AP® English Language and Composition-English 11 Honors
Course Syllabus
This course “…engages students in becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of
periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts, and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a
variety of purposes… [S]tudents write in both informal and formal contexts to gain authority and
learn to take risks in writing.”
~AP® English Language and Composition Course Description, AP Central
Course Objectives:
This AP® English Language and Composition course is designed to prepare students for collegelevel writing through an intensive study of language and its uses. By examining modes of
rhetoric and components of style, students will engage in an intensive language study that
emphasizes writing skills, sharpens critical and evaluative awareness, and develops a sense of
mastery in both reading and composition. Students in this course deepen their understanding of
the importance of merging content with purpose, tone, and audience (the rhetorical scenario) by
reading varied works of non-fiction prose and by applying that understanding in frequent
writings, both timed and formal. This course stresses the importance of autonomous and selfdirected revision of a writer’s own awareness of purpose, tone, and audience that is critical in the
composition of effective prose. Above all, students will discard the formulaic (read: fiveparagraph) mode of composition and embrace risk in their search for style.
Expectations and Rigor
Students engage in all types of prose—argumentative, analytical, informative, expository,
reflective, and personal—both as readers and as writers. Readings include essays, letters,
biographies, editorials, narratives, and even some short fiction; all readings model good prose
and represent a wide range of voices. Students examine structure, syntax, diction, rhetorical
devices, purpose, and tone in every reading, and reading-response activities include discussion
(both guided and small-group), blog-responses, emulations (i.e., write an essay like Raymond
Carver or Gretel Ehrlich), timed writings, and formal papers. Student work should be timely, of
course, but also of high quality. Emphasis is also placed on the students’ ability to synthesize
multiple works by examining rhetoric and style and creating connections in well-written
compositions. Students must follow MLA guidelines for citation and documentation when
synthesizing multiple works. Finally, students will engage in activities designed to deepen
appreciation for gathering, interpreting, and presenting information with style, confidence, and a
sense of professionalism. This includes visual (image-based) information. Students will learn
how to discern credible, legitimate sources, especially when using the Internet. The major
outcome will be a research paper of 5-7 pages in length with at least three primary sources and
three secondary sources—all cited properly according to MLA guidelines.
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Course Texts and Reading Resources
As per the English Department’s Eleventh Grade requirements, students will read at least six
novels and fifteen short stories (selections listed later in the syllabus) over the course of the
school year, and those are read independently with outcomes completed outside of the regular
structure of the class. Class time, therefore, is devoted to scholarly discussion and examination
of effective prose and rhetoric, and the core selection of readings is listed below (note that some
short fiction is included with these works of nonfiction prose, as they serve as strong examples of
how authors use language to create meaning):
 Many of the essays and stories below appear in the two main course texts, Readings for
Writers, Eleventh Edition (Jo Ray McCuen and Anthony C. Winkler, Eds.) and A
Writer’s Reader, Ninth Edition (Donald Hall and D.L. Emblen, Eds.).
 Sven Birkerts, “Objections Noted: Word Processing”
 Gretel Ehrlich, “About Men”
 Ralph Ellison, “On Becoming a Writer”
 Ernest Hemingway, “Hills Like White Elephants”
 Maxine Hong Kingston, “Silence”
 Phillip Lopate, “On Shaving a Beard”
 John McPhee, “The Search for Marvin Gardens”
 Nancy Mairs, “The Unmaking of a Scientist”
 George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” and “A Hanging”
 Camille Paglia, “Cats” (good supplement: T.S. Eliot’s “The Naming of Cats”)
 Edgar Allan Poe, “Instinct Versus Reason: A Black Cat” (companion piece to Paglia’s
essay) and “The Fall of the House of Usher”
 Ishmael Reed, “America: The Multinational Society”
 Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”
 Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” and
“Life Without Principle”
 Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance” (supplement with poem “Hamatreya”)
 Mark Twain, “Baker’s Bluejay Yarn” and “Was the World Made for Man?”
