Advanced PlacementLanguage and CompositionCourse Syllabus

Mr. Borders Room 401 330.823.7458

b_borders@marlingtonlocal.org www.marlingtonlocal.org/MrBorders.aspx

Overview:

The English 11 Advanced Placement course is designed to offer students a chance to earn college credit while still in high school. Accordingly, a great deal of emphasis is placed on preparing for the Advanced Placement test, which students who elect this course are required to take. To be successful on the test, students must be able to analyze authors language and strategy at a very high level, which may include reading mature materials. Therefore, considerable emphasis is placed on reading widely, writing timed essays, and performing detailed analysis on texts from a variety of genres, but with a special concentration on non-fiction. Students should be highly motivated and prepared for work at the college level. Summer reading is required for this course. Students will be notified of the summer reading lists and assignments in May. All students taking this course will be required to take the AP exam in May. The cost of the exam is included in the course fee.

SHORT NOTE: Successful completion of this course prepares the student to take the College Board Advanced Placement Language & Composition Exam administered each year in May. Appropriate performance on this exam may lead to the attainment of credit and/or advanced standing in college.

Curricular Requirements:

1. The course will teach and require students to write in several forms (e.g., narrative, expository, analytical, and argumentative essays) about a variety of subjects (e.g., public policies, popular culture, personal experiences).

2. The course will require students to write essays that proceed through several stages or drafts, with revision aided by teacher and peers.

3. The course will require 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.

4. The course will teach students to analyze how graphics and visual images both relate to written texts and serve as alternative forms of text themselves.

5. The course will teach research skills, and in particular, the ability to evaluate, use, and cite primary and secondary sources. The course will assign projects such as the researched argument paper, which goes beyond the parameters[footnoteRef:1] of a traditional research paper by asking students to present an argument of their own that includes the analysis and synthesis[footnoteRef:2] of ideas from an array of sources. [1: boundaries] [2: unification or fusion]

6. The course will teach students how to cite sources using a recognized editorial style

7. The course will require expository writing assignments that are based on readings representing a wide variety of prose[footnoteRef:3] styles and genres[footnoteRef:4]. [3: language written or spoken in normal continuous form unlike poetry] [4: kinds or types like stories, novels, memoirs, essays, plays, etc.]

8. The course will require analytical writing assignments that are based on readings representing a wide variety of prose styles and genres.

9. The course will require argumentative writing assignments that are based on readings representing a wide variety of prose styles and genres.

10. The course will require nonfiction reading that are selected to give students opportunities to identify and explain an authors use of rhetorical strategies and techniques.

11. The course requires that the AP teacher will provide instruction and feedback on students writing assignments that will help students to develop:

a. A wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively

b. A variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination[footnoteRef:5] and coordination[footnoteRef:6] [5: varied importance or emphasis put on different parts of language usually within sentences] [6: equal importance or emphasis put on different parts of language usually within sentences]

c. A logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence[footnoteRef:7], such as repetition, transition, and emphasis [7: consistent harmony or sense of unity and fluidity]

d. A balance of generalization of specific, illustrative detail

e. An effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction[footnoteRef:8] and sentence structure [8: word choice]

Course Materials:Textbook:

Literature: The American experience. Prentice Hall.

*Other canonical and modern texts, essays, and the like may be read throughout the year or chosen for the research project, if approved.

Other Materials:

You will need a 3-ring notebook (recommend dividing into the following sections):

1. Notes

2. Literary Terms

3. Compositions

4. Homework

5. Vocabulary

Bring your current reading materials, notebook, and pen or pencil to class each day.

Grading:Assignments and Homework:

All assignments must be turned in on or before the due date. If you know you will be absent, turn in your work early or have someone else turn it in for you. Late work will not be accepted!

Make-Up Work:

All assignments will be listed on-line (Web site listed at top of syllabus). You must check the assignments when you return to class after an absence and make any necessary arrangements to take quizzes, tests, etc.

Scale/Weighting:

A

92-100%

5.000

B+

89-91%

4.350

20%

80%

B

86-88%

4.000

B-

83-85%

3.725

C+

80-82%

3.425

C

77-79%

3.000

C-

74-76%

2.725

D+

71-73%

1.425

D

68-71%

1.000

D-

65-67%

0.875

F

below 65%

0.000

Academic Outline:Ongoing AssessmentsIndependent Reading Assignments:

There will be an emphasis on the writing process, with discussions and practice in revision and use of style as a priority. This emphasis will include class discussions, individual conferences, and peer revision. Each assignment will include writing in the form of a literary analysis (detailed further in Composition and Language Skills).

