Advanced Placement English Language and Composition 1
Fall Semester, 2008-2009
Instructor:
Michael Thornton
email:
michael_thornton@dpsk12.org
voicemail:
720.424.1794
website:
http://dsa.dpsk12.org
room: B202 office: B204
Because learning to write is best fostered by reading, reflecting, and writing about serious
issues, this course is designed to extend your existing abilities to interpret and analyze a
wide range of texts, to write and revise sustained arguments, to carry out independent
research, and to integrate multiple sources into your essays. In addition to helping you
become a skilled writer who can compose for a variety of purposes and audiences, the
course is also designed to enhance your critical thinking skills. Writing skills proceed
from an awareness of the composing process, the way writers explore ideas, reconsider
strategies, and revise; therefore, you will be asked to write essays and revisions that
progress through several stages.
MATERIALS, PRODUCTS, AND EXPECTATIONS
Materials
Notebook (three-ring binder or divided notebook, brought to class daily):
 handouts from class
 literary terms, rhetorical terms, and vocabulary
 writing tips section
 class writing assignments
 writing goals
Class Reading and Writing: discussions and writing exercises
 follow handouts and read during class
 participate in discussions and writing forums
Required texts: Lunsford, Andrea A., John J. Ruszkiewicz, and Keith Walters.
Everything's an Argument: with Readings. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2007, Fourth
Edition; Cohen, Samuel. 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. New York: Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2004, First Edition; Clauss, Patrick. i-claim CD-ROM. New York: Bedford/St.
Martin’s. A writing handbook or style guide is recommended – if you can’t afford to
purchase one, Purdue University and the University of Colorado publish style guides
online:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
http://www.colorado.edu/Publications/styleguide/
Required Novels: Either Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, The Falls by Joyce Carol
Oates, or Sophie’s Choice by William Styron; and Native Son by Richard Wright.
Products
Independent Reading and Writing:
 Literacy Autobiography
 College Essay
 Expository Essay
 Critical Research Paper
 Synthesis Argument Paper
Typical products for specific assignments include the following:
 Brainstorming and prewriting notes, diagrams, quotes, research
 Rough draft version with class critique, student and teacher edits
 Typed final draft with bibliography, MLA format
 Self-evaluation of reaching written goals
Expectations
In this class we will read nonfiction, poetry, short stories, and novels. Nonfiction pieces
will comprise the majority of what we read. These pieces will provide the basis for our
discussions in class and models for writing. Much of the work will be done in class, but
the independent reading and writing will also demand out-of-class work. There is a
textbook, a book of essays, and two novels that you will have to buy. Bring these
textbooks and novels to class on the days scheduled for their discussion. More detailed
assignments on the independent reading and writing will be distributed throughout the
semester. All assignments will be posted on the class website, with links to downloads.
In order to receive an A in this class, you must take the AP test, and all assignments must
be completed. If you miss a class, you are responsible for making up missed material. Inclass essay questions and quizzes on required reading should be made up before the next
class period. Late work will be penalized 10% of the grade on the assignment. This can
be a significant deduction since students must write essays on a weekly basis, and many –
especially seniors, due to college visits and senior projects – have a hard time submitting
work when it is due. If you miss a class presentation by a group you are a member of,
you will not receive the participation points that the group receives. If you are not
prepared for a class editing workshop, you will not receive the participation points for it.
Lateness or early departure from a class demonstrate a lack of respect for your classmates
and instructor and are not acceptable. Any exceptions to these rules require the
instructor’s permission in advance.
The grading scale for this AP class is defined by the school district:
A = 93-100%
C+ = 77-79%
A- = 90-92%
C = 73-76%
B+ = 87-89%
C- = 70-72%
B = 83-86%
D = 60-69%
B- = 80-82%
F = 0-59%
Advanced Placement English Language and Composition 1
Fall Semester, 2008-2009
Tentative Schedule for Course
CLASS WEEK
Week 1:
August 18-22, 2008
Week 2:
August 25-29
Week 3:
September 2-5
Week 4:
September 8-12
Week 5:
September 15-18
Week 6:
September 22-26
Week 7:
September 29October 3
Week 8:
October 6-10
Week 9:
October 13-17
Week 10:
October 20-24
Week 11:
October 27-28
Week 12:
November 3-7
Week 13:
November 11-14
Week 14:
November 17-21
Week 15:
November 24-25
Weeks 16-18:
December 1-18
LANGUAGE
Introduction to AP Language
AP website research
Essay Development Techniques
Close Reading Documentation
50 Essays: focus on Identity
Exam Tips Brainstorming
AP Pre-test
Alternative Essay Formats
50 Essays: focus on Classification
Representative Authors:
Science, and Nature Writers
Representative Authors:
Autobiographers, and Diarists
Biographers, and History Writers
50 Essays: focus on Comparison
Representative Authors: Critics
50 Essays: focus on Definition
Representative Authors:
Essayists, and Fiction Writers
Representative Authors: Journalists
Multiple Choice and Essay Test
Representative Authors:
Political Writers
Everything’s an Argument, 1-44
Angle of Repose, Parts I-II;
Sophie’s Choice, Chaps. 1-5; The Falls,
Part I
50 Essays: focus on Ethics
Multiple Choice and Essay Test
Everything’s an Argument, 367-410
(Style section)
Angle of Repose, Parts III-IV; Sophie’s
Choice, Chaps. 6-9; The Falls, Part II
Everything’s an Argument, 514-582
(Documentation section)
Angle of Repose, Parts V-VII; Sophie’s
Choice, Chaps. 10-12; The Falls, Part
III, through “Pilgrims”
Angle of Repose, Parts VIII-IX; Sophie’s
Choice, Chaps. 13-16; The Falls, Rest of
Part III-Part IV.
