Course Syllabus 2014-2015
Junior English Language: Rhetorical Analysis [AP]
Mr. Sanders
Overview: In keeping with the guidelines of the AP English Language and Composition Course
Description and the BHS English Department Program Guide, Rhetorical Analysis is a year-long
junior AP English Language and Composition course that examines issues of rhetoric and
argument. You’ll pay considerable attention to the rhetorical features and strategies of a variety
of texts, focusing on American literature, with an emphasis on nonfiction, including oral and
visual media. You’ll explore a variety of philosophical issues, the relationship of language and
thought, and the process of making meaning by reading. The rhetorical analysis of literary texts
and other media will require you to reach beyond the questions of most literary studies and
examine in-depth the significance of structure and strategy. When the tools and strategies of
rhetoric are applied to imaginative, dramatic, poetic, nonfiction texts, and visual media, you
should see, in practical terms, how language is manipulated in order to make meaning. As an
extension of your reading, you'll write analysis, persuasive, and research-based essays.
You’ll prepare a research topic, refine that topic through the research process, evaluate on-line
and print resources, and synthesize the thinking drawn from multiple sources. A thorough
analysis of writing, language, and grammar strategies reinforces the core curriculum of the
course and prepares you for the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition
Examination and other college entrance examinations, such as the ACT.
Units of study are organized collections of literary, aural, and visual media that illustrate the way
in which various elements of rhetoric are manipulated to build an argument. Class discussions
and activities explore how the creators of these texts establish specific points of view and
positions on an issue or idea, evaluate these positions, and encourage the formulation of
responses to them. In keeping with the philosophy of the Writing Program of our English
Department, the practice of writing in Rhetorical Analysis begins with the understanding that
writing is an extension of the processes of reading. The most skillful readers of a work respond
to it in ways that evoke responses from other readers. Like reading, writing is a recursive process
that entails several important relationships of which the three most obvious are the author-text
relationship, the author-audience relationship, and the text-audience relationship. At the very
least, writers have to have some impression of the needs, knowledge, and disposition of their
audience and some idea of the impact the texts they create are to have on their audience. The
formal study of logic and rhetoric includes lessons in the enthymeme; the rhetorical triangle and
a work’s context; logic, including deduction, induction, and logical fallacies; the appeals (ethos,
pathos, and logos); and schemes and tropes.
Writing
You’ll practice three major styles of writing. First, you’ll write analyses of texts (fiction,
nonfiction, aural, and visual) that follow close reading of a work’s rhetorical details—notably, its
structure, style, themes, and social-historical values in order to develop an extended analysis of
the meaning(s) of the text. These explications explain the development and organization of the
argument(s) made in that piece in clear, coherent, and persuasive language. Second, you’ll
practice building your own argument and using elements of rhetoric: writing with a purpose,
addressing and appealing to an audience, creating effective text structures, and affecting an
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appropriate style. Finally, you’ll write essays that build an argument, as any persuasive essay
does, and have the opportunity to quote, cite, and document your use of research sources. This
course reinforces advanced research skills—synthesizing, evaluating, citing, and using primary
and secondary sources as you prepare essays of original argument that evolve from a thorough
understanding and analysis of research material. In citing sources, you’ll practice using the MLA
format. You may also write informal reactions and responses, annotations, presentations, and
other assignments as you reflect on a text and construct your understanding.
The Year's Agenda
Reading and Writing
Overview: In this unit of study, you’ll read and discuss two works—Benjamin Banneker’s letter
to Thomas Jefferson and Jefferson’s response. You'll prepare for and take an AP-style reading
comprehension test (10 multiple-choice questions). Additionally, we’ll review and discuss the
scoring standards for Free Response Questions (essay questions) on the AP exam. You’ll also
respond in a timed, in-class essay to a Free Response Question using one of the retired prompts
from the AP English Language and Composition Examination.