Vocabulary:

Students will be learning vocabulary as needed, based on the literature used in each particular unit. There will be an emphasis on understanding not just the denotation of words in literary works, but the connotation of those words as well. This study of diction will apply both to the reading of assigned literature (where professional writers model their skills in usage) and to the students writing samples as well. Further, vocabulary words will be assigned weekly, and quizzes (on Fridays) will cumulative. The end result should be two-fold: first, a heightening of the students appreciation for effectively used diction in literary works and secondly, an improvement in the students understanding of diction and usage in their own writing samples.

Literary Terms:

In addition to vocabulary study, literary terms will be assigned each week; quizzes will be given biweekly on Wednesdays. (The said quizzes will be on the opposite Wednesdays as the timed writings.) This portion of study will not only develop students enjoyment of literature, but also their ability to think critically, write successfully, discuss effectively, etc.

Composition and Language Skills:

We will use various texts as resources for modeling the various modes of writing. These resources will also be used as models for the revision process as students write for a variety of purposes including analysis, synthesis, argumentative, and informative essays. Composition assignments will include biweekly timed writings given on Wednesdays, alternating Wednesdays with the aforementioned literary terms quizzes, and at least one longer essay per semesterusing APA style parenthetical citations and a Bibliography pagegermane to the students independent reading. Each paper will receive instruction leading up to the paper, feedback, conferencing, peer feedback, and will be available for revision. For revision credit, students MUST improve their papers beyond the mundane spelling, grammar, etc. Specifically, students need to think about how to improve their arguments, organization, and rhetoric. I will provide instruction on how to improve each paper and each revision.

Advanced Placement Exam:

We will be continuously preparing for the exam throughout the year, including several AP-style tests to monitor progress. The AP Language and Composition-style exams will be used as a tool to improve the test-taking skills of the students as well as a test of their knowledge germane to the literature/content. Using item-analysis data, we will score the tests and then discuss (as a class or in small groups) the rationale behind the correct answers of the items that students missed most frequently. Furthermore, the biweekly timed writings will be in preparation for the AP exam and scored accordingly. On occasion, to demonstrate that the students are familiar with the scoring process, students will score and critique their own writings and give rationales for their scores.

First SemesterUnit Breakdown by Week: What Is the American Dream?Introduction: Course Introduction (Week 1)

Overview: In this unit students will work with their previously read texts to learn to improve their skills of analysis through various teaching strategies, including class discussions; think, pair, and share; and small group discussions. Specifically, students will be gaining an understanding of the thought complexity level this course requires. Further, we will concentrate on developing and writing theses. This will involve a study of others theses for diction and syntax and their efficacy.

Unit I: The New World (Weeks 1-4)

Overview: This unit focuses primarily on the nonfiction proseincluding sermons and diariesand some poetry in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Students examine the works of some of the earliest settlers in various parts of the new world. They consider the significance of the intersection of Native American, European, and African cultures. They explore whether conflicts were inevitable and how language and religion served as barriers and as bridges. Students look for emerging themes in American literature, such as the new Eden and the American dream. Finally, art works from the period are examined for their treatment of similar themes.

Poetry

An Hymn to the Evening, Phillis Wheatley

On Being Brought from Africa to America, Phillis Wheatley

Nonfiction

Of Plymouth Plantation, William Bradford

The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain, Langston Hughes

The Trials of Phillis Wheatley, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Speeches

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, Jonathan Edwards

Art

Mrs. James Smith & Grandson, Charles Willson Peale

Mrs. George Watson, John Singleton Copley

Young Moravian Girl, John Valentine Haidt

Portrait of a Woman, Joseph Wright

Projects/Assignments

Write an argument in which you agree or disagree with Gates; use evidence from Wheatleys work to support your position. Share your initial thoughts on the classroom blog in order to get feedback from your classmates and from me.

Examine the artworks listed. What does each image show about young America? Examine the Copley painting in comparison to the Haidt. What can you learn about each of these women and their lives in America? How are the women different? Carefully examine the iconography present in each image. Compare the Peale, Copley, and Wright paintings. What can we learn about the new nation from the way these painters worked?

After reading excerpts from Sinners in the Hands of An Angry God, write an argument that explains why you think early settlers were persuaded by Edwardss sermon. Note evidence from the text to support your thesis.

Examine Of Plymouth Plantation or The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain for usage (e.g., words or conventions) that differs from contemporary usage. Discuss with classmates online or in class whether and/or how the meanings of words and/or sentence structure has changed since that time. Translate instances of antiquated syntax into contemporary sentences; determine whether and/or how the meaning of the sentence is affected by the translation.