 Gore Vidal, “Drugs”
 Edith Wharton, “Roman Fever”
 O. Henry, “A Municipal Report”
 Jonathan Edwards, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”
 David Hume, “Of Personal Identity”
 Immanuel Kant, “First Principles of Morals”
 E. B. White, “Once More to the Lake”
 Amy Tan, “In the Canon, For All the Wrong Reasons” and “Two Kinds”
 Margaret Atwood, “Alien Territory”
 Toni Morrison, “Nobel Lecture”
 Virginia Woolf, “If Shakespeare Had Had a Sister”
 Gerald Early, “Life With Daughters: Watching the Miss America Pageant”
 Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and “I Have a Dream”
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Web-based Resources:
 www.mrdarnell-english.wikispaces.com (Mr. Darnell’s wikispace)
 www.washingtonpost.com (for editorials, opinion pieces, and cartoons)
 www.VirtualSalt.com (great reference for rhetorical devices)
 Podcasts:
o Onion Radio News (satire)
o Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Grammar Tips (contemporary, upbeat minilesson-style grammar refreshers)
o NPR (great for contemporary news stories and editorials)
Overview of Activities, Assignments, and Applications:
 BLOGS: opportunities for more thoughtful responses to readings, though informal
enough to allow for sincerity and free-expression.
 Comic Life Projects: Students use image-based media to synthesize understanding and
interpretations of literature and prose; students utilize understanding of satire and humor
to create visual presentations.
 iMovies and Power Point: Students engage in creative processes to enhance meaning and
understanding in transcendentalist projects using this software.
 Letters to the Editor: A culminating project; just before the AP® Exam, students hone
their abilities to create arguments in a legitimate, real-world context (with real outcomebased incentive). Students read editorials and respond with the hopes of having letters
published.
 Personal Application Essays: Students emulate writers and apply concepts to personal
areas of their lives; all essays are subject to reflective revision.
 Scholarly Analysis Papers: Formal papers based on readings that analyze form and
content in relation to purpose and audience; students rewrite every paper after peers and
instructor provide suggestions for revision.
 Rhetorical Devices: Students become familiar with various rhetorical devices by applying
them in their own writing. VirtualSalt.com is a good resource where students can
discover terms for and illustrated examples of rhetorical devices.
 AP®-style Prompts: quick-writes in class; anonymously posted on SmartBoard for group
critique.
 Practice AP® MC and Essay Questions: Year-long exposure to and discussion of sample
exam questions.
 Vocabulary: exposure to new words in context (from the readings); quizzes and
applications—such as PowerPoints and usage in writing—reinforce new words.
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Curricular Outline: Four major units, one per marking period. (This is merely a guide.)
Unit One
 Concepts for Mastery: Rhetorical Modes, Strategies, and Devices—the rhetorical
scenario (purpose, tone, audience); the rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, logos); rhetorical
terms; expository, argumentative, narrative, and analytical modes; image-based media as
alternative text
 Selected Readings from above that illustrate varied rhetorical modes, such as “I Have a
Dream,” “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” “Life Without Principle,” “Cats,” and “In the
Canon, For All the Wrong Reasons”
 Writings: Blog responses, in-class timed writings (AP® style), and Papers #1 and #2
 AP® Practice: practice MC’s, sets 1 and 2; practice free-response question #1
 Vocabulary: Quiz and application
 Image-based Media: Thanks to the availability of laptops in my classroom on a daily
basis, my students have access to the largest image-dependent resource on the planet: the
Internet. My students access the Internet in my classroom regularly, and we spend a
good deal of time analyzing images for a variety of evaluative purposes—including, but
not limited to:
o Usage in multi-media projects
o Reliability of representation (the Photo Shop phenomenon)
o Empirical value of the image
o Rhetorical purpose of the image (is it another type of “text”?)
 Persuade
 Market
 Inform
 Clarify
 Enhance
 The Transcendentalist Project:
o Research American Transcendentalism using laptops (use the library’s online
databases, such as EbscoHost and ProQuest). Print out findings as needed. You
should be able to: (a) define it, (b) qualify its founding (that is, address why its
founders perceived its need), and (c) catalogue notable Transcendentalists.
o Find Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous essay, “Self-Reliance” (available online),
and read it. Apply your understanding of transcendentalism to Emerson’s essay.
Describe how the essay describes or illustrates transcendental thought.
o Find evidence in Thoreau’s work (“Civil Disobedience” or “Where I Lived and
What I Lived For”) of transcendental thought.
o Address this question in your presentation: Does transcendentalism have any
relevant modern applications?
 Synthesize all of this into a well-designed, media-rich presentation.
 You have full creative license: iMovie, PowerPoint, Skit, etc…
o You MUST include a Works Cited slide in your Power Point presentation.
