Mrs. Luccock

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Visit the TeacherWeb® videos to learn about the features, modifications, and customizations available on your website. Click here to learn more. AP Language Syllabus small medium large Mrs. Luccock Cascia Hall, 2009-2010 Welcome to Advanced Placement Language and Composition! This will be one of the most challenging English courses you have studied so far in your high school career. It will require four areas of skill (or the willingness to acquire skill in these areas): close and extensive reading outside of class, analytical writing about literary themes and rhetorical devices used by authors, argumentative writing about contemporary social issues while synthesizing primary and secondary sources with parenthetic documentation, and essay writing within 30-40 minute time constraints. Conscientious work efforts will produce strong results of both a personal nature and in terms of college credit hours—3 hours credit for a score of 3, 4, or 5 on the National A.P. Language and Composition Test in May. You will carry out a weekly vocabulary study, write weekly timed essays, plan extensive independent essays, use texts as models for your own creative work, write a research paper using library and Internet sources, write rhetorical analyses and synthesis essays, sustain an outside reading program, and develop a writing portfolio for the year. This portfolio can go with you as you leave for A.P. Literature or college! Your success is important to me, and I do love all the texts we will be working with, so I am excited about our year together! I do believe there are two important principles for the classroom. You need to feel each of these: a). a sense of accomplishment and b). a sense of belonging. As I will work hard to help us achieve these goals, I hope you will work with me. A class is unified when we all work together! Texts and Materials: Charters, Ann, ed. The Story and Its Writer, An Introduction to Short Fiction Shea, Scanlon, Aufses. The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric. - a folder or 3 ring binder for materials provided in class (Test Prep. Booklet) - a journal, for quotable quotes, lecture notes, etc.) - notebook paper and blue or black pen only for class notes and in- class writing - paperback texts as noted on the class calendar (They should be the required edition of the text. That is the text I will use for checking your quotes in papers.) Objectives: This course includes both the reading an analysis of varieties of prose, emphasizing non-fiction, the essay, and the study of process writing— writing from the discovery stage to the final edited and revised composition. You will study examples of prose from various fields and periods that serve as models of effective styles for writing. Through practice, you will learn to recognize and work with the following: - varieties of sentence structure, using subordination and coordination especially - logical and functional relationships of sentences with paragraphs and paragraphs within essays - reader-response theory - modes of discourse (narration, description, exposition, argument/persuasion) - aims of discourse (information, persuasion, expression) - levels of reading (factual, inferential, evaluative) - relationships among author, audience, and subject - wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively - balance of generalization and specific details - effective use of rhetoric, including tone, voice, diction, and sentence structure - logical organization enhanced by coherence through emphasis, repetition, and transition - analysis and interpretation of good writing, identifying and explaining an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques - creation of sustained arguments based on readings and research from primary and secondary sources with cogent explanations and clear transitions, also incorporating quotations smoothly into your text - movement through the stages of the writing process with careful attention to inquiry and research, drafting, revising, editing, and review. - writing effectively about your own process of composition - revising a work to make it suitable for different audiences This course will allow students to write in several forms—narrative, exploration, exposition, argumentation, analysis, and synthesis—on many different subjects from personal experiences to public policies, from classical literature to popular culture. But the overarching purpose is to enable students to write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives. Therefore, this course will emphasize the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication, as well as the personal and reflective writing that fosters the development of writing facility in any context. In addition, the informed use of research materials and the ability to synthesize varied sources are integral parts of the AP English Language and Composition course. Researched argument papers help students to formulate varied, informed arguments. Unlike the traditional research papers, in which works are often summarized, the researched argument paper asks students to consider each source as a text that was itself written for a particular audience and purpose. When students bring the experience and opinions of others into their essays in this way, they enter into conversations with other writers and thinkers, using citations of these other voices. Ultimately, this course should help students discover the rich resources of language and claim them as their own. Evaluation (first quarter) Essays and Timed Writes………………………………60% Vocabulary and Outside Reading………………………20% Discussion and AE’s……………………………………20% (AE’s are Aesthetic Experiences…yet to be explained) Study Hints: 1. Keep current with assignments. 2. Read each assignment twice before class. Read first for facts, then for inferences. Annotate with your own notes in the margin! 3. Take notes daily in class—of teacher and student comments. Also keep handouts in your notebook as Test Prep. for the May exam. I will collect these from time to time to check for completion. 4. Begin papers early so you can confer with the teacher before the deadline. 5. Seek me out during free periods, especially on Fridays when class is not in session. Use this extra time to read your outside work, compose papers, and do paper revisions. Your free time on Fridays should still be considered English time. Use it wisely! 