Teacher
Phone
Office Hours
Course Website
Mr. Brennan Lawler
Classroom
312.445.4680 ext.7500
Email
Mondays after school and by appointment
http://muchinaplc.wikispaces.com
Room L00
blawler@noblenetwork.org
AP Language and Composition
2014-2015
"You write in order to change the world ... if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then
you can change it."
— James Baldwin
Course Description
How is the pen mightier than the sword? What makes one piece of writing stronger than another? What are the
building blocks of writing that changes the world? AP Language and Composition is a college-level course that
focuses on the intentional choices that influential writers make in order to impact and inspire their audiences. As
AP (advanced placement) students, scholars will be learning at the rigor and pace of a college course and should
work and act like college students. Students who are able to earn a score of a 3, 4 or 5 on the AP Language and
Composition exam are traditionally granted three credits of academic coursework that most major colleges and
universities will accept.
Through reading, writing, discussing, and exploring texts together, students will examine the construction of
writing that has shaped the way we see and understand the world. We will read poetry, prose, essays, and
speeches in pursuit of understanding exactly how and why authors do what they do. Additionally, we will be
able to critically examine art, photography, and other media that have contributed to our understanding of
language and composition. Lastly, we will use our observational and analytical skills to craft our own writing
that explains the rhetorical choices that powerful authors make in their writing.
By the end of the course, students will be prepared to take the AP Language and Composition exam which
consists of:
 A 50-60-question multiple choice section in which students have one hour to read and answer questions
from five different passages.
 Three essays to be completed in two hours and 15 minutes:
1. A rhetorical analysis of a piece of prose which examines an author’s use of structure and style.
2. An essay which synthesizes multiple sources to defend, refute, or qualify an argument.
3. An argumentative essay that requires students to create and defend a position based on valid
personal experience and related evidence.
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Throughout the course we will work to strengthen those crucial critical reading and writing skills that make us
more powerful people. We do this not only to earn a 4 or 5 on the AP exam, but to succeed in college and life.
The skills you will develop in this class are above and beyond what the AP exam evaluates and are what all
well-prepared college students need.
Course Reader and Texts
Cooley, Thomas, ed. The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition. 7th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010. Print.
Hacker, Diana. A Pocket Style Manual. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. Print.
Required Course Materials
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A dedicated AP Language and Composition Notebook
A 1-inch Binder, Dividers, and Loose-leaf Paper
Pens AND Pencils
Set of FOUR highlighters (yellow, blue, green, and pink)
500 Notecards and a Notecard Box to contain all of them (Or several notecard rings)
A City of Chicago Library Card
Grading
Your grade in this course will reflect your progress toward our goal of earning a three, four or five on the AP exam. Compositions,
timed writings, participation, homework and AP exam style quizzes and tests account for most of your grade. There will also be
regular ACT vocabulary and grammar quizzes to ensure that you are not only prepared for the AP exam, but for the ACT as well.
Below is a breakdown of the grading scale:
Category
Compositions and
Timed Writings
Quizzes and Tests
Participation
(includes Do Now,
Classwork, Exit
Tickets)
Homework
Quarterly Interim
TOTAL
Points
600
Percentage
40%
450
225
30%
15%
150
75
1500
10%
5%
100%
Class Participation
It is just as important to me that you express yourself verbally as with your written word. This is largely a writing class, but we will
have discussions regularly and contributions from everyone are the only way that we will be able to sustain the rich conversations that
make analysis of literature worthwhile. You will earn a weekly class participation grade based on your verbal and written
contributions during our daily classes based on the quality of your work.
Class Expectations
Raise your hand and/or wait to be called on to speak (unless otherwise stated).
Value yourself and your peers.
Be prepared for class.
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Act SMART.
Work Hard.
THINK.
Classroom Procedures
Entering the classroom:
Upon entry, you will have a “Do Now” activity to help us focus and prepare to discuss. This may be a review, new material, a
critical thinking exercise, a short piece for analysis, or a quiz on something we have already learned.
 Enter silently, seriously, and ready to work and think.
 This will almost always be an individual activity. Do not concern yourself with the actions of others.
 Upon the bell, all students should be at level 0 and working diligently on their Do Now.
Handing in papers:
 All paperwork should be on your desk at the beginning of class. Any papers handed in after the bell has rung will not
be accepted.
 All composition assignments, with the exception of in class timed writings, should be turned in typed, double-spaced,
and in size 12 in Times New Roman font.