Multiple Choice and Essay Test
Everything’s an Argument, 45-101, 137173
Synthesis Arguments
COMPOSITION
Rhetorical Strategies vs. Rhetorical Devices
Literacy Autobiography
Terminology, and Punctuation
Writing Prioritization Survey
Literary Terms Assignment
Conferences on Writing Goals
College Essay on Identity
Using Classification, and Process Analysis:
Woolf and Petrunkevich
Timed Essays/Peer Edits (through Week 9)
College Essay Revision
Interrupted Reading: Rodriguez
Using Comparison and Contrast:
Rodriguez and Mukherjee
Using Analogy, and Using Definition: Sontag
on AIDS
Using Description, Narration, and Reflection:
Agee on Overalls; Momaday’s Rainy
Mountain
Interrupted Reading: Staples
Using Cause and Effect: Staples and
Machiavelli
Using Induction and Deduction: Jefferson,
Lincoln, and Sullivan
Novel Assignment
Research Ideas for Novel
Rough Thesis for Research Paper
Research Articles
Planning the Paper: Strategies and Devices
Novel Discussion Groups
Paper Outline and Organization
Research Paper Draft due
Research Paper Workshop
Research Paper Final due
AP Essays: Grading Models
Final Exam
The scope and sequence of some of the included topics may be expanded, reduced or
shifted to accommodate class needs.
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Advanced Placement English Language and Composition 2
Spring Semester, 2008-2009
Tentative Schedule for Course
CLASS WEEK
Week 1:
January 6-9, 2009
Week 2:
January 12-16
Week 3:
January 20-23
Week 4:
January 26-30
Week 5:
February 2-6
Week 6:
February 9-13
Week 7:
February 18-20
Week 8:
February 23-27
Week 9:
March 2-6
Week 10:
March 9-13
Week 11:
March 16-20
Week 12:
March 30-April 3
Week 13:
April 6-10
Week 14:
April 13-16
Week 15:
April 20-24
Weeks 16-19:
April 27-May 22
LANGUAGE
Review of Fall Semester Final
Discuss weekly editorials
i-claim and 50 Essays tutorials
Everything’s an Argument, 174-216
50 Essays: focus on Education
Everything’s an Argument, 912-978
Multiple Choice and Essay Test
Rhetoric: Aristotle, Rogers,
Toulmin
Everything’s an Argument, 327-366
50 Essays: focus on History and
Politics
Everything’s an Argument, 979-1084
Rhetoric: Logical Fallacies
Everything’s an Argument, 491-513
Multiple Choice and Essay Test
50 Essays: focus on Race and
Culture
Review of Essay Development
Techniques
Everything’s an Argument, 411-440,
633-671
i-claim genre and medium
Rhetoric: Visual Arguments
Everything’s an Argument, 792-840
Rhetoric: Word Choice and Tone
Native Son by Richard Wright, Book
One “Fear”
American Identity in History
Multiple Choice and Essay Test
Everything’s an Argument, 841-911
COMPOSITION
Reading Journal: Argument Analysis
Terminology, and Punctuation
This I Believe essay: mimic Thoreau
Essay on Education
Literary Terms Assignment
Education Narrative (revision of
Education Essay): mimic Sedaris
Analysis of Rhetoric in Editorials
Planning Essays: Strategies and Devices
Claims and Prompts
Planning for Synthesis Argument Essay
on American Idealism
50 Essays: focus on Work and Class
Research ideas and prompts on Language,
Racism, and Existentialism in Native Son
Rough thesis for research paper
Three articles of research due
Research Paper Draft due
Timed Essays (through Week 18)
Workshop Research Paper
Postscript to Literacy Autobiography
Research Paper Final due
AP Exam
Native Son, Book Two “Flight”
Native Son, Book Three “Fate”
AP Post-test
Rhetoric: Author’s Voice
50 Essays: focus on Argument
Rhetoric: Words Used to Describe
Language
American Idealism draft and revision
Mimic Ericsson’s The Ways We Lie
Prompts for Essay on American Citizen
Responsibilities
American Identity in Song
Visual Argument Assignment
American Citizen Responsibilities Draft
American Citizen Responsibilities Style
Revision
Peer Review of American Citizen
Responsibilities Essay
Essay on Common Ground
The scope and sequence of some of the included topics may be expanded, reduced or
shifted to accommodate class needs.
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OVERVIEW OF AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION COURSE
Students are introduced to the traditional forms of discourse and methods of writing
essays during the first quarter of the course. They become familiar with terms like
classification, division, process analysis, comparison and contrast, analogy, definition,
description, narration, and cause and effect. They read essays employing these methods,
and write essays using them. At the same time, they keep a reading journal, in which
they reflect upon their own methods of reading and writing. The journals can be checked
for close reading documentation; outlines and annotated texts are also used as evidence of
active reading. The teacher meets with students individually, once each semester, to talk
about their development as readers and writers as evinced by their journals. The teacher
also meets with each student to establish writing goals at the start of the year. This is a
collaborative session in which students discuss with the teacher their literacy
autobiographies.
Along with reading and writing essays to develop an understanding of exposition,
students research and read essays by the writers listed on the AP website as representative
of different genres of nonfiction writing: autobiographers, diarists, biographers, history
writers, critics, essayists, journalists, political writers, and science and nature writers.
They analyze and discuss the methods of discourse used by these classes of writers.
Some poetry and short stories are analyzed to suggest the different methods employed by
fiction writers. Through all of this, students are immersing themselves in an expanded
vocabulary of analysis. They become familiar with the terminology, and learn to use the
methods in their own writing. The timed essays feature various methods of writing, and
the peer edits lead to revisions that focus on specific forms of discourse.
Students take a released AP test at the start of the year, to witness first hand what is
expected of them. Through the first semester, they take three different Multiple Choice
and AP Essay tests, taken from Shea, Renee H. and Lawrence Scanlon. Teaching
Nonfiction in AP English. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin’s, 2005, First Edition; to hone their
skills at recognizing methods of discourse and literary terms associated with analysis, as
well as to practice focused writing.
Through the last half of the semester, students choose a novel to research and analyze.
Ideas for a focused analysis; methods and sources of research; writing prompts and
developing a thesis; outlines and structural guidelines; workshops on drafts; peer edits of
revisions; and final evaluations, by the student as well as the teacher, comprise the
process students follow in writing this paper. At the end of the semester, synthesis
arguments are introduced as another form of research analysis and writing.
During the first half of the second semester, the terms and methods of formulating an
argument are introduced. Students focus on analysis of argument and persuasion in their
reading journals, and write a series of essays focusing on various themes, from
Education, American Idealism, and American Citizen Responsibilities, to the concept of a
Common Ground. Most of the readings in Everything’s an Argument relate to these
themes in some manner, or focus on techniques relevant to these synthesis arguments.
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Students learn about rhetorical strategies used by Aristotle, Rogers, and Toulmin. They
learn about logical fallacies, visual arguments, and word choice and tone. They take the
tutorials and study multimedia arguments featured on the i-claim CD-ROM.
They again take three versions of Multiple Choice and Essay tests through the semester,
as well as the AP test that they had taken at the start of the year. They must take the
official AP exam at the end of the semester to receive credit for the class.
Students read Native Son by Richard Wright during the final quarter. After looking
closely at some of the criticism leveled at this novel, they do further research before
deciding on a topic of interest, which forms the basis for their individually devised
claims, and the focus of their papers. This paper relies heavily on synthesis argument and
its associated techniques. This paper undergoes a series of outlines, workshops and edits
before it is finally submitted, with all the stages of brainstorming notes, research, and
composition attached to it.
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SAMPLE ASSIGNMENTS
1.
Literacy Autobiography Assignment
Description and Suggestions:
This paper should recount the history of your literacy, emphasizing the development of
your writing abilities. You may have better memories of your reading development,
particularly in your primary and elementary years. But this course focuses on writing, so
your paper should answer the question: How did I learn to write?
Begin by exploring memories of writing events in your life. Next, select a minimum of
three significant experiences – ones that illustrate how your attitudes toward writing and
your ability to write evolved and developed. Remembering that good writers provide
“telling details”, describe these events so that readers (your classmates and I) can
understand both how and why these experiences have affected your writing development.
Then analyze and interpret the meaning and cumulative effect of the experiences you
have selected.
Answering the following questions may help you begin your reflection and analysis:
 What is your earliest memory of writing?
 How and why did your attitude change as you encountered different writing
situations and teachers?
