General Workload
 Throughout the course of a given nine-weeks, you can expect the
following assessments (more or less):
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Major (60%)
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Vocabulary
Timed Writing(s) (all major essays count as 1.5 test grades)
Take-home essay(s) (typed, MLA format, submitted to Turnitin.com)
Novel (standard test and graded seminar)
Daily (40%)
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Participation
Vocabulary quizzes
Literary terms quizzes
Mini-analyses/ short essay response
Applied Practice
Reading quizzes
Odds and Ends
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Tutorials:
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Create an account on Turnitin.com
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Everyday – 6:00 am – 7:00 am
Wednesday – 2:15 pm – 2:45 pm
Otherwise, you will need to make an alternative arrangement.
1st Period – ID# 10454583
2nd Period – ID# 10454589
3rd Period – ID# 10454593
5th Period – ID# 10454595
6th Period – ID# 10454599
7th Period – ID# 10454603
Password – freedom1
Password – freedom2
Password – freedom3
Password – freedom5
Password – freedom6
Password – freedom7
Create an account for Remind101 (Receive text message reminders about
assignments and other class-related business)
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Using your NSA tracking device/ cell phone
Text “@mrfatheree” to 81010
This cannot be used to send messages to me personally. It’s a one-way street.
Late Work
(or, The Shabbiness Scale)
 All MAJOR assignments will be penalized as follows:
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1 Day = -15
2 Days = -25
3 Days = -50
After 3 days, the assignment will be recorded as a ZERO
Retesting: * Must be within three days of the original
assessment; * Will be formatted for essay responses only
 Daily grades WILL NOT be accepted late.
 Technology excuses lack originality. Everything should
be saved onto a flash drive.
Speaking of flash drives…. these are the items a student
might need in order to be ready for class:
 Pen (preferably blue or black) or Pencil
 Paper (preferably college-ruled, loose leaf)
 FLASH DRIVE for backing-up all papers and essays (you
can check these out from the library if needed)
 FOLDER – I give out an abundance of materials. Don’t
lose them!
 If some of you could bring some Tissue and/or Hand
Sanitizer – that would be special.
Novels
 (I give extra-credit if you buy the book. Otherwise, I do have
extra copies that you may check out.)
 The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave –
Frederick Douglass
 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
 In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
 OTHER MAJOR WORKS INCLUDE:
 “Self Reliance” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
 “Civil Disobedience” – Henry David Thoreau
 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Expectations
 This is a college-level class with a focus on rhetorical
analysis and argument. As such:
 Students should be willing to commit to a substantial
amount of college-level reading (both inside and outside
of the classroom).
 Students should have a foundational understanding of
basic composition:
 Clear and complete sentence structure
 Thesis development
 Topic sentences, transitions, and body paragraph
development
The AP Composition Grading Scale
The following scale will be used to evaluate all major essay assignments:
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AP Score = Academic Score
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9 (Sophisticated) = 99% A
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8 (Effective) = 93% A
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7 = 88% B
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6 (adequate) = 82% B
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5 = 78% C
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4 (Inadequate) = 72% D
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3 = 68% F
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2 or 1 (Little Success) = 63% or lower F
Beware the Lies of Your
Peers
 No one rides for free. If you took the class because you heard that
I might be “fun”, “funny”, or otherwise “entertaining” – don’t
forget that there is a price to pay. The curriculum demands time
and effort.
 Universities would rather see an ‘A’ or ‘B’ in “regular” English
than a ‘C’ or ‘D’ in AP English.
 If you were told that the class is “easy”, ask to see a transcript.
People lie. Teenagers lie A LOT! Anything in high school is
“easy” if your goal is a 70.
 Your so-called “seat of higher reasoning” (prefrontal cortex) is
still undeveloped. Disregard everything you have been told by my
former students; these were the reports of individuals with brain
damage and totally unreliable. Judge for yourself. Develop your
own opinion.
At all times, please remember:
Now you may ask:
…Don’t
Ask A Scientist…
"[T]he atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they
form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of
things or facts.” - Werner Heisenberg
“Reality is an illusion, albeit a persistent one.” Albert Einstein
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed
science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my
research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All
matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force that brings the
particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar
system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force a
conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all
matter.” – Max Planck
"When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass
microscopic phenomena through the creation of quantum
mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to the fore again. It
was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a
fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness.” –
Eugene Wigner
…Writers Say the Same Things
“There's no reality except the one contained within us. That's why
so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for
reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.”
― Hermann Hesse
“All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.” – Edgar Allan Poe
The study of Rhetoric allows insight into the ways in
which the components of language reveal an underlying
system of meaning…
Language is magic:
 To SPELL a word/ To cast a SPELL…
 To WRITE my ideas/ To perform magical RITES and rituals
 The rules of GRAMMAR/ A book of spells is a GRIMOIRE
 To CONJUGATE a verb/ To CONJURE a ghost
 To COMMUNICATE my thoughts/ To COMMUNE with spirits
 A magical emblem is called a SIGIL/ As related to SIGN,
SIGNATURE…
Consider the metaphorical relationship between time and money.
What does it say about the human condition?
If you do not have the LANGUAGE, can the thought
even exist?
 Limitations in the ability to use language are limitations to
the quality of thought. A more dynamic and proficient
ability with language equals: agility of wit – depth of
thought – ability to discern – ability to persuade – ability to
self-actualize. (Improve the parallelism in the first sentence)
 Language offers the ability to communicate ideas in such a
way that you are able to alter the conscious mind of
another. You can quite literally change or direct the way in
which they see the world, others, themselves.
 If the power of language can help you to shape another
person’s reality, what can it do to help you mold a new
reality for yourself ?
Cognito ergo sum;
I think therefore I am.
 Focus in on the use of the word “therefore”. What
does this word serve to signify? What are the deeper
implications of the statement due to the use of the
word “therefore”? What impact does it have on the
overall idea being expressed?
Aphorisms, Allusions, and Evidence
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“The limits of my language means the limits of my world.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
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“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
George Orwell
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“A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer
and more copious one's vocabulary and the greater one's awareness of fine
distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to
be one's thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow
together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing.”
Henry Hazlitt
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“A drop of ink may make a million think.”
George Gordon Byron
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“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.”
Socrates
In Closing…
 If you are not willing to put in the work, then there is no reason to
stay. Your Junior year is vital. Leave a positive paper trail.
 Take ownership of your deficiencies and improve them on your
own time.
 There is not time in the year to remediate basic skills. If you are
having trouble with your sentence structure, or punctuation, or
paragraph development, just ask Mr. Google. Nearly the sum
total of human knowledge and experience is online (and growing
exponentially). You can also see me before school. We can
Google it together.
 READ READ READ READ – Absorb the architecture of
language, enrich yourself with new ideas and perspectives, escape
the empty and vacuous culture of distraction, and evolve.