 In the spirit of continual growth as a writer and the belief that all writing can improve, any paper that is handed in
ON TIME may be replaced in the gradebook with a comparable assignment on which the student has received a
better grade.
The unprepared student:
If you misplace or have forgotten necessary supplies, ask a classmate to assist you before the bell sounds and class
begins. I have pens available but will only loan them out in exchange for collateral to be returned at the end of class. DO
NOT RELY ON OTHERS TO PREPARE FOR YOU.
The tardy student:
Class begins at the sound of the bell. Any student who is not already in his/her seat by the bell will be considered tardy
and receive a demerit. Below are the campus tardy policies:
 Tardy to class less than 1 minute: 1 demerit
 Tardy to class 1-3 minutes: 2 demerits
 Tardy to class more than 3 minutes: 4 demerits
The absent student:
If you are absent, it is YOUR responsibility to find me before or after school to get your make-up work. Make-up
work will NOT be given out during class time. For each day of absence, you will be granted one day to complete and turn in
any missed work. If you are absent on the day a writing assignment is due, it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO E-MAIL THE
PAPER TO THE INSTRUCTOR BY 8AM ON THE DUE DATE FOR IT TO BE ACCEPTED.
Late work:
 As stated in the Muchin Student Handbook, late work for juniors will only be accepted up to one week after the
original due date for no more than 50% of the original point total.
Getting your attention during small group work:
 I will ask for your attention and count down from five.
 By the time I reach zero, all students should be tracking me, silently, with pens down.
 I will wait to continue instruction until 100 percent of students are compliant.
Bathroom/Locker:
Class time will be free from bathroom/locker breaks. Take care of your business before you get here. We have too much to do.
Course Overview and Schedule (Subject to Change)
Enduring Understandings:
 I may not be a great reader or a great writer, but I can be a great re-reader and great re-writer.
 Rhetoric is situational – it has an occasion, context, and purpose.
 The AP Language & Composition exam is a formidable task, but I will be prepared to earn a qualifying score
through hard work and practice.
 I am taking a college class. I must come every day prepared to be challenged. Any distraction from my learning is
unacceptable.
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Close reading is re-reading.
An enriched mind deserves an enriched vocabulary. A mind without words is impoverished.
Essential Questions:
 In what ways is the pen mightier than the sword?
 What is rhetoric and how do I analyze it?
 Why is it important to have sophisticated writing skills in academic life and the “real world?”
Throughout the course, students will continuously be asked to learn how to write with:
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a wide-ranging vocabulary which they use appropriately and effectively;
a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination; logical organization,
enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions and emphasis;
a balance of generalization and specific illustrative detail; and
an effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate
emphasis through diction and sentence structure (AP College Board, 2011).
In addition to the above AP requirements, students will learn how to write five distinct types of essays: a rhetorical
analysis essay, a synthesis essay, a research paper, an argumentative essay, and a college application essay. The major
components and skills required to compose these essays will be explained in greater detail in the course schedule.
Students will also be held accountable for learning fifteen new vocabulary words a week (meaning more than 600 new
words for the year) to increase their literacy and options for word choice in their own writing. Students will be assessed
each week through comprehensive vocabulary quizzes, as well as with the expectation to meaningfully infuse their new
vocabulary into their writing, when appropriate. Lastly, students will also be held responsible for mastering ALL the
College Readiness Standards for the writing section of the ACT. The complete listing of these standards is attached as the
last page of this syllabus. Our big goals are for every student to earn a 3, 4, or 5 on the AP Exam and show 4 points
growth on the English portion of the ACT.
Units
Compositions*
Timed Writings & Interims
The Rhetorical Essay
August 27th - October 26th
Q1 Writing Assignment 1 due: 9/12
Q1 Writing Assignment 2 due: 10/7
Q1 Writing Assignment 3 due: 10/28
Q1 Timed Writing: 10/11
Q1 Interim: 10/18
The Argumentative Essay
October 29th - January 18th
Q2 Writing Assignment 1 due: 11/7
Q2 Writing Assignment 2 due: 11/19
Q2 Writing Assignment 3 due: 1/9
Q3 Writing Assignment 1 due: 2/6
Q3 Writing Assignment 2 due: 2/20
Q3 Writing Assignment 3 due: 3/6
Q3 Writing Assignment 4 due: 3/20
Q4 Writing Assignment 1 due: 4/10
Q4 Writing Assignment 2 due: 4/24
Q4 Writing Assignment 3 due: 5/10
Q4 Writing Assignment 4 due: 6/2
Q2 Timed Writing: 12/5
Q2 Interim: 12/13
The Synthesis Essay
January 22nd - March 29th
Final AP Exam Review & Prep for AP
Literature
April 8th - June 13th
Q3 Timed Writing: 2/20
Q3 Interim: 2/27 & 2/28
Q4 Timed Writing 1: 4/10
Q4 Timed Writing 2: 4/27
Q4 Timed Writing 3: 5/2
ACT: Tuesday, April 18, 2015
AP Exam: Friday, May 13 at 8 a.m.