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Unit Two
 Concepts for Mastery: Building an Argument—qualification, defense, and rejection;
purpose, tone, and audience; persuasive models; diction and syntax; satire
 Selected Readings include “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” “A Modest
Proposal,” “First Principles of Morals,” “Baker’s Bluejay Yarn,” “Harrison Bergeron,”
“Politics and the English Language,” “Drugs,” “Objections Noted: Word Processing,”
editorials from washingtonpost.com, Onion Radio News
 Writings: Blog Responses, in-class timed writings, and Papers #3 and #4.
 AP® Practice: practice MC’s, sets 3 and 4; practice free-response question #2
 Vocabulary: Quiz and application
 Letters to the Editor: read editorials from washingtonpost.com and respond to any TWO;
revise and choose ONE to send to the editor.
 Onion Radio News Podcast: Create your own using Garage Band.
Unit Three
 Concepts for Mastery: Structure, Sound, and Sense –expository and argumentative modes
continue to be emphasized here; form and function merge; vocabulary and usage
 Selected Readings include “The Unmaking of a Scientist,” “The Search for Marvin
Gardens,” “Hills Like White Elephants,” “Alien Territory,” “About Men,” “Once More
to the Lake”
 Writings: Blog Responses, in-class timed writings, and Papers #5 and #6
 AP® Practice: practice MC’s, sets 4 and 5; introduction to synthesis essay
 Vocabulary: Quiz and application
 Comic Life Project: The Great Gatsby. Synthesize any chapter from the novel into a
five-page (minimum) Comic Life project using images from the web and text that you
design.
Unit Four
 Concepts for Mastery: Final Prep for Exam; The Research Paper—Synthesizing Ideas,
Arguments, and Sources; Literary Criticism
 Selected Readings include “On Becoming a Writer,” “Instinct versus Reason: The Black
Cat,” “America: The Multinational Society,” “Silence,” “If Shakespeare Had Had a
Daughter,” “Self-Reliance,” “Nobel Lecture” (all of these readings have supplemental
reads or connections to other works/authors, which emphasizes the synthesis skill set)
 Writings: Blog Responses, in-class timed writings, and Papers # 7 and #8
 AP® Practice: Practice AP® Exam (full exam)
 Vocabulary: Quiz and application
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 The Research Paper: (affectionately known as the “JRP”)
o Objectives: Find and read three total works by three different American authors
who illustrate a selected topic; develop a thesis that unifies the works under the
selected topic in the form of an assertion (argument); write a paper of given length
in response to thesis using textual support, literary criticism, and your own critical
ideas.
Procedure:
1. Choose a topic from the Synthesized Topic Evaluation List (on a separate
sheet). Bear in mind that some topics may blend or intersect (such as greed
and wealth), and that is fine; just be sure that the THEME (in the form of a
thesis statement) you explore in your paper is definitive and concrete.
2. Find three works by American authors that illustrate your chosen topic. Be
sure to find three different authors. Also, vary the genre. Ideally, you should
find one novel, one short story, and one poem. However, you may read two
novels and a short story, or one novel and two short stories if you are having
trouble finding a poem. You must read AT LEAST ONE NOVEL. The
second and third works may be either a novel, a short story, a play, or a poem.
3. Read your works. Read early. Read actively. Read with your focus in mind.
As you read, develop and refine the THEME you wish to explore; this will
eventually become your THESIS statement.
4. Research recognized literary criticism on your works. You will need at least
THREE scholarly articles to support this paper. Be sure to note and keep
track of bibliographic information.
5. Draft your paper. Your target length is 5-7 pages—double-spaced, MLA
style. As you draft and research, you will write PROGRESS REPORTS,
which the instructor will use to offer constructive advice and check your
progress.
6. Conference with instructor periodically.
7. Culminate your argument with swift and careful prose, ample and relevant
support, and a clear and concrete purpose. Take risks, but measure the
reward. Find your voice; construct your argument with style and confidence.
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American Literature Requirements
All assignments and papers relevant to novels and short fiction ask the students to
focus on language and how it is used to create meaning in imaginative ways.
Therefore, most of the papers described below do not require, per se, traditional literary
analysis as much as devoted consideration of how language functions and serves the
varied purposes of its authors.
