Advanced Placement Language and Composition 2015-2016
You can reach Mr. Patterson by:
Phone:
724-397-5551 Ext. 1106
Email:
[email protected]
In-person: 2nd period /STAR period/before or after school
Course Overview – AP Language and Composition
This course requires students to write in a variety of academic forms and subjects, with a focus
on the extended-effort writing process, including multiple drafts and both teacher and peer
revision. Students will work with informal modes of writing to make writing second-nature and
to increase self-awareness as writers. All readings will lead students to a deeper
understanding of the conscious choices an author makes when shaping a piece of fiction or
non-fiction. Students will reflect on these choices in expository, analytical, and argumentative
writing assignments. The focus on nonfiction is reflected in the changing Common Core
standards. In addition to fiction and non-fiction texts, the students will be given the
opportunity to analyze visual images and how authors can use alternatives to words to
communicate their ideas.
Students will also explore the genre of research writing, with special attention paid to going
beyond the traditional research format to get students to engage with an argument that they
support that analyzes and synthesizes information from multiple sources. Any primary or
secondary sources utilized will be cited using the Modern Language Association conventions.
Students will find that all of these course requirements will be met in a supportive
environment that allows for both teacher and student feedback/revision on writing
assignments. Writing will be critiqued with a focus on developing an expansive vocabulary,
improving sentence variety, thinking critically about organization and organizational devices,
using both general and specific details, introducing an understanding of rhetoric, and
developing strong tone and unique voice in non-fiction and fiction alike.
Course Texts
Carnevale, Linda. Hot Words for the SAT. Barron’s; NY, 2013.
Cohen, Samuel. 50 Essays: A Portable Anthology. 3rd ed. Boston:
Bedford/ST Martins, 2011.
King, Stephen. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. New York: Scribner,
2000.
Krakauer, Jon. Into the Wild. New York: Anchor, 1997.
Jolliffe, David and Hephzibah Roskelly. Writing America: Language and
Composition in Context. Pearson; NY, 2014.
O’Brien, Tim. The Things They Carried. Mariner: NY, 2009.
Orwell, George. 1984. Signet: NY, 1977.
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Summer Assignment
Read and annotate George Orwell’s 1984 and his essay “Politics and the English Language.”
Use nicenet.org, an online discussion board that we set up at our pre-summer meeting, as a
resource if you are confused or struggling with any part of the book or essay. I will award
bonus points on your essay for particularly powerful questions or responses on Nicenet, and
this will be your only bonus opportunity for the quarter.
Assessments:
Formal Writing w/academic tone that strives for a unique voice
Reading Journal – How can you retain what you read without notes on the novel
and annotations on the article? See the summer assignment handout for
recommendations and tips for your annotations. Do not try and complete this
after you’ve finished reading!
Essay—Draft an essay that explores a connection between Orwell’s “Politics and
the English Language” and 1984. The heart of your thesis statement should be
explaining the link that you see between his two texts.
Informal Writing w/ casual tone that strives to show your personality
Summer Journal— minimum of 10 entries by the end of summer focused around
your own observations, reflections, and opinions. Each entry should be at least
one typed/hand-written page, and the topics are entirely your choice with one
exception—one or more of your entries should reflect upon how you feel about
reading and writing and why you feel that way.
Quarterly Independent Assignment – Each quarter students will independently
complete an assignment that reinforces an in-class principle for that quarter.
Projects may vary depending on several factors. Due dates TBA.
1st quarter – Vocab assignment
2nd quarter – Poet Laureate research assignment
3rd quarter – Essay work from Samuel Cohen’s 50 Essays
4th quarter – Author/Philosopher mini-research project
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UNIT 1 (1st Quarter) – The Relationship between Writer and Reader
Essential Question:
How do writers construct meaning in their work and how is the reader involved?
What does critical reflection regarding the writing process look like?
Class Text:
Writing America – Part One: Reading and Writing
Content:
Students will begin the year by discussing and revising their summer assignment. They
will then work through “Part One – Reading and Writing” in Writing America:
Composition in Context by David Jolliffe during the first quarter:
Chapter 1 Reading as Inventing
 Journal Entry on strengths as a reader/why they are passionate about
reading
 Writer’s Toolbox entries
 Chapter Activity: Using Reader Experience and Text Features on Exams
 Chapter Checklist: Reading
Chapter 2 Reading Genres
 Journal Entry on genres of literature and why students prefer one over the
other
 Writer’s Toolbox entries
 Chapter Activity: Responding to a Text
 Chapter Checklist: Reading Genres
Chapter 3 Composing Rhetorically
 Journal entry on decisions an author makes to shape his/her writing
 Writer’s Toolbox entries
 Chapter Activity: Analyzing the Appeals in Visual Texts
 Chapter Checklist: Composing Rhetorically
Chapter 4 Rhetoric and Analysis
 Journal entry on purpose of analyzing literature/difference between
analysis and appreciation
 Writer’s Toolbox entries
 Chapter Activity: Rhetorical Analysis of Lincoln’s “Second Inaugural
Address”
 Chapter Checklist: Rhetorical Analysis
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Chapter 5 Argument
 Journal Entry on experience with argumentative forms/how is a formal
argument in an essay different from an informal argument on the bus?
 Writer’s Toolbox entries
 Chapter Activity: An Argument Project Rich with Possibilities
 Chapter Checklist: Argument
Chapter 6 The Researched or Synthesis Essay
 Journal Entry on why synthesis is important/experience with using source
material
 Writer’s Toolbox entries
 Chapter Writing Assignment: A Synthesis Project
 Chapter Checklist: Synthesis Essay
Chapter 7 Sentences
 Journal Entry on why sentence variety is important—respond to an
example of a paragraph with poor sentence variety
 Writer’s Toolbox entries
 Chapter Activity: Analyzing Grammar Rhetorically in a Text of
 Your Choice
 Chapter Checklist: Sentences
Formative and Summative Assessments:
Essays
Students will be responsible for producing three essays: an informative essay, an
argumentative essay, and a synthesis essay. Each essay will include relevant
rhetorical reflections on decisions made before, during, and after writing.
Writer’s Toolbox
Students will record notes and questions from each chapter in a section of a
notebook/in a Word file called “Writer’s Toolbox.” This will serve as a reference
for the remainder of the class.
Essential Exercises
Chapter activities will be completed in a section of a notebook/in a Word file
called “Essential Exercises.” This exercises will be checked on a weekly basis or
when relevant.
Journal Entries
In addition to weekly journal entries regarding the relevant content, students will
record reflections on the two Essential Questions for each quarter.
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Unit 2 (2nd Quarter) – Writing in America: Our American Literary Heritage
Essential Questions:
How can literature help us understand our national literary heritage?
What purpose do writers have for constructing meaning in their work?
Class Text:
Writing America – Part Two: An Anthology of Readings and Images
Content:
Students will begin the quarter by discussing and recording notes related to fiction,
poetry, and a variety of genres of writing. This will be followed by a 5-week survey of a
variety of short classic and contemporary American pieces. Selections will vary by genre
and style, but they will be connected by theme. The weeks will also be punctuated with
direct AP Test Prep practice and strategies for both the multiple choice and freeresponse sections.
Native American Heritage – “Concerning the Savages”
Iroquois League, from “The Constitution of Five Nations” (speech) 166
Mary Rowlandson, from A Narrative of…of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (memoir) 193
Cyrus Dallin, Massasoit (sculpture) 211
John Smith, from The Journal of John Smith (journal/memoir) 170
Benjamin Franklin, “Notes Concerning the Savages” (pamphlet) 218
George Catlin, “Letter from the Yellowstone River” (letter) 355
Andrew Jackson, “On Indian Removal” (speech) 370
Stewart Udall, “The Land Wisdom of the Indians” (essay) 403
Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, “Indian Names” (poem) 537
N. Scott Momaday, from The Way to Rainy Mountain (memoir) 599
Zitkala Sa, from The School Days of an Indian Girl (memoir) 680
African-American Heritage – “From Africa to America”
Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America”(poem) 249
Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” (essay) 432
Sojourner Truth, “Speech to the Women’s Rights Convention” (speech) 438
Harriet Beecher Stowe, from Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly (fiction) 539
Harriet Ann Jacobs, from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (memoir) 564
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “An Appeal to the American People” (poem) 583
James Baldwin, “My Dungeon Shook” (letter) 797
Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool” (poem) 802
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (letter) 805
Robert F. Kennedy, “On the Death of Martin Luther King” (speech) 825
Rita Dove, “Banneker” (poem) 880
Women’s Heritage—“The Long Road”
