AP® English Language
& Composition
Syllabus
Course Overview
The course is constructed in accordance with the guidelines described in the AP English
Course Description. To that end, our introductory college-level course is about critical
thinking and argument. Readings include a large number of selections, ancient and
modern, that challenge our basic assumptions about what we know and how we express
it. The course of study is twofold: critical reading and thoughtful writing. The readings
span the range of human canonical thought, including such classic authors as Plato, More,
Swift, Machiavelli, T. S. Eliot, and William James. The large body of readings includes
modern and contemporary essays, letters, case studies, speeches, images, and imaginative
literature with a focus on arguments on contemporary issues that reflect universal
problems. Featured authors include Peter Singer, Carl Rogers, Robert Frost, Kate
Chopin, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Toulmin, Milton Friedman, Edward Tufte, Ellen
Goodman, and the Dalai Lama. Students will write frequently with two purposes in
mind: to evaluate how others construct arguments; and how to evaluate and construct
their own. A summer reading project must be completed. The course is designed
specifically to meet or exceed the guidelines from the AP English Language and
Literature Course Description.
Our primary texts are Current Issues and Enduring Questions: A Guide to Critical
Thinking and Argument, with Readings; Invitation to Philosophy; Superheroes and
Philosophy; A Thinker’s Guide to Fallacies; The Miniature Guide to the Foundations of
Ethical Reasoning; and The Elements of Style, and Vocabulary Workshop. Complete
bibliographic information is listed below.
The Course of Study follows the organizational plan of Current Issues and Enduring
Questions, the primary text for the course.
As critical readers, students will be able to
 Identify the gist of an argument
 Locate the thesis of an argument
 Identify its implicit and explicit warrants
 Analyze and evaluate the soundness of an argument
 Critique the strengths and weaknesses of arguments
As thoughtful writers, students will be able to:
 Identify their audience and create a tone for addressing it.
 Inform the reader with clarity and precision.
 Self-critique their grounding assumptions.
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Find sources of information and embed it into their writing.
Cite sources properly and professionally.
Write narrative, expository, analytical, and argumentative essays about current
issues, popular culture, and personal experience.
Write informally by imitation and in-class responses.
Revise and edit essays that evolve through stages, from freewriting to peer and
teacher editing, leading to a final product.
Course Plan
Fall Semester
Parts I and II: Critical Thinking, Reading, and Writing
The course begins with the submission and presentation of the summer reading project9
(see Appendix A) which contains two extensive writing portfolios. Presentation and
discussion of the readings and writings associated with this summer project takes
between two and three weeks. The Course of Study then follows, in orderly fashion, a
short course in methods of thinking about and writing arguments. Part I of the course
focuses on critical thinking and reading. By critical thinking, I mean that students will
conduct serious analytic thought, including analysis of one’s own warrants or
assumptions. The process-cycle we engage in begins Socratically, and proceeds
dialectically, in robust discussion. Part II, critical writing, implies the use of effective,
respectable techniques, not gimmicks, for setting forth a written argument. Students are
taught, therefore, to discuss and write responsible ways of arguing persuasively. This
process is not easily mastered, especially for the young, so the governing principle for the
course is that students will express themselves clearly in both dialogue and writing. The
whole of the issues-base for the course follows this format, with analysis of (1) essays,
imaginative literature, visual images; (2) student papers that analyze a side of an issue;
and (3) casebooks that develop a particular issue and encourage students to synthesize the
arguments in discussion and writing of their own.
All of the essays studied are accompanied by questions for thinking and writing.
The questions are of two types: “What is X?” and “What is the value of X?” Such
questioning directs students into the classical rhetorical direction of reasoned argument.
First, they must define what issue it is that they are asked to identify; and second, they are
directed to evaluate the issue—on axiological, epistemic and metaphysical grounds.
Additionally, students are not merely asked to talk of the content of what they
read (e.g. the arguments around Roe v. Wade), but most importantly, discuss and write
about the style of the arguments. Such a focus is essential if students are to effectively
evaluate arguments on issues of political, social, scientific, ethical, and religious issues.
This highlights the importance of reading arguments in a variety of styles, that arise, in
part, from the different disciplinary backgrounds of the various authors. Essays by
journalists, lawyers, judges, social scientists, policy analysts, philosophers, critics,
activists, theologians, and other writers—including students, are all subject to analysis.
