Advanced Placement English III
The Delicate Balance of Life in America: Rights and Responsibilities of the
Individual in a Global Society
Eric Wydeven
(512) 841-7368
john.wydeven@austinisd.org
http://wydevenenglish.weebly.com
Course Overview: Advanced Placement English III is a college level course. The overall goal is to prepare
students to take the Advanced Placement Language and Composition exam in the spring by enabling them to
“read complex texts with understanding and to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate
effectively with mature readers…. Upon completing the course, then, students should be able to:
 Analyze and interpret samples of good writing, identifying and explaining an author’s use of
rhetorical strategies and techniques;
 Apply effective strategies and techniques in their own writing;
 Create and sustain arguments based on readings, research and/or personal experience;
 Demonstrate understanding and mastery of standard written English as well as stylistic maturity
in their own writings;
 Write in a variety of genres and contexts, both formal and informal, employing appropriate
conventions;
 Produce expository and argumentative compositions that introduce a complex central idea and
develop it with appropriate, specific evidence, cogent explanations, and clear transitions;
 Move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to inquiry and
research, drafting, revising, editing, and review;
 Demonstrate understanding of the conventions of citing primary and secondary sources;
 Write thoughtfully of their own process of composition; and,
 Revise a work to make it suitable for a different audience.”
--Excerpted from the Advanced Placement Program Manual for English
Language and Composition
This assumes that a student already understands and uses standard English grammar.
Students who do well on the AP test – those who score a 3 or higher (depending upon the institution they
are planning to attend) – can gain credit for one or more lower level college English classes. In order to reach this
goal, students are expected to do a great deal of reading and writing outside of class. Discussions in class will
focus on the idea of the social contract and the rights and responsibilities of living in a multicultural democratic
society and the balance of the individual versus the whole of society. This overarching theme will be further
broken down into smaller thematic units to provide a focus for reading and class discussions. Each of these units
will have major works selected by me from which I will draw passages for close study in the classroom and which
will help students to focus on these thematic issues. These will be read outside of class. Students should be
prepared for class sessions by having read assigned sections and chapters prior to their due date. Shorter essays
will be read in class as a basis for studying the rhetorical choices made by authors as they convey information to
their reader and to teach students how to interact with a text via studied annotation, questioning, and by
connecting the literature to other works and to their own experiences.
In addition to assigned materials, each student will be responsible for reading and reporting on at least one
major work from the American literature canon each semester. These will be completed outside of class.
Composition:
Writing in the class will take a variety of forms.
Most informal writing will either be direct responses to teacher written thematic prompts and connections
between texts or as reactions to course readings in reader response journals, dialectical journals, and question
journals.
Formal writing will also take several forms. Foremost will be timed writings, of which students will write
many during the course of each semester.
Students will also write more formal out-of-class essays that will focus a great deal on working through
the various stages of the writing process
Evaluation of student writing will be holistic, but will often highlight certain rhetorical skills or methods
if they have been the focus of class discussion and teaching; thus early assessments heavily emphasize sentence
mechanics and diction, whereas evaluation of an argument paper might, while looking at the paper as a whole,
examine the development of the syllogism or the inclusion of ethos, logos, and pathos into the student’s argument.
Particular emphasis will also be placed on a student’s focus area for self-development.
Plagiarism: Taking the words or ideas of another and passing them off as your own is intellectual theft and will
not be tolerated . Students choosing to plagiarize ideas rather than do their own work will receive a zero for the
assignment with no opportunity to make up the work. Plagiarism includes:
 Turning in someone else’s work as your own.
 Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving them credit.
 Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks.
 Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation.
 Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit.
 Copying so many words or ideas from a source (or multiple sources) that it makes up the majority of your
work, whether credit is given to the original or not
Grammar and mechanics:
Though we will engage in plenty of formal grammar study, and will continue to develop our abilities to
use the mechanics and conventions of the English language through teacher led activities and careful examination
of the techniques of professional writers, each student will also choose one focus area for their own development
each six weeks.