Unit II: A New Nation (Weeks 5-10)

Overview: Building on the themes explored in unit one, students trace the movement toward revolution and the colonists desire to establish a new government, noting the differences in opinions between federalists and anti-federalists and how the arguments were made. Students compare the radical purpose and tone of the Declaration of Independence to the measured and logical tone of the Preamble to the Constitution. They will analyze the expression of conflict between colonists and the British government, between colonists and Native Americans, and between colonists and slaves. They will begin to recognize the emerging theme in American literature of American exceptionalism. Art works from the period will be examined for their treatment of similar themes.

Nonfiction

Common Sense, Thomas Paine

Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson

Federalist No. 10, James Madison

Preamble to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights

Speeches

Farewell Address, George Washington

What to the Slave Is the Fourth Of July? An Address Delivered in Rochester, New York, on 5 July 1852, Frederick Douglass

Speech to the Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry

Art

Sige de Yorktown, Auguste Couder

Washington Crossing The Delaware, Emanuel Leutze

James Monroe, Gilbert Stuart

Lapowinsa, Gustavus Hesselius

Paul Revere, John Copley

Declaration of Independence, John Trumbull

Washington and Lafayette at Mount Vernon, Thomas Pritchard Rossiter

Projects/Assignments

Examine the artworks listed. How did artists portray historical figures and events from the founding of America? Why might an artist choose to depict such events or figures? Examine each artwork for imagery detailing the founding of America and identify ways in which artists use history for inspiration. In addition, compare the Leutze and Trumbull paintings. How does the artist share each narrative with you? What visual clues lead you to discover what is happening in each scene? Why might these paintings inspire viewers during the time period as well as future viewers?

Do the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution share similar tones? Why or why not? Use at least three pieces of textual evidence to support your argument. Share your initial thoughts on the classroom blog in order to get feedback from your classmates and from me.

Write an essay in which you explain Madisons use of the term faction in Federalist No. 10. Use at least three pieces of textual evidence to support an original thesis statement. Post your first draft on the classroom blog and receive feedback from classmates and me before publication.

Examine Speech to the Virginia Convention for variety in sentence structure. (I will select passages and highlight three sentences.) With my guidance, diagram the three highlighted sentences. Rewrite each sentence in contemporary prose.

Select one of the texts studied and write a research paper in which you trace the enduring significance of the work through contemporary American history. Cite at least three secondary sources to support an original thesis statement. The essay should reflect your reasoned judgment about the quality and reliability of sources consulted (i.e., why you emphasize some and not others), a balance of paraphrasing and quoting from sources, and proper citation of sources.

Unit III: American Romanticism (Weeks 11-18)

Overview: Students explore this period as Americas first prolific one of literature by examining works from Hawthorne, Poe, Whitman, Dickinson, Emerson, and Thoreau. Students will wrestle with how the Romantics perceive individualism and how this focus on individualism relates to other themes in American literature. Transcendentalism is explored as an aspect of American Romanticism and students should compare the Romantics with the Transcendentalists. We will explore one novel, several poems, and several essays, etc. to compare these groups.

Poetry

A Bird came down the Walk, Emily Dickinson

Annabel Lee, Edgar Allan Poe

Song of Myself, Walt Whitman

This is my letter to the World, Emily Dickinson

Essays

Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau

Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Society and Solitude, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nonfiction

Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau

Speeches

Address to William Henry Harrison, Shawnee Chief Tecumseh

Art

Looking Down Yosemite Valley, Albert Biertstadt

Kindred Spirits, Asher Durand

Niagara, Frederic Church

The Lackawanna Valley, George Inness

Romantic Landscape with Ruined Tower, Thomas Cole

Projects/Assignments

After reading literary examples of American Romanticism, examine the paintings featured. Why do you believe these are Romantic paintings? What visual aspects do the artists employ to interact with the viewer? How do they use the formal principles of art and design? View Thomas Coles work Romantic Landscape with Ruined Tower. What has Cole done to create a Romantic landscape? Continue viewing the other works of art as comparisons. After viewing all of these paintings, what do you think are the characteristics of a romantic work of art? Brainstorm a list of the visual aspects of romantic painting.

Write your own narrative essay in the style of Walden. Post your first draft on the classroom blog and receive feedback from classmates and me before publication.

Agree or disagree with this Emerson quotation: What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 1842. Use at least three pieces of textual evidence to support your opinion. Your teacher may give you the opportunity to share your initial thoughts on the classroom blog in order to get feedback from your classmates and from me.