In short, students begin the course by identifying assumptions, getting ideas by means of
invention strategies, using printed and electronic sources, interpret visual sources,
evaluate kinds of evidence, and organizing material, as well as introducing methods of
inquiry.
Part III: Methods of Argument
Following the introductory phase of the course, students receive more tools for analysis,
with the aim of evaluating arguments more accurately, and writing arguments with more
focus. Accordingly, students will begin with separate units: the Philosopher’s View: The
Toulmin Model. This summary will assist students who wish to use this method of
argument in analyzing the course readings. Next, the students will learn A Logician’s
View: Deduction, Induction, and Fallacies. This part of the course is more rigorous, with
a lengthy study of the role fallacies play in daily reasoning. We continue with A
Moralist’s View: Ways of Thinking Ethically—a discussion of the amoral, immoral, and
moral reasoning. This is followed by A Lawyer’s View: Steps Toward Civic Literacy,
with a focus on basic legal concepts, such as the distinction between civil and criminal
cases. Next, we study A Psychologist’s View: Rogerian Argument, with a focus on
audience, organization and tone. Additionally, we analyze A Literary Critic’s View:
Arguing About Literature, for the purpose of seeing how critics argue about imaginative
literature. Finally, we close the units with A Forensic View: Oral Presentation and
Debate.
Winter/Spring Semester
Part IV, Current Issues: Occasions for Debate
Part four of the course begins with some comments on binary thinking. It then gives a
Checklist for Analyzing Debate and reprints a series of arguments—on abortion,
affirmative action, cell phones used in cars, censorship, Gay marriage legalization,
Internet filters in public libraries, and gun control,. Here, as elsewhere in the course of
study, many of the selections (drawn from such sources as the National Review and the
New York Times are very short—approximately the length of the 500-word student essay.
Part V, Current Issues: Casebooks
Part five consists of nine issues that are discussed by several writers. For example, there
is a casebook on reparations, beginning with material on the payment of money to
Japanese Americans who, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, were incarcerated because of
their ancestry; and it then moves into six essays and two letters on the current issue of
reparations to African Americans for slavery and for subsequent disenfranchisement.
Other casebooks of readings and writing tasks concern the following questions:
 The Death Penalty: Can It Ever Be Justified?
 Drugs: Should Their Sale and Use Be Legalized?
 Euthanasia: Should Doctors Intervene at the End of Life?
 The Just War: What Are the Criteria?
 Privacy: What Are the Limits?
 Sexual Harassment: Is There Any Doubt about What It Is?
 Torture: Is It Ever Justifiable?
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Part VI, Enduring Questions: Essays, Stories, Poems, and a Play
Part six of the course extends the arguments to three topics: What is the Ideal Society?
(with nine readings from writers such as More, Jefferson, King, Auden, Hughes, and
LeGuin); How Free is the Will of the Individual within Society? (with ten readings
including authors such as Plato, Glaspell, Orwell, and Milgram); and What is Happiness?
(with seven selections including writings of Epictetus, Omar Khayyam, and the Dalai
Lama).
A companion website to the textbook offers students an extensive set of annotated links
on argument and on the controversial topics in the textbook. Brainteasers allow students
to test their understanding of logic and analysis.
Course Plan: Specifics
I: Critical Thinking and Reading
Immediately following the summer reading project presentations, the course moves
directly into its core focus on critical writing. Students begin with the unit, Writing an
Analysis of an Argument by examining an author’s thesis, purpose, methods, and
persona. They read Stanley S. Scott’s “Smokers Get a Raw Deal,” and a sample student
essay on Scott’s article. Their task is to analyze the student’s analysis, using a checklist
for writing an analysis of an argument, which focuses on identifying and evaluating the
four primary elements listed above. First, we discuss the topic and its practical
implications. Then we do a writing exercise analyzing another argument (either from our
text or from outside). This pattern of critical reading and writing follows with six further
readings, which include: Jeff Jacoby’s ironic essay on corporal punishment, “Bring Back
Flogging” (as an alternative to prison); Katha Pollitt’s “It Takes Two: A Modest Proposal
for Holding Fathers Equally Accountable” (recommending curfews and compulsory
group therapy for unwed fathers); Peter Singer’s “Animal Liberation” (where he argues
for equal rights for animals and humans); and the classic, Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest
Proposal.”
II: Critical Writing
After practice evaluating arguments, students move into the next unit, four weeks in
length, Developing an Argument of Your Own, focused on planning, drafting, and
revising an argument, which includes peer review checklists for drafting arguments.
Close attention is paid to: getting ideas; developing a thesis; imagining an audience;
creating a title; creating opening paragraphs; organizing and revising the body of an
essay; writing an ending; using outlines; establishing tone and persona; using pronouns;
and avoiding sexist language, the students are prepared to embark on an argumentative
extended MLA-formatted research paper on a current issue. Students are encouraged to
choose topics from the text or current issues in the news. During this period, the
following issues are addressed: why we use sources; how to choose a topic; how to find
reliable material; using interviews; using the library; finding information online;
evaluating sources; taking notes; avoiding plagiarism.
III: Further Views on Argument
A Philosopher’s View: The Toulmin Argument introduces our detailed study and practice
of methods of argument. Following the format of the course, we employ the
discussion/writing/discussion technique for practicing the method: claims, grounds,
warrants, backing, modal qualifiers, and rebuttals. The checklist is used to structure the
writing assignment: a model analysis of Susan Jacoby’s “A First Amendment Junkie.”
A Logician’s View: Deduction, Induction, and Fallacies reinforces the values taught
previously, that arguments must be valid and sound. Initial attention is paid to problems
of observation and inference; probability and certainty; J.S. Mill’s methods; and
confirmation, mechanism, and theory. Intense discussion, writing, and follow-up
discussion is directed toward formal and informal fallacies. Students finish the unit with
a critical written analysis of Max Shulman’s argument in his short story, “Love is a
Fallacy.”
A Moralist’s View: Ways of Thinking Ethically, introduces moral philosophy into
rhetorical analysis, and articulates the central importance of ethics in all critical thinking
and writing. A clear definition of amoral, immoral, and moral reasoning is made, and
four writings are critically analyzed in discussion and writing: United States v. Holmes;
Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality;” Hardin’s “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case
Against Helping the Poor;” and Cohen’s “Three Letters (to an Ethicist).”
A Lawyer’s View: Steps Toward Civic Literacy focuses on civil and criminal cases; trial
and appeal; decision and opinion; majority, concurring and dissenting opinion; fact and
law; balancing interests, and a checklist (as in all units) for analyzing legal arguments. A
casebook on law and society follows with decisions on constitutional rights from Texas v.
Johnson; New Jersey v. T.L.O; and Roe v. Wade.
A Psychologist’s View: Rogerian Argument follows the strictly formalist method above,
with an essay by Carl Rogers, “Communication: Its Blocking and Its Communication,”
explaining why we must see things from the other person’s point of view.
A Literary Critic’s View: Arguing about Literature introduces literary criticism as a
rhetorical modality, with a focus on interpreting, judging (evaluating) and theorizing
about literature. Students analyze student analyses; and write literary analysis of three
works: Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” Chopin’s “Story of an Hour” and “The Storm.”
The literary criticism section closes with discussion and writing about the effects of
literature and the issue of censorship with a reading of Plato’s argument for government
censorship in the Republic.
Finally, we take a Forensic View: Oral Presentation and Debate, mastering the principles
of standard debate format, consideration of audience, method and style of delivery, and
the talk itself, in preparation for assigned debate. Reading begins with two readings on
the debate over SUV safety, and is followed by student written analysis of the merits of
both sides of the debate.
IV Current Issues & Occasions for Debate
The rest of the course focuses on two modalities: formal debate and writing. The premise
behind the rest of the study is that debate is an aid to thinking that leads to sound written
arguments. The following topics (with related readings) are debated:
 Abortion: Whose Right to Life Is It Anyway? (two readings)
 Affirmative Action: Is It Fair? (two readings)
 Cell Phones: Should Their Use While Driving Be Prohibited? (two readings)
 Censorship: Should Public Libraries Filter Internet Sites? (two readings)
 Gay Marriages: Should They Be Legalized? (two readings)
 Gun Control: Would It Really Help? (two readings)
Debate is practiced as an aid to thinking—how it is conducted in an either/or modality or
more dynamic. Students will practice debate by constructing a visual/rhetorical argument
for a particular side of a current issue, either one of the above, or one of contemporary
local interest. A Checklist for Analyzing a Debate is used by all students and the teacher
to evaluate the argument.