*Dates are tentative and subject to change. All changes will be communicated as early as possible.
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Quarter 1: Everything is Rhetoric - The Art and Science of Close Reading and Rhetorical Analysis
We will begin the first quarter by examining author’s purpose, as well as the intentional choices and literary
devices that strong writers use to add greater impact to the poetry, prose, and speeches they have written for
their audiences. Students will review the basic tenants of essay writing from developing a thesis, to adding
context, to composing body paragraphs, to crafting a conclusion. Additionally, students will focus on revision
and editing for vocabulary, structure, sentence fluency, relevance, and rhetorical devices.
Students will learn rhetorical devices from the structural (anaphora, epistrophe, diction, etc.) to the persuasive
(logos, pathos, ethos, inductive/deductive reasoning) to the literary (figurative language, sensory imagery, etc.)
and be able not only to identify them in the writing of others, but infuse them into their own writing as well.
Students will receive feedback regularly through peer and teacher-led conferencing, as well as through written
feedback on quick response prompts, where students will simply write one-paragraph responses to the works of
poetry, prose, or speeches listed below as anchor texts to help them learn how to identify the most salient parts
of a literary work, in preparation for longer, more methodical process pieces. Lessons on revision and editing
will focus on how students can be more purposeful in their diction by revising for stronger and more meaningful
language; on varying their sentence structures by being able to identify the four basic sentence types and
revising their writing for a wide variety of them, as well as knowing when each is structurally appropriate to
make the greatest impact in their own writing; and on using and identifying their own use of rhetorical devices
in their writing as well, such as using parallel structure, clarifying tone, and altering style.
Our anchor texts for this unit will be the poems: Imtiaz Dharker’s, They’ll Say, “She Must Be from Another
Country,” Langston Hughes’s Theme for English B, and Billy Collins’s The History Teacher; and the following
works of prose and speech: Annie Dillard’s Holy the Firm, Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham
Jail, and Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address.
Writing Assignments:
1. A rhetorical response essay to a passage from the summer reading book: Outliers. Students will be
expected to choose their own passage and write a detailed analysis that examines the author’s use of
style, structure, and rhetorical strategies to create an intended effect on the audience.
2. A poem in which a student uses three or more stylistic, structural, and/or literary devices in order to
make an impact on their audience, as well as a supporting essay that rhetorically analyzes their own
poem.
3. A rhetorical analysis of a persuasive speech in which students will write a detailed analysis that
examines the author’s use of style, structure, and rhetorical strategies to create an intended effect on the
audience.
4. A 40 minute, in-class timed response to a work of poetry or prose in which students will have to analyze
an unfamiliar work and write a rhetorical response.
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Quarter 2: Everything is Argument - The Art and Science of the Argumentative Essay
In the second quarter, students will learn about how to craft an “air tight” argument through reading and
analyzing several different styles and genres of writing and modeling their own writing and developing their
own preferences based on mentor texts. Through many diverse examples, students will see and model differing
styles of persuasive writing by balancing personal experience with credible evidence, crafting arguments,
counterarguments, and rebuttals in their argumentative essays. Unlike previous units, anchor texts will feature
prose that is narrative, descriptive, and cause-and-effect.
Students will participate in student-led debates in which the instructor will take real-time notes and project them
on the board so that students will be able to reflect on previous statements and use these notes as a basis on how
to build off of previous speakers. Through this exercise, students will learn how to revise their own arguments,
as well as the arguments of others, as well as how to develop stronger counterarguments and rebuttals while
sticking to the same component of an argument since the entire debate will be transcribed. Moreover, this
practice will reinforce the revision and editing strategies of this unit which will focus on crafting and revising
for purposeful transitions between similar and contrasting ideas, rewriting for consistency and terseness, and
editing out any inconsequential or weak information that may be grounded on logical fallacies in an argument.
Students will receive both verbal and written feedback from peers and their instructor on quick one-paragraph
responses to debate topics, as well as through drafts of their longer process pieces.
Students will also revisit the skills necessary to craft a rhetorical analysis/expository essay through the current
topic of performance-enhancing drugs in sports and academics, as well as a craft a cause-and-effect style
argumentative essay through the examples of Laurence Gonzales’s My Grandmother’s Ashtray: Why Smart
People Do Stupid Things and Richard Bernstein’s The Growing Cowardice of Online Anonymity.
Mentor and anchor texts include excerpts from the textbook, Everything’s an Argument, as well as Abraham
Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, Mary Mebane’s The Back of the Bus, Laurence Gonzales’s My
Grandmother’s Ashtray: Why Smart People Do Stupid Things, Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue, William Moller’s
Those Who Live in Glass Houses, Brian Alexander’s Tour de Farce, Michael Shermer’s, The Doping Dilemma,
Andy Borowitz’s, Angry Cleveland Indian Fans Demand Team Take Steroids, and Peter Singer’s The Singer
Solution to World Poverty, Johnson C. Montgomery’s An Island of Plenty, and Richard Bernstein’s The
Growing Cowardice of Online Anonymity
Writing Assignments:
1. A college admissions essay in which students use personal narrative and description to try and persuade the
college of their choice to grant them acceptance.
2. A 2-3 page expository/argumentative essay in which students identify effective evidence and logical fallacies
of Peter Singer’s The Singer Solution to World Poverty and Johnson C. Montgomery’s An Island of Plenty and
craft an argument that supports, challenges, or qualifies the claims of the authors.
3. A 2-3 page expository essay in which students choose at least two of four essays about performanceenhancing drugs in sports (William Moller’s Those Who Live in Glass Houses, Brian Alexander’s Tour de
Farce, Michael Shermer’s, The Doping Dilemma, Andy Borowitz’s, Angry Cleveland Indian Fans Demand
Team Take Steroids) and highlights the rhetorical devices that the authors use to convey their arguments to the
audience.
4. A 2-3 page cause-and-effect essay in which students argue how one event has caused another.
5. A 40 minute in-class, timed response in which students are asked to present and defend an argument based on
personal experience and relevant evidence.
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Quarter 3: Everything is Connected- The Art and Science of the Synthesis Essay
In the second quarter, students will focus on being able to gather and critically examine multiple sources of
information in order to formulate a synthesis essay that defends, refutes, or qualifies a claim. During this unit,
students will learn correct MLA format that is necessary for college level writing. Furthermore, students will
focus on how to write in a way that highlights the writing and evidence presented by others while maintaining
an original position. Specifically, students will be able to assess persuasive writing in terms of style, structure,
and tone, as well as compare and contrast how different writers use such rhetorical devices differently to craft
an argument. Furthermore, students will understand that effective synthesis essays prove their point through
research and evidence, not through what they think. The unit will culminate with a 6-8page research paper in
which students will select their own research topic and go through the process of creating a formal outline and
creating a research paper from scratch, through methodical research, constant assessment of the validity of
sources, and synthesizing credible and relevant information. Students will be able to evaluate their utility of a
source and balance their use of both primary and secondary sources in a way that is purposeful and strengthens
their writing, as well as being able to identify logical fallacies like red herrings and straw man arguments.
Moreover, students will be required to have a bibliography of a minimum of 10 sources, from at least five
primary sources, two non- online sources, and at least one non-print source.
In this unit, students will also participate in student-led Socratic Seminars in which students will craft their own
discussion questions and collaboratively investigate controversial topics through the use of questioning and
responding through both textual and audio-visual evidence. Students will give and receive both verbal and
written feedback through peer revision and editing, as well as teacher-driven feedback through practice
expository and synthesis essay prompts and conferencing. Furthermore, students will be able to assess the
validity of an author’s argument through his/her objectivity and perspective. Practice essay topics in which
students will be required to synthesize multiple sources, including non-print media, to craft an argument are:
whether or not too much homework is harmful for high school students and whether or not celebrities have the
right to their own privacy. The focus on revision and editing in this unit will be using correct MLA format and
citation methods, punctuation when introducing quotations, and effectively organizing multiple sources and
ideas into a logical and coherent body paragraphs.
