AP Language and Composition Pacing Guide
The English III - AP Language and Composition class is a year-long college level class in
which eleventh-grade students read complex texts with greater understanding and develop
richness, clarity, and complexity in their own writing. The content of the course includes an
in-depth study of various types of writing, such as: description, narration, persuasion and
argumentation, and exposition. The course of study includes the mechanics, process, and
analysis of written expression. Students utilize methods of writing that encourage
"intelligent writing" instead of simply "mechanically- correct" writing. The course also
includes in-depth analyses of classic and contemporary American literature. All students in
this course are expected to take the AP Language and Composition exam in May 2015, and
the course work reflects a constant goal toward reaching a qualifying score on that
exam. Students are also required to attend Saturday Academy sessions and weekly
tutoring.
This course is paired with AP US History and the English curriculum is designed to
complement AP USH whenever possible.
The College Board suggests the following Course Requirements:
{CR1}The course requires students to write in informal contexts (e.g. imitation exercises,
journal keeping, collaborative writing, and in-class responses) designed to help them
become increasingly aware of themselves as writers and of the techniques employed by the
writers they read.
{CR2}The course requires expository, analytical, and argumentative writing assignments
that are based on readings representing a wide variety of prose styles and genres.
{CR3} The course requires nonfiction readings (e.g., essays, journalism, political writing,
science writing, nature writing, autobiographies/biographies, diaries, history, and criticism)
that are selected to give students opportunities to identify and explain an author’s use of
rhetorical strategies and techniques. If fiction and poetry are also assigned, their main
purpose should be to help students understand how various effects are achieved by writers’
linguistic and rhetorical choices.
{CR4} The course teaches students to analyze how graphics and visual images both relate
to written texts and serve as alternative forms of text themselves.
{CR5} The course teaches research skills, and in particular, the ability to evaluate, to use,
and to cite primary and secondary sources. The course assigns projects such as the
researched argument paper, which goes beyond the parameters of a traditional research
paper by asking students to present an argument of their own that includes analysis and
synthesis of ideas from an array of sources.
{CR6} The course teaches students how to cite sources using a recognized editorial style
(e.g., MLA, APA, The Chicago Manual…).
Pacing guide to reach the College Board’s Course Requirements.
Unit 1 (Aug-Oct)
Time estimate: 1 day
Unit 2 (Oct-Jan)
Unit 3 (Jan-Apr)
Time Estimate: Ongoing
Time Estimate: Ongoing
Introduction to Advanced
Language Review as Needed
Placement course requirements throughout course
Language Review as Needed
and expectations:
throughout course
 Basic grammar
 Grading Rubrics and
 Parts of Speech
 Basic grammar
Criteria
 Parts of a Sentence
 Parts of Speech
 Assignment Policy
 Writing as a Process
 Parts of a Sentence
 Academic Integrity
 Writing as a Process
 Class Discussion Policy
 Teacher/Student
Responsibility
Continuing Rhetorical Analysis:
10 days with ongoing review
and practice throughout course
Time Estimate: 2 days and
Elements of Rhetoric
ongoing review and expectation
Strategies for Critical Reading:
Using rhetoric to read more
critically
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Annotations
Paraphrasing
Close Reading
Quote Cards
Reader Response
Time Estimate: Ongoing
Language Review as Needed
throughout course
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Basic grammar
Parts of Speech
Parts of a Sentence
Writing as a Process
Time Estimate: 1 day
Introduction of Writing Style
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Rhetorical Triangle
Five traditional canons
of rhetoric
Appeals (logos, ethos,
pathos)
SOAPS-Tone
DIDLS
Literary terms
Tropes
Schemes
Précis
Time Estimate: 10 days
Beginning of
Argument/Persuasion
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Deconstruction and
Arrangement
Defend, Negate, Qualify
Evidence types
Thesis and Assertions
Appeals
Syllogisms
Toulmin Logic
Time Estimate: 10 days
Continue Research
Argument/Persuasion
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Deconstruction and
Arrangement
Defend, Negate,
Qualify
Evidence types
Thesis and Assertions
Appeals
Syllogisms
Toulmin Logic
Connotation and
denotation
Logical
arguments/avoiding
fallacies
Concessions,
refutations and
rebuttals
Visual argument
(political, cultural,
social commentary in
cartoons)
Complete the argument
research paper
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Narration
Description
Classification
Argument
Analysis
Synthesis
Beginning the Rhetorical
Analysis: 15 days with
ongoing review and practice
throughout course
Elements of Rhetoric
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Connotation and
denotation
 use the research
Logical
methods fine-tuned
arguments/avoiding
in English 11 Honors
fallacies
and utilizing the APA
Concessions, refutations
style
and rebuttals
Visual argument
(political, cultural, social Time Estimate: 10 days
commentary in
cartoons)
Synthesis Essay
Begin the argument
research paper
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use the research
methods fine-tuned
in English 11
Honors and utilizing
the APA style
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importance of works
cited information
understanding the
topic
writing under timerestraints
citing sources/credit
to writer
practice, practice,
practice
Rhetorical Triangle
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Five traditional canons
of rhetoric
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 Appeals (logos, ethos, Time Estimate: 5 days
pathos)
 SOAPS-Tone (emphasize
AP Multiple-choice Strategies
satire)
Time Estimate: 6 days
 DIDLS
 Timed-reading