IV Current Issues & Casebooks
The following topics, with a casebook of readings, are as follows:
 The Death Penalty: Can It Ever Be Justified? (eight readings and a synthesis
essay)
 Drugs: Should Their Sale and Use Be Legalized? (four readings and a synthesis
essay)
 Euthanasia: Should Doctors Intervene at the End of Life? (five readings and a
synthesis essay)
 The Just War: What Are the Criteria? (five readings and a synthesis essay)
 Privacy: What Are Its Limits? (four readings and a synthesis essay)
 Reparations: Under What Circumstances Are They Appropriate? (eight readings
and a synthesis essay)
 Sexual Harassment: Is There Any Doubt about What It Is? (four readings and a
synthesis essay)
 Torture: Is It Ever Justifiable? (five readings and a synthesis essay)
VI: Enduring Questions with Essays, Stories, Poems, and A Play
The course closes with a focus on literary and philosophical texts that explore the larger
fundamental questions. They are:
 What Is The Ideal Society?
o Readings from More, Machiavelli, Jefferson, Stanton, King, Bellamy,
Auden, Hughes, and LeGuin.
o Examples of discussion and writing topics focus on the conditions for an
ideal society, the exercise of power, metaphoric speech, and economics.
 How Free Is the Will of the Individual within Society?
o Readings from Plato, Johnson and Boswell, Orwell, Stace, M.L. King,
Milgram, Hardy, T.S. Eliot, Glaspell, and Yamada.
o Examples of discussion and writing topics focus on on legal obligation,
cultural value, determinism, and moral obligation.
 What is Happiness?
o Readings from Epictetus, Pope, Omar Khayyam, Russell, Alice James,
Danielle Crittenden, and the Dalai Lama.
o Examples of discussion and writing topics focus on concepts of pleasure
and duty, the aesthetic experience, personal relationships, and, finally,
personal joy.
Student Evaluation
Students’ grades are based upon an accumulated points system, and calculated to equal
the grade percentages listed below. Half of the grade is based upon the large number of
essays students will write from the summer through June. The remainder of the grade is
divided between weekly vocabulary quizzes and weekly oral argument grades. Our
school considers the AP exam the equivalent of a final, therefore, the period following
the AP exam is dedicated to the writing and presentation of the contents of a Writing
Portfolio, which students have been preparing all year, out of class. Students will choose
a body of American writings from the Writer’s Portfolio Reading List and complete a
series of writings based upon them. Readings are in various genres from both classic and
modern American authors such as Poe, Emerson, Thoreau, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Miller,
Frost, O’Connor, and Morrisson. For example, for fifty of the two hundred points to be
earned, a student would read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and be required to write
another chapter to the book, in Twain’s style, following the conclusion of the book.
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Grades are consistent with school standards:
o A (90-100)
o B (80-89)
o C (70-79)
o D (65-69)
o F (0-64)
Writings:
 In-class and out of class essays, as well as the MLA-formatted research paper are
evaluated with individualized 9-point rubrics, and styled after AP models for
evaluating compositions. Students receive the rubrics when the writing
assignments are given, and after the writings are evaluated.
Appendix A
AP English Language and Composition (Grade 11)
Summer Reading, 2006
The college board states: An AP course in English Language and Composition 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. Both their writing and their reading should make students aware of the
interactions among a writer’s purposes, audience expectations, and subjects as well as the
way generic conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in
writing. (from the Course Description).
The course goals are diverse, but focused on enabling students to become effective,
confident writers of all genres. Readings focus on nonfiction, but not exclusively,
therefore classical and contemporary readings are combined into the whole of the
curriculum. The course focus will be centered on ideas and issues, both from the ancient
world and popular culture. For a complete outline of the course and its contents, log on
to AP Central and follow the links to this course.
To prepare for the course, therefore, we ask that students ‘warm-up’ for the course with
readings and activities from the following texts:
Barnet and Bedau. Current Issues and Enduring Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking
and Argument, with Readings. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2006.
Morris and Morris. Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way.
Chicago: Open Court, 2005.
Reading I: (July) Become a critical thinker and reader. All writings below will be typed,
and placed in a bound portfolio to be handed in day one of class. From Current Issues
and Enduring Questions, Part One:
Chapter 1: Critical Thinking
Assignment: read all of chapter one.
 All written responses are to be based upon the reading of the passages that
precede them.
o Type a response (2 pp.)* to one of the Topics for Critical Thinking and
Writing on page eight.
o
o
o
o
o
 Complete the checklist on page 14.
Type a response (2 pp.) to any one of the Topics for Critical Thinking and
Writing on pages 16-17.
 Complete the checklist on page 18.
Type a response (2 pp.) to one question on page 22.
Type a response (2 pp.) to one question on page 24.
 Complete the checklist on 24.
Do one response on 26 (same rules as above)
Do one response on 27-8, and one Exercise on 28.
Chapter 2: Critical Reading/Getting Started
Assignment: read all of Chapter 2
 Highlight, annotate and underline Chapter 2 (and Superheroes, when you begin
reading it; and everything you read from now on.
o After reading 30-46, write a 1-2 page response to one of the Topics for
Critical Thinking and Writing.
 Complete the checklist on 46.
o Write on one of the topics on 50.
o Write on one of the topics on 55-6.
o Write on one of the topics on 58.
o Complete the exercise on 63.
Chapter 3: Critical Reading/Getting Deeper into Arguments
Assignment: read all of chapter three.
 Take the quiz on 88.
o Answer in 1-2 pp.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 99-100.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 102.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 105-6.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 109-10.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 112-13.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 115.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 117-18.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 122.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 125.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 128-9.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 131-2.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 138.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to one of the topics on 140.
Chapter 4: Visual Rhetoric/Images and Arguments
Assignment: read Chapter four.
 Write a response (2 pp.) to the topic(s) on 148.
 Annotate the checklist on 153.
 Write a response to one of the topics on 160.
 Write a response to one of the topics on 166.
You’re done with Part I.
Reading 2 (August): Become an expert on a superhero.
 Assignment: Read Superheroes and Philosophy
o Apply Current Issues, Chapter 2 to your reading:
 Preview, Skim, and Annotate the whole book.
 Your task is to fill up all of the white spaces in the margins
and blank pages with scribbles, summaries, paraphrases,
responses, questions that reflect what you have learned
from all of Current Issues, Part I.
 You will hand this book to me on Day One of class, for a major
Annotated Text grade.
 Choose a superhero for your summer immersion.
o Find websites dedicated to your hero or heroine.
 Research the best sites and prepare either (1) Power Point or (2)
webpage to orally present to the class in September. In it, you
must include:
 History/biography of the superhero.
 Philosophy of the superhero’s motive for action.
 Your judgment of the superhero’s value to the world.
o You must be able to orally defend your argument in
a question and answer period that subjects the
superhero to thoughtful scrutiny.
 Presentation length: at least fifteen minutes (excluding
comments, questions, and defense of the superhero)
o Read a series of comic books dedicated to your superhero.
 Write an article (3-5 pp.) about your superhero in the form and
style of the articles written in Superheroes and Philosophy.
 Optional, for artists: invent a superhero and create a comic book
issue in the form and content of a real comic book.
o Write a film review of a superhero film, from DVD or silver screen.
 See professional online and print film reviews for style models.
Teacher Resources
Course Texts
Barnet and Bedau. Current Issues and Enduring Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking
and Argument, with Readings. 7th Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2005.
Honer, Hunt, and Ockholm. Invitation to Philosophy: Issues and Options. 9th Ed.
Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 2002.
Morris and Morris. Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice and the Socratic Way.
Peru, Illinois: Open Court, 2005.
Paul and Elder. The Miniature Guide to Ethical Thinking.. Dillon Beach, Calif:
Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2004.
Paul and Elder. A Thinker’s Guide to Fallacies: the Art of Mental Manipulation and
Trickery. Dillon Beach, Calif: Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2004.
Strunk and White. The Elements of Style. New York: Allyn and Bacon, 1995.
Shostak, Jerome. Vocabulary Workshop (G). New York: Sadlier Publishing, 2005.