Texts:
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Benjamin Banneker's letter to Thomas Jefferson (1791)
Thomas Jefferson's response to Banneker (1791)
Race in America
Essential Question: What obstacles remain to continuing social progress and overcoming
racism?
Overview: Some powerful essays, speeches, films, folktales, music, and novels examine the
conflict between the dominant culture and subordinate cultures in the United States. This unit of
study uses the rhetorical dialectic of thesis and antithesis to illuminate cultural and racial
conflicts in opposing writers—Lincoln and Paine, King and Malcolm X, and Steele and Hurston.
In your study of Lincoln and Paine, you’ll discuss Lincoln’s attitude toward the South and
Paine’s vision of American unity, you’ll examine the pros and cons of King’s assertion of nonviolent, direct action and Malcolm X’s call for change “by any means necessary,” and you’ll
examine the efficacy of the social and political structures illustrated by Hurston and Steele. Our
study of these texts is enhanced by discussions of music and works by Shelby Steele and others.
As you weigh the merits of opposing arguments, you’ll have the opportunity to consider what
obstacles remain to continuing social progress and overcoming racism.
Texts:
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“The Ballot or the Bullet” by Malcolm X
“I’m Black, You’re White, Who’s Innocent?” by Shelby Steele published in The Content
of Our Character
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King
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Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
“Why They Always Use Raw-hide on Mules” folktale collected by Zora Neale Hurston
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
"Applying Principle to Practice, Chapter 1—of Society and Civilisation" from The Rights
of Man by Thomas Paine
Mighty Times: The Children's March a 2004 short documentary film about the
Birmingham civil rights marches, directed by Robert Houston and produced by Robert
Hudson, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and HBO. The film won an Academy Award
in 2005 for Documentary Short Subject.
OPTIONAL: Malcolm X, the 1992 biopic of the controversial and influential Black
Nationalist leader directed by Spike Lee
The Impact of Puritanism on American Society
Overview: This unit of study challenges you to consider Nathaniel Hawthorne’s criticism of the
tools of shame in The Scarlet Letter. He juxtaposes the positive effects of tolerance, inclusion,
introspection, and private admission of guilt against the harsh effects of disapproval, ostracism,
social sanctions, and censure on the lives of the main characters of the novel: Hester, Arthur,
Roger, and Pearl. It is often considered by Romanticists and contemporary thinkers that the tools
of shame are too harsh and are themselves shameful when applied without compassion.
Romanticists conclude that when the forces of compassion are used, they are transformational.
Those who are marked by shame are transformed into the most righteous among us when the
forces of compassion are honored. Daniel Lapin, an American Orthodox rabbi, author, public
speaker, and head of the American Alliance of Jews and Christians, clearly disagrees with
Hawthorne. He concludes, “the beauty of shame is how infrequently it has to be used.” He
further suggests that public disapproval, ostracism, and social sanctions are necessary to deter
others from wrong-doing. You'll analyze the arguments of various writers and write an essay in
which you develop you own opinion of the role of shame in society.
Essential Question: What is the role of shame in society?
Texts:
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Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards (1741)
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“In Praise of Shame” by Daniel Lapin published in The National Review (1995)
Society and Culture—Utopia v. Dystopia
Essential Question: How would you design your own utopia?
Overview: During this unit of study, you’ll consider utopian societies, referring to those
communities—both real and imaginary—founded to establish ideal social, legal, and political
states, and dystopian societies, referring to those communities characterized by oppressive social
control, such as an authoritarian or totalitarian government. Why would anyone want to design a
utopia? The most important reason is that utopian thought often initiates social change. Without
a vision of something better, something that inspires, the chance of social progress is low; and
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the clearer the vision, the better the chances of achieving it. While the idea of overhauling
society can be daunting, utopian thought does not have to be applied on a global scale to be of
value. In fact, it often serves as the impetus for small experiments, which serve as models. These
models can, and sometimes do, become the triggers for the adoption of ideas which, except for
the models, would never have been adopted.