Grading Policy: progress reports are generated every three weeks, with report cards at 6-week intervals
Grades are computed on a fraction system. In this system all points have the same weight. Point values of
assignments will vary, with the greatest weights placed on major written assignments, exams, and long-term
projects. Students will be expected to record all grades and save all work to compute their own grade averages as
need arises. Late work will lose 50% off the top of the grade and will only be accepted for three days beyond its
original due date.
Course Requirements: In order to maintain the rigor of the AP program there are several course requirements
that a student must meet in order to maintain their standing in the course:
 Students must maintain a passing grade. Students who fall below a 70% will be asked to
reexamine their decision to be in the AP program.
 Students must complete homework outside of class (roughly an hour and a half a night) and be
prepared for each class session. Failure to do so will result in the likelihood of a grade falling
short of passing and subsequent removal from the program.
 Each student will need a three ring binder approximately an inch and a half thick that will be a
running record of their performance and development in this course. The binder will be divided
into 5 sections: Calendar and administrative tools, Writing toolbox , Essays , AP practice and
prep, and Text specific notes and handouts.
Tentative schedule and literature:
Weeks 1-5: Leadership and Government
Major Work: The Grapes of Wrath; other works to be announced.
Skills Focus: Intro to rhetoric, the language of argument, tone and DIDLS, rhetorical analysis
Projects and major assignments: essays
Weeks 6-10: The family contract
Major Work: As I Lay Dying; other works to be announced
Skills focus: argument, style analysis
Projects and major assignments: development of a composite picture of life at McCallum HS, essays
Weeks 11-12: Transcendentalism and the global community
Major Work: Walden, chapter 1: Economy
Skills Focus: Using logic: syllogism and enthymeme, transcendentalism
Projects and major assignments: Essays
Weeks 13-16: Social Class in America
Major work: The Great Gatsby; other works to be announced.
Skills focus: Tropes and schemes, rhetorical analysis
Projects and major assignments: Social class project: life at McCallum
Week 17: Final exams
***
Winter Break
***
Weeks 18-22: World affairs;
Major Work: A Farewell to Arms; other works to be announced.
Skills Focus: Style analysis, rhetorical analysis.
Projects and major assignments: Response and issue journal
Weeks 23-24: Synthesis
Major work: Short essays
Skills focus: synthesizing arguments, documentation
Projects and major assignments: Synthesis essay, mini research paper
Weeks 25: When the contract fails
Major work: Fences
Skills Focus: Argumentation
Weeks 26-30: Self Preservation during Conflict; Preserving the Individual When Things Go Wrong
Major work: The Things They carried; Lost in the Funhouse; other works to be announced
Skills focus: Postmodernism, rhetorical analysis
Projects and major assignments: essays
Weeks 31-32 AP Test Preparation
Major work: Various essays
Skills focus: Test Prep
Weeks 33-37: Self-Identity and the Search for Place
Major Work: A Visit from the Goon Squad; other works to be announced
Skills focus: Synthesis, style and voice
Week 38: Final exams, ROR presentations and wrap-up
Other texts: Everything’s an Argument, With Readings, Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz and Walters
*ROR Presentations: Here students will be asked to book talk one approved major work of their own choice that
they have read over the course of the semester. Each student will be given between 5 and 7 minutes to present
their book to the rest of the class. At this time they must also have a visual aid to enhance their presentation and
must turn in a critical argumentative book review.
Expect from me: I am your teacher and am here to help you to move to a better understanding of the various
components of the English language. Further, I am committed to facilitating your development of the skills you
will need to pass the Advanced Placement Test. I will do my best to provide meaningful and interesting activities,
assignments and resources for you, and I am here to respond to your questions about the material we will be
studying. Please let me know if you are having difficulty understanding what we are working on to help me to
better plan to suit your individual needs. I am, furthermore, here before and after school and will be happy to
provide individual tutoring should you need it. Parents are encouraged to call me or to come by the school to visit
in person.
Essential Needs:
Each student enrolled in this class will need the following to be successful in the course:
 A three ring binder 11/2 inch thick
 5 dividers for the three ring binder
 One pocket binder with plenty of paper
 One thumb drive or memory device for saving work done in the computer lab
 Pens (blue or black)