 How and why did out of school writing such as diaries, letters, and poetry affect
your development?
 What patterns do you notice in your remembered writing experiences?
 Were some kinds of writing typically more difficult or more engaging than
others?
 What instructional approaches did you find helpful or discouraging?
You might include some of the following information:
 family influences on your reading and writing;
 school experiences with teachers, librarians, friends, classmates;
 the role “self-initiated” writing has played in your development;
 ways that your strategies for writing have evolved or changed as you grew older;
 your present attitude toward writing.
Structure and Organization:
The best structures are usually organic and seem inherently connected with content.
Analyzing the experiences and relating them to your current attitude toward writing is
most effective when these insights are provided throughout the paper rather than in a
general summation at the end. Many students organize this paper around a chronological
structure. However, you can organize the paper by topic (positive influences, teacher
responses, self-sponsored writing) or any other method that you think appropriate for
your content. You may want to state directly how recounting your experience of learning
to write helps you understand the process of becoming a more proficient writer, or you
may prefer to leave this connection unstated. But it should at least be implied so that the
reader doesn’t think that you had the experience, but missed the meaning.
Format and Length:
This will vary depending upon your individual story. We can discuss this.
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American Idealism Assignment
2.
Over the past century, Americans have debated the role of idealism in their government.
Rising in the world as a major power has presented America with the dilemma of how it
should model its foundational ideals of freedom, opportunity, and self-government. The
widespread prevalence of American culture abroad has also contributed to the sometimes
false impressions that world citizens have of American values.
Choose one of the following prompts and write an essay about it:

Should the ideals on which America was founded be the primary motivator
behind foreign policy, including intervention; or should these ideals be modeled
in isolation in the defense of our resources and assets?

Defend, challenge, or qualify the statement that American media has had a
positive effect on the United States’ world image and reputation.

Defend, challenge, or qualify the statement that America has belittled the
importance of religion as a guiding factor in social legislation. Discuss how this
has affected the view of America in countries reputed to be more religious than
America.

In recent years, America has taken on the responsibility of spreading democracy
in countries torn by conflict, such as Iraq. Analyze whether or not America has
the authority to implement their ideals through intervention into the affairs of
other countries.
Use quotes from at least three of the articles from Chapter 28 in Everything’s an
Argument as evidence. Use at least one additional graphic source – a photograph,
drawing, cartoon, diagram – to support your claim. Either reference this in your essay if
it is in Everything’s An Argument; or attach this graphic source to your paper. Include at
least two definitions in your essay, to explain your terminology.
Spend 1-2 hours on this – 2-3 typed, double-spaced pages.
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3.
Native Son Assignment
Overview
In preparing for this assignment, students talked about various topics that might serve as
themes for a research paper. The psychology of racism and taboos against certain
behaviors in society figured prominently in this discussion. Of course, racism is based on
taboo and misconception, as is prejudice. Bigger Thomas’s fear about committing a
crime to which the white population would negatively react comprises the racist
presumption of rape tied to the presence of a black man in a white woman’s room. This
fear based on a taboo is closely connected to racism and the psychological damage that it
inflicts.
Another subject batted about was the language that Wright used to create scenes and a
setting that goes beyond realism: through a style reminiscent of Kafka, Poe or
Dostoevsky, Wright creates an antihero who is more symbolic, more iconic than real.
Again, psychology plays a major role in this thesis, for it’s an extreme form of
psychological realism that gets played out here. Some literary critics call this naturalism,
while others might suggest that it is existentialism that Wright explores in his
characterization of Bigger. The court cases that Wright utilized to fabricate this portrait
could be essential in your analysis of any philosophical claims.
Choose a thesis or claim.
Consider the topics that have been discussed relative to Native Son, including the
information condensed in the Overview. Research the topic through different types of
sources, including the library, the Internet, and the sources gathered on the website for
this class.
Develop an argument about this topic.
It does not need to include the wording “defend, challenge, or qualify”, although those
ideas should be a part of any claim made. Consider a balanced approach to the argument,
but make sure that you can support whatever claim you make. Understand what your
underlying assumptions or warrants are, and insure that there is consensus on the part of
the reader.
Integrate a variety of sources into a coherent, well-written essay.
Refer to the seven articles posted on the class website, and cite at least three of these in
the paper. Cite an additional three articles that you find on your own. (Definitions from
a dictionary or Wikipedia will not count as additional sources.) Use the sources to
support your position; avoid mere paraphrase or summary. Make your argument the
center of your essay. Use parenthetical (in-text) documentation. The essay should be
five pages, double-spaced, 12-point font. This is the AP English Language course –
focus on Wright’s language in your paper, by quoting from Native Son at least five times.
Create a Works Cited page using MLA format.
Attribute both direct and indirect citations, using MLA format.
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