Texts:
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Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (1932)
Brazil, directed by Terry Gilliam (1985)
“The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats
selections from Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion
from Utopia by Thomas More published in Current Issues & Enduring Questions
“The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin published in Current
Issues & Enduring Questions
The Rhetoric of Science and Nature Writing
Essential Question: Can science be ethical?
Overview: One common element for the authors in this unit is their driving curiosity about the
power to create not only great benefits but also great harm. In “A Clone Is Born,” Gina Kolata
quotes Robert Oppenheimer, “When you see something that is technically sweet you go ahead
and do it.” Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr consider the effects computer use is having on
human thinking. You’ll have the opportunity to discuss the role of science in society. You’ll read
and discuss controversies in biology, computer technology, medicine, physics, and ecology.
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“A Letter to Thoreau” by Edward O. Wilson published in The Conscious Reader (2006)
“Can Science Be Ethical?” by Freeman Dyson published in The Conscious Reader (2006)
“A Clone Is Born” by Gina Kolata published in The Conscious Reader (2006)
“Free Will” by Matt Ridley published in The Conscious Reader (2006)
“Seeing Through Computers” by Sherry Turkle published in The Conscious Reader
(2006)
“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr published in The Atlantic Monthly
(July/August 2008)
“Nature” and “Self-Reliance” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Our Picture of the Universe” by Stephen Hawking
“Where I Lived and What I Lived For” by Henry David Thoreau
“Can We Know the Universe?” by Carl Sagan
“The World and The University” by John Muir
American Culture and Commerce
Essential Question: How have the values and principles of American society and commerce
been put into play in the lives of individuals on a personal level and on a larger social level?
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Overview: Harvard University historical sociologist Helen Fein uses the phrase “universe of
obligation” to define community, people who feel they are part of something that is bigger than
they: a shared goal or enterprise, like righting a wrong, building a road, raising children, living
honorably, or worshipping a god. She believes that communities often expand and contract to
include or exclude members, and that this expansion or contraction involves not only
circumstances, but real choices, moral and ethical choices, about how to see other people. One's
universe of obligation includes what Fein calls “that circle of individuals or groups toward whom
obligations are owed, to whom rules apply, and whose injuries call for amends.” The works in
this unit will give you the opportunity to examine the universe of your obligations.
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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“All My Sons” by Arthur Miller
selected texts
Humor, Satire, and Parody
Essential Question: Is satire an effective means for achieving social change?
Overview: Satire is the intentional and sustained use of mockery, irony, humor, and/or wit to
attack or ridicule something, such as a person, habit, idea, institution, society, or custom that is,
or is considered to be, foolish, flawed, or wrong. The aim of satire is, or should be, to improve
human institutions and/or humanity. Satire attempts through humor and laughter to inspire
individuals, institutions, and humankind to improve or to encourage its readers to put pressure on
individuals and institutions so that they may be improved for the benefit of all.
According to Robert Harris, “The best satire does not seek to do harm or damage by its ridicule,
unless we speak of damage to the structure of vice, but rather it seeks to create a shock of
recognition and to make vice repulsive so that the vice will be expunged from the person or
society under attack or from the person or society intended to benefit by the attack (regardless of
who is the immediate object of attack)”.1 You’ll have the opportunity to examine a variety of
satirical texts to explore rhetorical strategies and discuss to efficacy of satire as a tool for social
change.
Texts:
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“High School Students Demand Wars in Easier-to-Find Countries” published by
SatireWire.com
“The Right to Bear Clubs” by Dave Berry (1998)
“Revolutionary New Insoles Combine Five Forms of Pseudoscience” published by The
Onion.
Chapter 1 of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Chapter 1 of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
Selected Editorial Cartoons
Excerpt from Harris, Robert. “Evaluating Internet Research Sources.” VirtualSalt. 17 Nov. 1997.
<http://www.virtualsalt.com/evalu8it.htm
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