Language and Composition 2016-17 Summer Reading and Assignment
Please read the book by Barbara Ehrenriech Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) getting by in America and complete the assignment. All responses must include evidence from the text, accurately cited using MLA format. Nickled and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America Nickled and Dimed: Assignment |
Books we will read this year!
Freakonomics Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner Freakonomics: Assignment Silent Spring Silent Spring Assignment Blog Page Grit Scale |
Examples
AP English Lang Rhetorical Analysis - Step 2: Read the Sources AP English Lang Rhetorical Analysis - Step 3: Write the Thesis AP English Lang Rhetorical Analysis - Step 4: Plan the Essay Nehru Speech AP English Language: Rubric Walkthrough for Q2: Rhetorical Analysis AP English Language Rubric Walkthrough: How to ACE the Synthesis Essay CollegeBoard AP Lang Essay Rubric |
Synthesis Essay
Synthesis Six Steps Sports Synthesis Prompt Synthesis Rubric Film Resources Go Tigers The Heart of the Game |
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest
Earnest background
Wealthy Teen
Satire
Socialites Without Borders
Think of a situation, behavior, person, anything, in school, society, politics, entertainment – any topic, anywhere that you feel deserves to be satirized – and satirize it.
Options
· You may draw a cartoon. This must be your entirely own original work. Computer generated graphics are acceptable, but not downloading or cutting/pasting from online sources. The cartoon must include a caption.
· You may write an essay, similar to “A Modest Proposal.”
· You may write a newspaper article, similar to “Socialites without Borders.”
· You may write a script for a sketch (you will have to perform this).
Another original idea of your own, with my approval
II. Whichever format you choose, on a separate sheet compose a commentary on or explanation of your piece answering the following questions:
• Who, or what, is the target of your satire, and why?
• What are the main techniques of your satire? In other words, what specifically is used to create an ironic gap (e.g., hyperbole, irony, understatement, parody, reversal, etc.)
• Which are the key words, phrases, images, metaphors, or ideas in your satire? Why are these moments so important?
• How successful do you think your satire is in achieving its aim?
The Importance of Being Earnest
Earnest background
Wealthy Teen
Satire
Socialites Without Borders
Think of a situation, behavior, person, anything, in school, society, politics, entertainment – any topic, anywhere that you feel deserves to be satirized – and satirize it.
Options
· You may draw a cartoon. This must be your entirely own original work. Computer generated graphics are acceptable, but not downloading or cutting/pasting from online sources. The cartoon must include a caption.
· You may write an essay, similar to “A Modest Proposal.”
· You may write a newspaper article, similar to “Socialites without Borders.”
· You may write a script for a sketch (you will have to perform this).
Another original idea of your own, with my approval
II. Whichever format you choose, on a separate sheet compose a commentary on or explanation of your piece answering the following questions:
• Who, or what, is the target of your satire, and why?
• What are the main techniques of your satire? In other words, what specifically is used to create an ironic gap (e.g., hyperbole, irony, understatement, parody, reversal, etc.)
• Which are the key words, phrases, images, metaphors, or ideas in your satire? Why are these moments so important?
• How successful do you think your satire is in achieving its aim?
Course Objectives:
The purpose of this course is to help students “write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives.” (The College Board, AP® English Course Description, p. 6) The course is organized according to the requirements and guidelines of the current AP English Course Description, and, therefore, students are expected to read critically, think analytically, and communicate clearly in both writing and speech.
Primary Learning Goals:
AP English Language and Composition is a college-level course examining rhetoric as “the art of finding and analyzing all the choices involving language that a writer, speaker, reader, or listener might make in a situation so that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners, and examining the specific features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners in a situation” (David Jolliffe, former AP exam creator). Therefore, students will become mature and sophisticated consumers and creators of a variety of texts. By the end of the course, students will understand:
· what they read: the main point or thesis, the occasion or context, the author’s motivation for writing, the tone and style;
· how a text is created to develop meaning and purpose including genre, organization, paragraphing, syntax;
· the relationship of the text’s creation to its accomplishment, the purpose of academic intellectual prose, its meaning and effect;
· how to articulate their analysis of what they read; how the organizational structure, diction, syntax, imagery, figurative language flesh out the meaning of a text;
· how to create, develop and support an argument, acknowledging the complexities and nuances of important issues that adults argue about in contemporary intellectual circles;
· how to become good citizens through awareness of public discourse issues
· how to enter into a conversation with sources and develop a thesis and argument or exposition by synthesizing these conversations into their own writing;
· how to analyze and incorporate their analysis of visual texts into their writing; · effective research skills and proper MLA citation;
· how to read a question, so they know exactly what and how to approach it;
· how to enhance their vocabulary as a means to effective writing; how to grapple with archaic prose · strategies necessary for success on the AP English Language and Composition exam
Students should become aware of how writers' linguistic choices create effective writing and achieve stylistic effects as well as how to effectively incorporate many of these techniques into their own writing. dantium
The purpose of this course is to help students “write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives.” (The College Board, AP® English Course Description, p. 6) The course is organized according to the requirements and guidelines of the current AP English Course Description, and, therefore, students are expected to read critically, think analytically, and communicate clearly in both writing and speech.
Primary Learning Goals:
AP English Language and Composition is a college-level course examining rhetoric as “the art of finding and analyzing all the choices involving language that a writer, speaker, reader, or listener might make in a situation so that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners, and examining the specific features of texts, written or spoken, that cause them to be meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners in a situation” (David Jolliffe, former AP exam creator). Therefore, students will become mature and sophisticated consumers and creators of a variety of texts. By the end of the course, students will understand:
· what they read: the main point or thesis, the occasion or context, the author’s motivation for writing, the tone and style;
· how a text is created to develop meaning and purpose including genre, organization, paragraphing, syntax;
· the relationship of the text’s creation to its accomplishment, the purpose of academic intellectual prose, its meaning and effect;
· how to articulate their analysis of what they read; how the organizational structure, diction, syntax, imagery, figurative language flesh out the meaning of a text;
· how to create, develop and support an argument, acknowledging the complexities and nuances of important issues that adults argue about in contemporary intellectual circles;
· how to become good citizens through awareness of public discourse issues
· how to enter into a conversation with sources and develop a thesis and argument or exposition by synthesizing these conversations into their own writing;
· how to analyze and incorporate their analysis of visual texts into their writing; · effective research skills and proper MLA citation;
· how to read a question, so they know exactly what and how to approach it;
· how to enhance their vocabulary as a means to effective writing; how to grapple with archaic prose · strategies necessary for success on the AP English Language and Composition exam
Students should become aware of how writers' linguistic choices create effective writing and achieve stylistic effects as well as how to effectively incorporate many of these techniques into their own writing. dantium
Writing Assignments
Major Writing Assignments: The following assignments are processed papers composed primarily outside of class:
Analytical Essay: Students compose a rhetorical analysis from a prompt focusing on one of the summer readings.
Personal Narrative: Students compose an effective essay focusing on the significance of a single event in their lives.
Compare/Contrast Essay: Students compose an essay from a prompt derived from Julius Caesar. Students will contrast the rhetorical strategies used by Antony and Brutus when addressing the citizens of Rome.
Mid-Term Election/Current Issue Project: Students compose six persuasive texts on behalf of an assigned candidate or a specific ballot initiative (students will not choose the candidate or position on the issue) – three meant to be spoken; three meant to be read – each to specific audiences: supporters, fence-sitters, and opponents. Students must submit self-annotated copies of each text highlighting the rhetorical strategies they incorporated.
Columnist Project: Students gather six columns from a columnist of their choice. For each column, they submit a précis summarizing the column as well as a single paragraph reaction to it. Finally, they compose an argumentative essay by developing an argument inspired through “conversations” with the columnist.
Synthesis Essay: Students synthesize materials from a number of sources (including visual), develop an argument and compose an argumentative essay.
Open Topic/Genre Essay: Using the five canons of rhetoric – invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery – students compose a meaningful essay on the topic of their choice. Students must submit a self-annotated copy of the essay highlighting the rhetorical strategies they incorporated. They will share their papers by presenting them to the class.
Research Paper: Students experience the research process from discovering a topic and developing a research question to submitting the final product. Students will understand all levels of the process including discerning relevant sources, gathering information from diverse sources, synthesizing that information, and properly formatting the paper, incorporating MLA citation techniques. This paper may be expository or argumentative.
Note:
Each essay composed outside of class must include a self evaluation addressing the following questions:
1. Did you stick with your original topic or did you change it along the way? Why?
2. What problems did you encounter during the process of creating the essay?
3. List two of the most important changes you made. Why did you make them?
4. What part of your essay are you most proud of? Why?
· Rough drafts of essays composed outside of class are subject to in-class peer review.
· As major assessments, the mid-term and open topic essays require students to annotate their own texts highlighting the intentional strategies they incorporated
· Students are encouraged to conference with me or my TA’s prior to submitting final drafts
The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science - German philosopher (1844 - 1900)
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Are You Following a Columnist?