 Toulmin Logic
 Annotation
 Tropes
Test Review
 Discussion
 Schemes
 Practice weekly with
 Précis
 Multiple-choice
thorough teacherstrategies
feedback and
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Test-prep session
discussion
highlights
Time Estimate: 6 days
 Practice more difficult
passages from prior
Time Estimate: 5 days spread
AP exams
AP Multiple-choice Strategies
throughout grading period
 Discuss major
literary pieces
 Timed-reading
Novel Study
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Discuss cultural
 Annotation
issues
 Discussion
 Teacher-selected AP Practice weekly with
level novel or drama
thorough teacherthat focuses on the
feedback and discussion
writing style of the
author
Time Estimate: 4 days
 Out-of-class reading
spread throughout grading
Time Estimate: 5 days spread
deadlines
period (possibly after the AP
throughout grading period
 Class discussion
test)
 Multiple-choice practice
Novel Study
and assessment
Novel Study
 Rhetorical Analysis
 Teacher-selected APassessment
 Teacher-selected APlevel novel or drama
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that focuses on the
writing style of the
author
Out-of-class reading
deadlines
Class discussion
Multiple-choice practice
and assessment
Rhetorical Analysis
assessment
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level novel or drama
that focuses on the
writing style of the
author
Out-of-class reading
deadlines
Class discussion
Multiple-choice
practice and
assessment
Rhetorical Analysis
assessment
Throughout each unit the
students will read teacherselected and AP-appropriate
non-fiction that encourages
rhetorical analysis and
discussion. Students should
be writing (analyzing what
they read) at least every
three days, creating a
Writing Workshop
atmosphere and plenty of
opportunities for
teacher/student feedback.
Throughout the course,
students should also increase
their cultural awareness. I may
incorporate current event
quizzes, impromptu
discussions, double-entry
journals, or the précis to
encourage student progress.
Possible assignments include
reading news articles, opinion
pieces, and/or blogs,
viewing/listening to NPR, TED,
or YouTube, or analyzing
various pieces of informational
text.
Suggested Readings: A core philosophy of the Advanced Placement curriculum set by The
College Board offers flexibility and encourages teachers to explore high-quality
literature. This list, therefore, is a general example of the types of literature that we will
likely cover, but these are not the only choices available. Note: Some of these titles reflect
literature other than American, and the novels are not necessarily presented to align with
the time periods.
Unit 1
AP Non-Fiction Readings
360 B.C.E- 1863
The Allegory of the Cave by Plato
“The Morals of the Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli
“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
The Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson
“Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass
“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Ain’t I a Woman? by Sojourner Truth
“Where I Lived and What I Lived For” by Henry David Thoreau
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
Readings from Holt McDougal Literature: American Literature Grade 11
from The Interesting Narrative of the Life Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano
from The General History of Virginia by John Smith
from Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford
“Huswifery” by Edward Taylor
“To My Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet
from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards
from The Autobiography and Poor Richard’s Almanac by Benjamin Franklin
The Crisis “Number 1” by Thomas Paine
Speech in the Virginia Convention by Patrick Henry
Novels
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Unit 2
AP Non-Fiction Readings
1861-1960
“How It Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston
“Shooting an Elephant” by George Orwell
“Salvation” by Langston Hughes
“Once More to the Lake” by E.B. White
“The Death of the Moth” by Virginia Woolf
“Notes of a Native Son” by James Baldwin
Readings from Holt McDougal Literature: American Literature Grade 11
“The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving
“A Psalm of Life” and “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Thanatopsis,” by William Cullen Bryant
“Old Ironsides” by Oliver Wendell Holmes
“The First Snowfall” by James Russell Lowell
“The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe
“The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from Moby Dick by Herman Melville
from Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson
from Self –Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
from Walden by Henry David Thoreau
various poems by Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
“Letter to His Son” by Robert E. Lee
“The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain
“The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by Bret Harte
“The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin
Novels
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Unit 3
AP Non-Fiction Readings
1960-1980
“Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” by Jessica Mitford
“Learning to Read” by Malcolm X
“On Keeping a Notebook” by Joan Didion
“Graduation” by Maya Angelou
“Why Don’t We Complain?” by William F. Buckley, Jr.
“Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
“No Name Woman” by Maxine Hong Kingston
“Television: The Plug-In Drug” by Marie Winn
“Women’s Brains” by Stephen Jay Gould
Readings from from Holt McDougal Literature: American Literature Grade 11
“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” by Randall Jarrell
From Night by Elie Wiesel
“A Noiseless Flash” from Hiroshima by John Hersey
“Unforgettable Fire” by Yasuko Yamagata
“The Arrogance and Cruelty of Power” from Speech at the Nuremburg Trials, by Robert H.
Jackson
from The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday
from In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens by Alice Walker
Novels
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien