Advanced Placement English Language and Composition
Class Information and Syllabus
Montgomery County High School—Mrs. Botts
jo.botts@montgomery.kyschools.us
COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this course is to help students “write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the
curriculum and in their professional and personal lives” (The College Board, AP English Course Description, p. 7). The
course is organized according to the requirements and guidelines of the current AP English Course Description, and,
therefore, students are expected to read critically, think analytically, and communicate clearly both in writing and in
speech.
AP English Language is intended to engage students in becoming skilled readers of prose from various periods,
disciplines, and rhetorical contexts, and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes.
Students in AP Language and Composition will work towards an appreciation of the rhetorical and aesthetic
dimensions that contribute to rich and effective writing, learning to effectively incorporate those strategies into
their own writing. Students are encouraged to take the AP examination in May; after that test, the course will focus
on developing students as life-long readers and effective writers who think deeply and analyze critically.
Upon completing the AP English Language and Composition course, students should be able to:
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analyze and interpret samples of good writing, identifying and explaining an author’s use of rhetorical
strategies and techniques;
apply effective strategies and techniques in their own writing;
create and sustain arguments based on readings, research and/or personal experience;
write for a variety of purposes
produce expository, analytical and argumentative compositions that introduce a complex central idea and
develop it with appropriate evidence drawn from primary and/or secondary sources, cogent explanations
and clear transitions;
demonstrate understanding of the conventions of citing primary and secondary sources;
move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to inquiry and research,
drafting, revising, editing and review;
write thoughtfully about their own process of composition;
revise a work to make it suitable for a different audience;
analyze image as text; and
evaluate and incorporate reference documents into researched papers.
–Course Description: Advanced Placement English, The College Board (2010)
REQUIRED TEXTS
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The Language of Composition and Rhetoric. Renée H. Shea, Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Dissin Aufses,
editors (Bedford/St. Martins, 2008)
50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. Samuel Cohen, editor (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004)
Elements of Literature, Fifth Course. (Holt, Rinehart, Winston 2007)
Various instructor-provided handouts and texts, to include essays, stories, poems, speeches, journal
entries, letters, and assorted photographs, cartoons, and illustrations
Novels and Plays: Twelve Years a Slave (Solomon Northup), Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
(Frederick Douglass), The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (Rebecca Skloot), Nickel and Dimed: On (Not)
Getting By in America (Ehrenreich), The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans are Doing Wrong to Get
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Ahead (Callahan), Into the Wild (Krakauer), Antigone (Sophocles), one student choice novel (from suggested
list) at the end of the year. Students should purchase their own copies of the reading material, either in
print or electronic versions, so that they can interact with the texts. AP English Language and
Composition is a college-level course, and college courses require students to purchase their texts.
Limited numbers of the texts will be available for student check-out. For $45, you can purchase all of the
required texts (except Antigone). Make the check out to MCHS-English Department. I will accept orders
until August 19.
SUPPLIES
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Composition book (to keep in class)
4x6 or 5/8 notecards (for vocabulary projects. KEEP AT HOME)
Binder (2”) with loose-leaf paper and the following sections:
o Notes
o Handouts
o Homework
o Writing
o Voice Lessons
Pencils
Ink pens (Blue or black only. You MUST get used to using ink pens, as you are required to write in ink on the
AP exam.)
Highlighters (several colors)
Other materials as needed for class
ACTIVITIES AND ASSIGNMENTS OVERVIEW
AP English Language and Composition is structured to integrate reading, composition, and discussion with a series
of topical workshops addressing various factors relevant to written, oral, and artistic expression. Readings each
quarter will primarily include essays, speeches, letters, and non-fiction selections arranged into thematic units.
Some poetry and fiction, including one play, may be covered each semester. Each unit will regularly feature analysis
of various forms of communication, including art, film, photography, cartoons, and other media. Each quarter will
focus on a specific writing mode: rhetorical analysis, synthesis, argument, and research.
While class discussions will often focus on critical analysis strategies applied to current reading, instructional time
will also be devoted to composition, vocabulary, and relevant study of historical, biographical, and cultural
information.
Composition
1. Informal Writings: journal entries, reaction papers, free-writes. The purpose of these writings is to provide
regular and frequent opportunities to engage in informal exploratory writing, to explore each student’s
own writing process, and to connect reading to personal experiences.
2. Special writing assignments coordinated with writing workshops will enable students to practice rhetorical
strategies, sentence combination, subordination/coordination, paragraph organization/structure, and
coherence through transitions and repetition. Included in these workshops are peer and teacher review and
feedback. Voice and tone analysis and practice will be conducted daily through Voice Lessons bell ringers.
3. Formal Writings: Each grading term will include a minimum of three formal essays, one of which can be
revised and resubmitted for a “replacement” grade. Students will have a minimum of one (per quarter)
timed in-class essay focusing on the targeted mode of writing. One essay per grading term will be
composed in conjunction with a writing workshop or in groups and revised following peer editing and
instructor feedback. Essay modes will include expository, analytical, and argumentative assignments.
4. In the spring semester, students will write one formal, MLA-style research essay that is persuasive in
nature.
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Vocabulary
1. Students will maintain vocabulary cards defining and correctly using in sentences unfamiliar vocabulary
from reading selections. The format for these cards will be discussed in depth with the first assignment;
however, the cards will include synonyms, word roots, sentences, and a visual representation of the word.
2. Every five class periods, students will have an average of 15 terms (combination of rhetorical and
instructor-provided words that commonly appear on the AP, SAT, and ACT exams). These lists will be the
basis for vocabulary quizzes given twice each grading term.
Other projects and assessments
1. Homework will consist primarily of reading and informal writing assignments, including text annotations,
reaction papers, and SOAPStone-style analyses.
2. Reading quizzes should be expected, especially if I notice that participation in discussions is lacking or being
dominated by one or two individuals.
3. AP-style tests to include multiple choice and open-response items.
4. Visual arguments and memoirs, incorporating technology and media images. Given that our culture is now
so image-saturated, these projects are meant to present arguments and exposition in purely visual media.
5. Political Candidates and Their Arguments analysis. During Court Days, students in small groups will speak
with political candidates about their positions on issues of importance to them, videotaping the interviews
if possible.
QUARTERLY SCHEDULE
Each quarter will focus on a specific mode of writing, while readings will be thematically related. Often the readings
will be supplemented with non-print media resources.
FIRST QUARTER (FOCUS ON RHETORICAL ANALYSIS)
Unit 1: Education (introduction to rhetoric and rhetorical analysis terms)
Readings: “For Julia, in Deep Water” by John Morris, “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X, “Superman and Me” by
Sherman Alexie, “The Allegory of the Cave” by Plato, letter to the editor by Pat Conroy, “Bed of
Procrustes” by Norman Rockwell, Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup (assigned summer
reading), other instructor-selected essays, letters, and speeches as appropriate
Viewing: Spirit of Education, The Problem We All Live With, and Russian Schoolroom by Norman Rockwell,
TED Talk with Ken Robinson
Unit 2: Early American Literature (What makes a text “American”?)
Readings: “Here Follow Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House” by Anne Bradstreet, from A Narrative of
the Captivity by Mary Rowlandson, from “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan
Edwards, from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano by Olaudah Equiano,
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, from Of Plymouth Plantation by
William Bradford, “To Right Honorable William, Earl of Dartmouth” by Phyllis Wheatley, other
instructor-selected essays, letters, and speeches as appropriate
Viewing: Arresting a Witch in the Streets of Salem wood engraving, The Granger Collection; The First
Thanksgiving by Jennie Augusta Brownscombe; Reverend Jonathan Edwards by Joseph Badger,
other instructor-selected portraits, engravings, or media as appropriate
Unit 3: War, Peace, and a Young Nation
Readings: from The Crisis, No. 1 by Thomas Paine, “Speech to the Virginia Convention” by Patrick Henry, The
Declaration of Independence, “Declaration of the Sentiments of the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights
Convention” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Letter to John Adams” by Abigail Adams, from The Iroquois
Constitution by Dekanawida, other instructor-selected essays, letters, and speeches as appropriate
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Viewing:
The Declaration of Independence by John Trumbull, Patrick Henry Arguing “the Parson’s Cause”,
other instructor-selected portraits, engravings, or media as appropriate
SECOND QUARTER (FOCUS ON SYNTHESIS)
Unit 4: Man vs. Society and the Nature of Leadership
Readings: Antigone by Sophocles, “The Morals of the Prince” by Niccolò Machiavelli, “Resistance to Civil
Government” by Thoreau, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr., Introduction to
The Crucible by Arthur Miller, “Every Dictator’s Nightmare” by Wole Soyinka, King George VI’s
Speech to the People of Great Britain upon entering World War II, “The Gettysburg Address” by
Abraham Lincoln, “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell, other instructor-selected
essays, letters, and speeches as appropriate
Viewing: The Crucible (1996, director Nicholas Hytner), other instructor-selected paintings, engravings, or
media as appropriate
Political Analysis Project
Unit 5: Nature
Readings: from Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Walden by Thoreau, “Against Nature” by Joyce Carol
Oates, from Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, from “Heaven is Under Our Feet” by Don Henley, “Cars
and Their Enemies” by James Q. Wilson, “The World is Too Much With Us” by William Wordsworth,
“A Noiseless Patient Spider” and “When I Heard the Learned Astronomer” by Walt Whitman, Into
the Wild by Jon Krakauer, other instructor-selected essays, letters, and speeches as appropriate
Viewing: A Guerilla Gardener in South Central L.A. by TED Talk, other instructor-selected portraits,
engravings, or media as appropriate
Unit 6: Art and Creativity
Readings: from What is Art? “Dialogue with Plato” by Leo Tolstoy, “Against Interpretation” by Susan Sontag,
from The Monuments Men by Robert Edsel, from The Art Spirit by Robert Henri, “This Photo is Lying
to You” by Rob Haggart, “The Geography of the Imagination” by Guy Davenport, “Toys” by Roland
Barthes, “The Motive for Metaphor” by Northrop Frye, other instructor-selected essays, letters, and
speeches as appropriate
Viewing: mini documentary on Shepard Fairey, various paintings by Jasper Johns
THIRD QUARTER (FOCUS ON ARGUMENT AND SATIRE)
Unit 7: American Pop Culture
Readings: “Us versus Them” by David Sedaris, “In Praise of a Snail’s Pace” by Ellen Goodman, “Is Google
Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, “Saudis in Bikinis” by Nicholas D. Kristof, “Living Well. Living
Good.” by Maya Angelou, The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans are Doing Wrong to Get
Ahead by David Callahan, other instructor-selected essays, letters, and speeches as appropriate
Viewings: “Show and Tell” by Scott McCloud, and other instructor-selected portraits, engravings, or media as
appropriate
Unit 8: Human Nature
Readings: from Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “No Man is an Island” by John Donne, “On
Compassion” by Barbara Lazear Ascher, “The Ways We Lie” by Stephanie Ericsson, “A Potential for
Brutality” by Yinong Young-Xu, “When Virtue Becomes Redundant” by Maya Angelou, “The Meaning
of Life” and “The Meaning of Suffering” by Viktor Frankl, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by
Rebecca Skloot, “DNA as Destiny” by David Ewing Duncan, other instructor-selected essays, letters,
and speeches as appropriate
Viewings: instructor-selected portraits, engravings, or media as appropriate
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Unit 9: Laughter, the Best Medicine
Readings: “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift, “Shooting an Elephant,” by George Orwell, “The War
Prayer” and “The Lowest Animal” by Mark Twain, “Get a Knife, Get a Dog, but Get Rid of Guns” by
