AP English Language and Composition
I'm so excited that you've decided to take on the challenge and joys that come with AP English Language and Comp. It's an intense course, but with perseverance and some consistency it can be conquered. I like to think of it as a kind of conquest; in a way you're all little conquistadors intrepid, daring, brave. From another point of view the conquistadors who traversed North and South America were also explorers, and you will be exploring language in all its myriad of facets.
So grab you satchel, hoist it to your back, garner your gumption and we're ready to embark.
Bon Voyage
Below is the offical course overview that is on file with the College Board.
It doesn't make for the most exciting reading, buy you're welcome to it.
Course Overview
This year long course is designed to introduce students to the core concepts of rhetorical composition and analysis through a complete array of non-fiction and fiction texts. By focusing on language students enter into dialogue with the text under scrutiny, allowing them to establish authors’ purposes and strategies, while situating both the authors and themselves within the larger context of the ongoing cultural questions which have defined Western Civilization.
To this effect, the course is organized by Francis Bacon’s thesis from his short essay, “of Studies”: “Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.” Bacon’s gender preference aside, this is our core principle; grades, selection of assignments, and overall purpose all stem from this root. We begin the year by reading Bacon’s essay and puzzling out his seventeenth century prose. We then return to it at the opening of the second semester to engage in a more formal rhetorical analysis and then work through an imitation, thereby working with our founding document in multiple modalities.
Over the course of both semesters we work with a variety of expository, analytical, and argumentative texts as well as have numerous opportunities to compose in many genres in a myriad of settings. Readings cover such a wide range of topics as memoirs, personal essays, public oratory, foundational documents, sermons, devotional literature, science, argument, letters—both personal and open, as well as longer narratives (i.e., The Scarlet Letter). Students not only compose in various rhetorical modes (with a focus on mixing them for rhetorical effect) but also engage in a longer research project that asks them to grapple with a currently unresolved cultural issue and argue for one of the competing sides (e.g., the morality of stem cell research, the influence of media on politics, etc.). Additionally, each semester students construct reviews for at least two books of appropriate difficulty (novels, non-fiction, essay collections) that are analytical and evaluative.
This is a college-level course and expectations are correspondingly challenging. Students are faced with many ongoing assignments, readings, and activities that overlap and intersect at various times. This requires solid time management and techniques and tools for keeping the vast array of information easily and quickly accessible. I offer many opportunities for support as this is a eleventh grade class in our school and students need some help with the transition, but I also strive to allow for their nascent academic independence to grow and flourish.
The course is constructed in accordance with the guidelines described in the AP English Course Description from the College Board.