Novels:
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Short Fiction:
“Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
“A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway
“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
“The White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
“Barn Burning” by William Faulkner
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
“Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather
“Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
“A & P” by John Updike
“Blood Burning Moon” by Jean Toomer
“Long Distance” by Jane Smiley
“Where I’m Calling From” by Raymond Carver
“Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
“Where are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
“The Way We Live Now” by Susan Sontag
“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
“The Way to Rainy Mountain,” N. Scott Momaday,
“The Man to Send Rain Clouds,” Leslie Marmon Silko
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Literary Theory:
Presentation, discussion, and application of foundational concepts in the following literary
theories: formalist criticism, reader-response theory, deconstructionist criticism, gender
criticism, biographical criticism, psychological criticism, historical criticism, sociological
criticism, mythological criticism and cultural studies.
The Papers:
Students read literature outside of class and participate in blog-response sessions to address
relevant literary analysis questions. Students write two formal papers per marking period
based on literature readings. Each paper asks students to synthesize ideas from multiple
literary works, and each paper must demonstrate evidence of proper MLA-style
documentation and formatting. All papers must be scholarly enterprises that demonstrate
style while controlling a central, unified assertion (thesis). All papers must be 2-3 pages in
length. All papers are subject to at least ONE re-write after receiving instructor feedback.
Re-writes are complete revisions based on instructor and peer feedback—they are not simply
editing exercises (fixing spelling and grammar). Re-writes examine content, support, and
argument and seek ways to improve each in the context of the thesis statement (or unifying
critical assertion).
Paper #1: American Voices—Hawthorne and Miller and Witch Hunts. Discuss how
Nathaniel Hawthorne and Arthur Miller use language (separated by 100 years) to advance
similar themes regarding prejudice, ignorance, and fear.
Paper #2: Toward a Modern World—Early 20th Century Prose Fiction. Ernest Hemingway,
F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner embraced new techniques of constructing
narratives that broke from literary traditions. Compare and contrast the different ways each
author utilizes structure, syntax, and diction to construct their stories.
Paper #3: Apocalypse… Now? Vonnegut and O’Brien and Sontag present visions of a world
torn apart by violence, disease, and value degradation—explore these ideas from the
perspective of the authors’ presenting an argument that calls for an “upgrade” of human
civility and morality.
Paper #4: Hang Philosophy… on Some Literature. Apply Kantian ideas of morality to the
texts of As I Lay Dying, “Barn Burning,” “That Evening Sun,” and/ or “A Rose for Emily.”
Consider duty and will as Kantian terms; consider pure (a priori) and empirical (a posteriori)
moral conceptions; consider the roles of instinct and reason; consider any Kantian aspect of
the principles of morals that you think applies to or defines Faulkner.
 Use textual support (quotes) from Kant’s “First Principles of Morals” and from
Faulkner to support your claims. You may discuss any or all of the above Faulkner
works in your paper.
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 Helpful tip: choose one aspect of Kant’s philosophy and apply it to several of
Faulkner’s characters, OR choose one of Faulkner’s complex characters and apply
Kantian morality to him/her. Of course, you may choose another approach if you
desire.
Paper #5: The Ennui of a Post-Modern Existence. Examine the works of Carver, Cheever,
Sontag, and Oates for evidence of melancholy or despair. What syntactical, structural, or
linguistic elements contribute to this effect?
Paper #6: Waking Up. Updike, Jewett, Chopin, and Gilman seemed concerned with those
moments in life that we cite as “defining” or, to wit, “epiphanic.” Cite the epiphanic moment
from each work and describe how each other presents his or her respective moment
linguistically.
Paper #7: The Replicator. Write a personal narrative or an original short story that emulates
the style of ANY of the authors we read this year. Don’t indicate the style—your instructor
and your peers will have to guess.
Paper #8: Read, Respond, Deconstruct… Or Whatever. Examine ANY four works from the
lens of any of the Literary Theories (or a legitimate combination thereof) discussed in class.
Use at least one scholarly article for support.
Assessment
All papers are worth 100 points. All in-class writings are worth 30 points. Practice AP
questions are a completion grade (1 point for every MC completed; 10 points for every FRQ
completed). Projects are worth 100 points. Blogs are worth 10 points. Quizzes and
applications are worth 20 points. Citizenship, Preparation, and Class Participation count for
200 total points at the end of each marking period. Student grade at the end of each marking
period will be based on points earned over points possible.
Final Exam Policy: As long as each student receives a score of 3 or better on the practice
AP® English Language and Composition Exam there will be no required final for this course.
Any student who does not score 3 or better will write a scholarly analysis paper in lieu of a
final exam.
Contact Mr. Darnell for any reason: jdarnell@umasd.org
Wikispace: www.mrdarnell-english.wikispaces.com
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