Molly Ivans, The Onion, “William and Mary Commencement Address, May 20, 2004” by Jon Stewart
other instructor-selected essays, letters, and speeches as appropriate
Viewing: various advertisements, SNL skit “12 Years a Slave Auditions,” other instructor-selected media as
appropriate
FOURTH QUARTER (PREPPING FOR THE EXAM AND RESEARCH)
Unit 10: American Identity
Readings: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich, “Why Some Groups
Succeed” by Chua and Rubenfeld, “Of Our Spiritual Striving” by W.E.B. DuBois, “Just Walk on By:
Black Men in Public Space” by Brent Staples, “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, “Two Ways to Belong in
America” by Bharati Mukherjee, “What You Pawn I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie, “The Meaning
of a Word” by Gloria Naylor, “Working at Wendy’s” by Joey Franklin, from The Autobiography by
Benjamin Franklin, other instructor-selected essays, letters, and speeches as appropriate
Viewings: Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky by Benjamin West (attributed), Freedom from
Want by Norman Rockwell, Modern Family “Tableau Vivant”
Unit 11: Fact, Fiction, Journalism, and Memoir (Research)
Readings: (student choice literary circles: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, Angela’s Ashes
by Frank McCourt, or In Cold Blood by Truman Capote), “Graduation” by Maya Angelou, “On Being
a Cripple” by Nancy Mairs, “Mt. Holyoke Commencement Address” by Anna Quindlen, “This is
Water” by David Foster Wallace, other instructor-selected essays, speeches, or letters as
appropriate
Viewings: instructor-selected photo essays and media as appropriate
Project: MLA annotated bibliography on a social topic of interest; argumentative photo essay to accompany
the bibliography
Unit 12: Gender
Readings: “I Want a Wife” by Judy Brady, “Professions for Women” by Virginia Woolf, “Lost in the Kitchen” and
“I am Man: Hear Me Snore” by Dave Barry, “The Company Man” by Ellen Goodman, “The Gender
Gap at School” by David Brooks, “Ain't I a Woman?” by Sojourner Truth, “Why Women Always Take
Advantage of Men” by Zora Neale Hurston, “The Storm” by Kate Chopin, “Are Men Smarter Than
Women” by Marilyn Vos Savant, other instructor-selected essays, letters, and poetry as appropriate
Viewings: Zits Cartoon, Rosie the Riveter
GRADES
Methods of Grading:
Each term’s grade will be determined by cumulative points. Each graded assignment will be assigned a point value.
Your grade will be the quotient (expressed as a percent) of the number of attained points by the number of possible
points. For example, 360 out of a possible 480 points would be 75 percent, or a C. Formal writing assignments, both
in-class and out-of-class essays, will be scored using the AP rubric with standard grades reflected as follows:
9=100
6=82
3=65
8=94
5=76
2=60
7=88
4=70
1=55
Late work and failed tests
To meet deadlines, all assignments are due at the beginning of each class on the due date. LATE ASSIGNMENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED A PENALTY FOR EACH DAY THEY ARE LATE. Should you fail a test, you can come in for
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remediation before or after school (coordinate with your teacher) and then submit an alternate assignment for
which you can achieve points toward the original test. However, you must do so within two ESS after-school
sessions of the original test, in much the same way one would make up work after an absence. After those twosessions, you will NOT be allowed to “retake” the test, and the original grade will stand in the grade book. AP is
considered a college-level course, and most college courses do NOT allow tests to be retaken.
Remind 101
I HIGHLY encourage students AND PARENTS to sign up for Remind 101, a texting-based “one call” system. Through
it, I can send texts with homework and test reminders. The service is anonymous, meaning I do not get the
students’ phone numbers, nor do they get mine. Simply enroll by texting the message @bottsap to 657-204-1880.
GENERAL POLICIES AND NOTES
 You are expected to come to class prepared. That means bring a pen/pencil, your binder, highlighters, etc.,
unless otherwise instructed.
 No major assignments or test make-ups will be accepted after one week past the due date without
approval.
 Class discussion in AP is extremely important. Each student is expected to keep up with all assignments and
contribute to class discussion as much as possible.
 The AP exam is a competitive exam given on May 13 in the morning. If you do not take the exam on May 9,
then you will be required to take a final exam the last week of school. Through a grant from Advance
Kentucky, we are able to offer reduced exam fees for the AP tests. Please see me or Guidance for more
information on that.
 Students and parents should be aware of the challenging nature of AP coursework. Please do not hesitate
to call (859-497-8765, ext. 1235) or e-mail me (jo.botts@montgomery.kyschools.us) with any concerns or
questions.
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