Benjamin Franklin, “The Speech of Polly Baker” (humor) 223
Abigail Adams and John Adams, Letters (letter) 250
Gloria Steinem, “Women Are Never Front-Runners” (essay) 597
Jane Addams, from The Long Road of Woman’s Memory (memoir) 671
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments” (speech) 483
A. E. Ted Aub, When Anthony Met Stanton (sculpture) 487
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Poetic Reflections of America – “What I Lived For”
James Fenimore Cooper, “The Slaughter of the Pigeons” from The Pioneers (fiction) 345
Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar” (essay) 379
Harold Bloom, “Out of Panic, Self‐Reliance” (commentary) 410
Henry David Thoreau, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” from Walden (essay) 442
Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself (poem) 585
Walt Whitman, “To a Locomotive in Winter” (poem) 610
Walt Whitman, from Democratic Vistas (nonfiction) 611
Emily Dickinson, “I like to see it lap the Miles” (poem) 615
Emily Dickinson,“The brain is wider than the sky” (poem) 616
Mark Twain, from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (fiction) 630
Carl Sandburg, “Chicago” (poem) 689
Jack Kerouac, from On the Road (fiction) 775
Tillie Olsen, “I Stand Here Ironing” (fiction) 789
Sandra Cisneros, “Eleven” (fiction) 933
David Foster Wallace, “The Devil Is a Busy Man” (fiction) 948
Recovering from and Reflecting on Tragedy
Louisa May Alcott, from Hospital Sketches (fiction) 511
Matthew Brady, Wounded Soldiers in Hospital (photograph) 536
Abraham Lincoln, “Gettysburg Address” (speech) 589
Winslow Homer, Near Andersonville (painting) 591
Lucille Clifton, “at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from “State of the Union Address” (speech) 736
Eleanor Roosevelt, “My Day” (commentary) 746
John Okada, from No‐No Boy (fiction) 785
George W. Bush, “Address to the Nation” (speech) 928
Jean Louis Blondeau, Philippe Petit Between the Twin Towers (photograph) 931
Ana Juan, New Yorker Cover (drawing) 932
Naomi Shihab Nye, “One Moment on Top of the Earth” (memoir) 936
Dave Barry, “Independence Day” (humor) 959
Power of Literature
William Faulkner, “Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech” (speech) 773
Toni Morrison, “The Nobel Lecture in Literature” (speech) 904
Billy Collins, “Introduction to Poetry” (poem) 954
Rachel Carson, “A Fable for Tomorrow” (essay) 803
Formative and Summative Assessments:
Essays
Students will draft two essays this quarter, one an analytic essay and the other a
synthesis paper. The analytic essay will focus on making connections between the
works in one category of the readings we completed. The research essay will focus on a
Poet Laureate of the United States and how their work was both shaped by the world
they lived in and how their work in turn shaped the world they wrote in. The research
essay will be an independent effort that can be started / completed at any time
throughout the quarter.
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Writer’s Toolbox
Students will record notes on fiction, poetry, and a variety of genres of writing. In
addition, students will record the structures for several strategies of analysis or
annotation in their Writer’s Toolbox (SOAPSTone, TPCASTT, PDIDLS, etc).
Essential Exercises
Students will complete relevant exercises from Writing America. In addition, they will
use systems of analyses to record their understandings of and questions about
particular readings.
Journal Entries
In addition to periodic journal entries, students will record reflections on the two
Essential Questions for each quarter.
Test-Prep Activities
This quarter will also mark the beginning of specific AP Test-prep activities on Fridays.
Students are accountable for keeping all handouts and exercises to review for the exam.
Midterm
The midterm will assess the students’ comprehension of the main ideas from the first
semester. It will be modeled after the AP exam (multiple choice and free-response
essay) to provide additional test preparation.
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Unit 3 (3rd Quarter) – ZOOMING IN ON PURPOSE AND CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS
Essential Questions:
How do philosophies and life events shape an author’s body of work?
What responsibilities come with being an author (to tell the truth/to document the
world around us/etc.)?
Class Texts:
Stephen King’s On Writing
Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried
Content:
This quarter will revolve around two texts and how those two authors understand their
role as writers. Students will also be responsible for an-depth study of how authors
develop arguments and style in both fiction and non-fiction. They will read
independently and in-class and meet in small and large groups to discuss the novels.
Formative and Summative Assessments:
Essays
The students will write an argumentative/synthesis essay that addresses both King and
O’Brien’s thoughts on the role of a writer that goes beyond a simple summary. Students
will be expected to work in additional sources to support their thesis statements.
Creative Fiction
Students will write a missing chapter from either one of the core texts from the quarter.
Refer to the relevant sections from each book to study the purpose each author seems
to be fulfilling and what stylistic decisions they make to do so.
Assignment A – Write a missing chapter from Stephen King’s On Writing. This should be
an autobiographical exploration of the key events shaped each student as a reflective
reader and writer that mimics King’s style to some degree. Students should include a
title and a short write-up explaining what specific elements of style they mimicked or
used to inform the stylistic choices in their own piece.
Assignment B – Write a missing chapter from Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried—
think fan-fiction. This missing chapter should fill in a blank space, develop a
minor/major character further, or revise one of O’Brien’s stories for a specific purpose.
Each student’s story should mimic O’Brien’s tone and style and should fit logically in the
world that he creates. Students should include a title and a short write-up explaining
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what specific elements of style they mimicked or used to inform the stylistic choices in
their own piece.
Writer’s Toolbox
Students will be responsible for annotating each text with sticky notes or a double-entry
journal that summarizes and captures their own opinions of major ideas and
developments in each book.
Essential Exercises
Students will be responsible for completing two reflection papers per novel. Reflection
papers should identify and explore major ideas that each author raises. This should go
beyond simple summary and should include your genuine thoughts on those major
ideas. What do you agree with and why? What points can you criticize for specific
reasons?
Journal Entries
Students will respond to period prompts or free-writes. In addition to periodic journal
entries, students will record reflections on the two Essential Questions for each quarter.
Test-Prep Activities
Students will continue specific AP Test-prep activities on Fridays. Students are
accountable for keeping all handouts and exercises to review for the exam.
Students will also begin working through the 5th edition of Linda Carnevale’s Hot Words
for the SAT.
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Unit 4 (4th Quarter) – Image and Meaning in Film and Poetry
Essential Questions:
How can images enhance a reader’s understanding of a text?
How can images communicate meaning on their own?
Class Texts:
Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild (novel)
Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (film)
Variety of Poems
Sharon Olds “I Go Back to May 1937”
Robert Frost’s “Out, Out”
Laura Gilpin’s “The-Two Headed Calf”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti “The World Is a Beautiful Place”
Content:
Students will begin studying imagery and meaning with Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild in
small groups. We will focus on the importance of the iconic image from the book, and
we will also analyze Krakauer’s use of imagery and how it influences the reader to form
particular understandings. We will then view the film version and analyze and evaluate
how the details from the novel were distilled into scenes. Finally, we will use “I Go Back
to May 1937,” Sharon Olds’s poem featured in the film, to make a connection to poetry
as distilled imagery.
Formative and Summative Assessments:
Essay
The students will write one persuasive essay that synthesizes information from a variety
of sources and establishes their responses to a particularly opinionated piece, “Chris
McCandless from an Alaska Park Ranger’s Perspective.”
Creative Imagery/Poetry
Develop a portfolio that consists of imagery and poetry focused on exploring a
consistent theme. 4-5 piece Poetry Portfolio [ode/metaphor/etc] to provide something
for the Junior PP, or something earlier in the year independently
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Creative Fiction
Students will create a themed Photo Essay that tells a cohesive story with a minimum of
three images. Students will also create 3-5 poems that focus on developing powerful
imagery and that connect thematically to their photos. Students will then decide on the
best way to combine and publish their artifacts.
Writer’s Toolbox
Students will make notes on imagery and symbol. Students will annotate their texts for
understanding, and they will bring questions/comments to class.
Essential Exercises
Students will gather and study college-bound vocabulary selections as they read Into the
Wild. We will complete several activities that students them to evaluate diction and
appropriateness of word choice.
Journal Entries
Students will respond to periodic prompts or free-writes. In addition to journal entries,
students will record reflections on the two Essential Questions for each quarter.
Test-Prep Activities
Students will continue specific AP Test-prep activities on Fridays. Students are
accountable for keeping all handouts and exercises to review for the exam.
Students will also continue working through Linda Carnevale’s Hot Words for the SAT or
another similar SAT/AP-prep resource TBA.
Final
The final will assess the students’ comprehension of the main ideas from the first and
second semesters. It will be modeled after the AP exam (multiple choice and freeresponse essay) to provide additional test preparation.
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Grading Scale
A
95-100
A93-94
B+
91-92
B
88-90
B86-87
C+
84-85
C
80-83
C78-79
D+ 76-77
D
72-75
D70-71
F
69-0
STRATEGIES
Annotation
General/targeted annotation
Double-entry journal
Stickies
Systems of Analysis
SEXI
SOAPS
SOAPSTone
Toulmin/Graff templates
SPAM
TPCASTT
SIFTSEI
PDIDLS
Close Reading
Note sets
Fiction and Poetry
Figurative Language
Rhetorical Devices
Writing Process
MLA Guidelines
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