AP ENGLISH LANGUAGE & COMPOSITION
SYLLABUS 2014-2015
Texts: Holt Literature and Language, 5th Course
Word Within the Word – Vocabulary
Selected novels from the District Approved Core and Supplemental Reading Lists
FALL SEMESTER
I.
Vocabulary
 WWW Lessons 31-35 – word stems, words and activities with Greek and Latin roots
 Rhetorical terms as applicable to essay analysis
II.
Grammar and Conventions
 Review stylistic uses of punctuation including commas, apostrophes, semicolons, colons
 Provide instruction on these grammatical concepts: subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent
agreement, comma splices, run-on sentences, sentence fragments, rambling sentences, subordination
and coordination as stylistic choices
 Advanced rhetorical strategies used for stylistic purposes
III.
Writing
 Essay prompt analysis and MLA format
 Argumentation – focus on logos, pathos, ethos, tone, mood, concrete detail, ambiguity, stylistic devices,
textual references, point of view, style, organization, and repetition,
 Rhetorical Analysis essay – determine author’s purpose and how authors achieve their purpose through
examination (not mere identification) of various rhetorical strategies
 Synthesis Essay – incorporation of sources to support and prove your stance
 All writing will require use of parenthetical notations, and when using multiple sources, an MLAformatted works cited
IV.
Literature – Readings focused on Conformity v. Individuality (part of the American paradigm of thought)
 All major and minor works aim to develop students’ abilities to read for author’s purpose and examine
the stylistic choices authors make (rhetorical analysis).
 Reading focus will vary according to text; the semester’s overarching reading focus will center on the
issue of civil disobedience.
 Concepts – author’s purpose, rhetorical strategies, rhetorical mode
 Non-fiction pieces interspersed in various units including
 Patrick Henry’s “Speech to the Virginia Convention”
 excerpt from Thomas Paine’s The Crisis
 various editorials from modern editorialists (2nd quarter project)
 excerpt from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
 excerpt from Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience”
 Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
 Gloria Naylor’s “A Word’s Meaning Can Often Depend on Who Says It”
 Mark Twain’s “The Lowest Animal”
 Drama:
The Crucible*
 Novels:
Black Boy*, The Things They Carried*, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest*, The Scarlet
Letter, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Great Gatsby
Listening and Speaking Standards
 Group Presentations
V.
*denotes summer reading
SPRING SEMESTER
I.
Vocabulary
 WWW Lessons 36-40 – word stems, words and activities with Greek and Latin roots
 Rhetorical terms as applicable to essay analysis
II.
Grammar and Conventions
 Review stylistic uses of punctuation including semicolons, colons, hyphens, dashes, quotation marks,
and italics
 Provide instruction in sentence combining; avoiding sentence fragments and rambling sentences,
misplaced and dangling modifiers, wordiness and unparallel construction, shifts in construction
 Continue practice developing style and voice through purposeful choices of diction and syntax and
through imitation exercises
III.
Writing
 Research Paper – Social Issue or Banned Book (3rd quarter project)
 Rhetorical analysis – in-class writings
 Argumentation – in-class and out of class writings
 Synthesis Essay – in-class writings
IV.
V.
Literature – Readings focused on the American Dream or the American Nightmare?
Non-fiction interspersed throughout various units including but not limited to
 “Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech” – John Steinbeck
 “The Box Man” – Barbara Lazear Ascher
 “Homeless” – Anna Quindlen
 “Life is Precious, Or It’s Not” – Barbara Kingsolver”
 “Reflections on the Execution” – Leonard Pitts
 Novels: The Grapes of Wrath, selected books from list of American authors, In Cold Blood

Listening and Speaking
Group essay analysis, prompt creation, and multiple choice development from The Oxford Book of
Essays (2nd quarter project)
 Presenting creation and analysis of rhetorical terms using media – power point, videos, etc.

*denotes summer reading