6. You will be asked to revise major essays and/or timed writes. The revisions and corrections will be due at the end of each quarter. I call this “cooking a paper,” after Peter Elbow! In this process, you are allowing the best ingredients to come together and are adding the seasoning of new ideas. This is more than just taking a paper through Spell Check. Major Emphases: The following major emphases will drive our class this year: First, more outside reading is essential. Students will be asked to read at least one outside book per quarter (approx. 300-400 pages). This not only enhances our writing models, but it connects us to a world of ideas and issues we cannot possibly touch on entirely in class in the limited time we have together. Sometimes, you will choose from 3 or 4 titles so we can divide into Lit. Circles for discussion/writing. Other times, the choice will be up to you! Every year students tell me their writing improves when they are reading outside of class. There must be a correlation! The first quarter, everyone should read either Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol or Hunger of Memory* by Richard Rodriguez. ( These are short non-fiction texts, so I invite you to include another work of your choice this quarter, to reach your 300-400 page length.) Second, students will take more responsibility for class discussion than in past years. This means they should be raising questions for themselves constantly as they read, through marginal notes of annotation. It has long been recognized in the sciences that the formulation of questions contributes enormously to critical thinking and problem solving. Einstein said it well when he wrote, The mere formulation of a problem is often far more essential than its solution, which is often merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances ….(qtd. in “Building Success Manual 2002,” The College Board 1). We will have Socratic Circles of discussion that are student-driven at the end of each major novel and non-fiction unit. Also, we will incorporate “News Days” that include presentation and discussion of current events. Again, this is helpful preparation for the AP Language Exam as at least two of the three essays that students must write focus on contemporary social and/or cultural issues. Third, this course should also encompass art, music, ideas, whenever possible, to touch on the humanities and cultures that inform and shape our lives—past and present. Students will submit two Aesthetic Experiences each quarter. These AE’s will be the student’s evaluation of a cultural event or event of global awareness, such as a classical concert, an art exhibit, a special university lecture, live theater, a special film, etc. Each AE will be one page typed and will include details from the event, what you learned, and how you think you might use your new knowledge of art and/or culture. Attach a program or ticket stub. Once the Cascia PAC opens, you will have amble opportunities for AE’s here, but you should always have one AE from outside the Cascia campus. Fourth, we will work on synthesis essays this year, reading at least three secondary sources along with a primary source and pulling all these together around a particular thesis. The smooth incorporation of quotations from each text with cogent explanation and documentation is an important skill for college and career writing. We will write at least one of these essays per quarter. This is the new essay genre required for one question on the AP Language Exam. Fifth, I am eager for students to connect what we read and study to the “real world.” To that end and because I believe in the mission of every human being to help bind up the brokenness of the world, I am asking students to be part of a class volunteer effort in the community first semester. You can vote on a leadership team to help find the need, connect with the appropriate people, and organize the class in at least one work day per semester. I will be happy to assist you as will Brother Jack; I too want to be a part of our extension to a hurting world in Tulsa. This, after all, is part of our Cascia mission of Truth, Unity, and Love (Veritas, Unitas, Caritas). As Francis Bok wrote in his memoir of growing up in slavery in Sudan, …how easy it [is] for different people to live with each other: All you have to do is reach out and take their hand (Escape from Slavery 198). Did not Gerda Klein, the Holocaust survivor who spoke to us two years ago, say that we should all kindle a fire within us to make a better world? Our hearts are here and ready; we just need to allow God to enlarge them to share our joy with those beyond the Cascia walls and Cascia family. I hope that students will learn to think and act according to compassion, respect, integrity, harmony, fairness, and stability as they deal with issues and with people this year. These concepts, though given lip service in our culture, are not dominant and do not seem to come naturally to people. We must sanction conversations about their meaning and application as well as our core values of Truth, Unity, and Love if we truly want to make a better world. I look forward to knowing each of you better this year and to making our journey together! Mrs. Luccock Textbooks and Materials for AP Language and Composition Charters, Ann, ed. The Story and Its Writer, An Introduction to Short Fiction Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003. Shea, Scanlon, Aufses. The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2008. - a folder or 3 ring binder (for this class only) provided in class, sections for quotes to remember, lecture notes, etc. - a journal for responding to readings and keeping a dialectical journal - notebook paper and blue or black pen (you may use pencil only for annotating in your books) - paperback texts as noted on the class calendar (They should be the required edition of each text. That is the text I will use to check your quotes in papers.) Paperback Books To Be Studied This Year: Walden, Thoreau Frankenstein, M. Shelley Heart of Darkness, Conrad “ ‘Master Harold’ and the boys,” Fugard The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass Hamlet, Shakespeare Les Misérables, Hugo Mrs. Dalloway, V. Woolf Wit, Margaret Edson J. B., Archibald MacLeish Automatically clean input to optimize for the web. Or, would you like to view and optionally restore one of these previous versions? Password: Forgot your password?

Mrs. Luccock

AP Language Syllabus

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