· The analysis of persona and tone;
· The rhetorical matrix: the elements of an effective text · Close reading and annotation · How to discern the differences in approaches in certain texts targeted to specific audiences · The significance of audience in the development of a text; · Formal academic writing; · How to transcend the 5-paragraph “theme” · The canons of rhetoric: Invention: journalist’s questions, · Burke’s pentad, syllogism and enthymeme, the topics; · Arrangement: genres, functional parts; · Style: diction, connotation and denotation, · Latinate and Anglo Saxon diction, sentence structure and syntax, loose vs. periodic sentences, cohesion, schemes and tropes, parallelism · Memory and Delivery; constraints due to specific audiences; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFnpYPdkVwI |
Columnist/Precis Assignment
Here is the handout. You will find links to helpful websites below. Columnist Essay Assignment Here is the Columnist Synthesis Essay assignment isolated and clarified Creators Syndicate
Here you will find columnists categorized according to their political predisposition. Look under "conservative opinion" or "liberal opinion." Remember: you will benefit more if you engage with a columnist you are inclined to challenge. Real Clear Politics Links to columnists and all things political The Drudge Report Scroll down the home page for links to newspapers and columnists Blue Eagle Commentary Links to over 700 columnists |
Unit 1 Understanding Rhetoric
Learning Goals: Students will understand the significance of rhetorical analysis by: defining rhetoric and the rhetorical situation according to Bitzer: exigence audience and constraints · The rhetorical transaction; · Aristotelian appeals: logos, pathos and ethos; · Effective argument · Enthymemes/warrants and their relationship to specific audiences – assumptions based on target audience; · Style: schemes and tropes; cohesion and rhythm · How form can relate to function · Means of communication: verbal and written – contrasting texts meant to be read with texts meant to be heard; · How to annotate their own texts · Speech genre: forensic, epideictic, deliberative; · Effective pronoun usage; · The authorial voice: “effective” vs. “ineffective” writing – the rant. |
· Vocabulary · Tone Vocabulary · The Rhetorical Matrix - The Rhetorical Triangle - The Rhetorical Situation · Coordination and subordination · Passive and active voice · Effective verb choices · Styles Schemes and Tropes · Close reading and annotation · Rhetorical Devices Exam In-class Timed Essays addressing AP prompts and archaic prose. Writing Personal Essays: On the Necessity of Turning Oneself Into a Character The Personal Narrative Essay (explained above) Personal Narrative Rubric and College Application Essay (seniors only) |
Readings:
Talbot: “Best in Class” Questions
Bitzer: “The Rhetorical Situation”
Clinton: “The Breakfast Speech” and "I Misled the People" "Rhetorical Analysis"
Lewinsky "Anti-Shaming Speech" and "The Ted Talk"
Eighner: “On Dumpster Diving”
Emerson: Education
Hughes “Salvation”
Lehrer “The Truth About Grit”
Lopate “Writing Personal Essays: On the Necessity of Turning Oneself Into a Character”
Mairs, “On Being a Cripple”
McMurtry “Kill ‘Em! Crush ‘Em! Eat ‘Em Raw”
Rauch “In Defense of Prejudice"
Roach “How To Know If You’re Dead”
Woolf, Virginia: “In Search of a Room of One’s Own”
Some New Arguments...Some Not So new!
Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.
George Santayana
George Santayana
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Unit - 2
Readings: King: Letter From Birmingham Jail Defintions in “Prose Forms: Spoken Words Ballard: "Rhetoric, Power and Persuasion in Julius Caesar" Churchill: "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” Doyle: “Joyas Voladoras” Lincoln “The Gettysburg Address” Lincoln: “Second Inauguration Speech” Obama: “Inaugural Address” Orwell: “A Hanging” Orwell: “Politics and the English Language” Postman: “Graduation Speech” Shakespeare: Julius Caesar Swift: A Modest Proposal Traversi: “A Clash of Aims: The Use and Abuse of Oratory by Brutus and Antony” Zakarias: How to Restore the American Dream Crawford: The Case for Working with Your Hands Toulmin Model Zakaria Questions Supplementary Handouts and Lessons: · Adjusting syntax for cohesion HO · Loose and periodic sentences HO · Continue with parallel structure · Role of pronouns, pronoun ambiguity, antecedents · Developing tone and establishing credible voice in conveying arguments Toulmin and Rogerian Argument · Précis and Response In-class activities: · Analyzing appeals to logos, pathos and ethos and how these appeals interact in the development of meaningful texts – the credibility of the rhetor; · Writers workshops: selected exercises and discussions from Rhetorical Grammar · Becoming critical readers; · Exploring differences in rhetorical strategies used in pieces meant to be heard from those meant to be read; · Julius Caesar presentations; group analyses of effectiveness of speeches/essays; · Multiple-choice exercises · Group editing and assessment sessions · Vocabulary · Mid-term project presentations · Film clips (for sports synthesis): |
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