Mentor and anchor texts include the following: the MLA Style Handbook, Myriam Marquez’s Why and When
We Speak Spanish in Public, Chang-Rae Lee’s Mute in an English-Only World, Greg Lewis’s An Open Letter to
Diversity’s Victims, and Dennis Baron’s Don’t Make English Official—Ban It Instead, Paul Hawken’s A
Declaration of Sustainability, and Doug Bandow’s Social Responsibility: A Conservative View.
Writing Assignments:
1. A 2-3 page expository essay in which the student reads and responds to Paul Hawken’s A Declaration of
Sustainability and Doug Bandow’s Social Responsibility: A Conservative View by comparing and
contrasting each author’s use of style, structure, and tone to convey his argument .
2. A 2-3 page expository essay in which the student takes a position on the question, “How Do We Speak
American?” and references four anchor texts (Myriam Marquez’s Why and When We Speak Spanish in
Public, Chang-Rae Lee’s Mute in an English-Only World, Greg Lewis’s An Open Letter to Diversity’s
Victims, and Dennis Baron’s Don’t Make English Official—Ban It Instead) in their argument.
3. An 6-8-page research paper in which the student selects a controversial topic, presents opposing
arguments, and chooses to defend, refute, or qualify a claim based on a bibliography of at least 10 or
more different sources, from which there are at least five primary sources, two non-online sources, and
at least one non-print source.
4. A 55-minute, in-class timed response in which students will have six different sources (including a
visual image) to consider and analyze before defending, refuting, or qualifying a claim.
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Quarter 4: Everything is Going to Be Alright & Everything is Literature - The Art and Science of
Creative Writing
In this unit, students will examine authors who are able to infuse creativity into their writing in order to engage
their audience(s). In the fourth quarter, students will develop and nurture their own personal voice into their
writing, while balancing personal experience and opinion with strong rhetorical analysis and purposeful textual
evidence. Students will examine prose from many different genres including definitive, process, and compare
and contrast, among other genres that have not been studied up to this point. Additionally, students will be able
to take unique aspects of their personal voice and appropriately infuse their own style of writing into rhetorical
analysis, expository, and argumentative essays. Lastly, after the AP exam, students will use the last month of
the course to prepare for the AP Literature and Composition Exam by learning how to critique and research a
literary work and write a literary response paper.
Students will practice writing in many different creative genres in this unit to help discover their personal voice
as a writer from writing to exemplify, to writing to explain a process, to writing to compare and contrast. All of
these pieces will be quick, self-directed process pieces in which students will use their mentor texts to identify
the traits of each type of essay, while selecting their own topics to write about. Students will receive feedback
through peer conferencing, as well as instructor feedback on their drafts and through conferencing as students
revise and edit their pieces. Specific to this unit, students will be revising and editing specifically for
meaningful structure and organization of their writing, as well as the use of creative rhetorical devices, such as
humor and satire, symbolism, etc. In addition to print media, students will investigate how other artists convey
similar messages through such creative works as art, photography, music, and video. Specifically, we will
analyze such creative and controversial modern-day artists as Banksy, Kayne West, and Michael Moore for the
social messages that they hope to convey through non-print media and their effectiveness compared the
traditional print media that address the same topic. For example, how does Banksy’s artwork on the West Bank
Wall compare to a persuasive essay in the New York Times calling for its dismantling; how does Kayne West’s
song about blood diamonds compare to a Congressman’s speech calling for the end of them; and how does
Michael Moore’s documentary Capitalism: A Love Story compare to the internationally acclaimed Occupy Wall
Street protest coverage?
Anchor texts will include, but are not limited to: The Onion’s All Seven Deadly Sins Committed at Church Bake
Sale, Nora Ephron’s The Six Stages of E-mail, Allegra Goodman’s So You Want to Be a Writer? Here’s How,
David Sedaris’s Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa, and Dave Barry’s Guys vs. Men.
Writing Assignments
1. A 2-3 page essay in which students define or exemplify a controversial term in the English language.
2. A 2-3 page essay in which students explain how to complete a seemingly complex process.
3. A 2-3 page essay in which students compare and contrast two different forms of media that address the
same societal topic.
4. An 8-10 page literary research paper in which students use a novel and at least 5 sources of literary
criticism to write a college response paper.
5. A 40 minute, in-class timed response to a work of poetry or prose in which students will have to analyze
an unfamiliar work and write a rhetorical response.
6. A 55-minute, in-class timed response in which students will have six different sources (including a
visual image) to consider and analyze before defending, refuting, or qualifying a claim.
7. A 40 minute in-class, timed response in which students are asked to present and defend an argument
based on personal experience and relevant evidence.
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