Second SemesterResearch Paper:

Students will create a thesis and write a researched synthesis essay that is based on a minimum of three literary texts and three non-literary texts (i.e., journal articles, etc.). Students will be required to select a current cultural or social issue, conduct independent research, and articulate a coherent, persuasive position on that issue. The essay will be 8-10 pages long, including both parenthetical citations and a Bibliography page in APA format. Students will be required to submit a rough draft two weeks prior to the submission of the final paper. One week before the final paper is due, students MUST conference with the teacher to discuss possible improvements and successes. Finally, students will submit their final copy along with their rough draft. Each step of this essay will have a deadline and will receive feedbackfor example, students will submit a thesis, get feedback from me, and revise and repeat.

Unit Breakdown by Week: What Is the American Dream?Unit IV: A Troubled Young Nation (Weeks 1-6)

Overview: The range and depth of potential topics covered in this hefty unit build on the previous unit in which individualism figures as a prominent theme in American Romanticism and Transcendentalism. This unit explores the expanding idea of the American individual and the related idea of the pursuit of liberty in various forms. We will sample heavily from the informational texts, as many are critical especially to understanding the era of the Civil War and the struggle to fulfill Americas promise.

Short Stories

The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Essays

The Yellow Wallpaper and Womens Discourse, Karen Ford

Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Nonfiction

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Dee Brown

Letter to Albert G. Hodges, Abraham Lincoln

Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn, Evan S. Connell

Speeches

A House Divided, Abraham Lincoln

The Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln

Art

A Visit from the Old Mistress, Winslow Homer

Projects/Assignments

What do you think might be going on in the Homer painting? Who are these women? Notice each persons dress and body position. What do these details suggest about their relationships? Note that the painting is sectioned. But where is the division: between the white woman and the black family, or at the paintings center, to the left of the central figure? How does noticing this division add to our understanding of the relationships in the painting? What do you think each character might be thinking or feeling? Why do you think Homer created such a complex composition to depict what at first appears to be a simple interaction?

Write an argument in which you agree or disagree with the following statement, offering at least three pieces of evidence from the texts to support your position: Women in nineteenth-century America could not really be free. Share your initial thoughts on the classroom blog in order to get feedback from your classmates and from me.

Read The Yellow Wallpaper, The Yellow Wallpaper and Womens Discourse, and Why I Wrote The Yellow Wallpaper. Then, write an informative/explanatory essay in which you explore how the positioning of the women protagonist in the story exposes the authors views of women in society.

Unit V: Emerging Modernism (Weeks 7-12)

Objectives: It traces the emergence of American modernism, including some literature from World War I, and tracks the literature of disillusionment that followed the war. Students explore Robert Frosts vision of nature as modernist rather than transcendental in its perspective. They identify the alienation of the modern man and the tensions that are embedded in the modernist works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. The works of Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston illustrate the breadth of the Harlem Renaissance literary movement. Informational and critical texts enrich the students analysis of the texts.

Novels

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Poetry

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

Essays

If Black English Isnt a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? James Baldwin

The Great Gatsby and the Twenties, Ronald Berman

Speeches

Hope Despair and Memory, Elie Wiesel

State of the Union Address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The Spirit of Liberty speech at I Am an American Day, Learned Hand

Art

From the Back Window, 291, Alfred Stieglitz

Goat, Arthur Dove

My Egypt, Charles Demuth

Mount Katahdin, Maine, Marsden Hartley

Projects/Assignments

What do we mean when we talk about modernists creating art for arts sake? For instance, compare the Hartley, Dove, and Demuth paintings. To what extent do you think these painters were interested in painting a mountain (Hartley), a goat (Dove), and silos (Demuth) versus experimenting with the possibilities of paint, space, and line? What role do you think fine art photography (see the Stieglitz image) might have played in the transition of painting away from a primary focus on depiction?

Discuss what you think Learned Hand meant when he said of Americans, For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land. Cite examples from works read in this unit and describe how the characters exhibit this quality.

After reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Great Gatsby, decide whether you agree or disagree with the following statement: Prufrock and Gatsby have similar characters. Use at least three pieces of textual evidence to support your position. Share your initial thoughts on the classroom blog in order to get feedback from your classmates and from me.

Unit VI: Challenges and Successes of the Twentieth Century (Weeks 13-18)

Objectives: Students will recognize the principles of effective literary characterization and be able to understand and apply the vocabulary of characterization. This vocabulary includes direct and indirect presentation, round and flat characters, and dynamic and static characters, as well as the idea, especially important in discussing short stories, of the epiphany.

Essays

Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On Being an American, H.L. Mencken

Speeches

Brandenburg Gate Address, Ronald Reagan

Inaugural Address (January 20, 1961), John F. Kennedy

Architecture

Farnsworth House, Plano, Illinois (1951)

Seagram Building, New York City, New York (1957)

Art

Concord, Barnett Newman

Pillar of Sundays, David Smith

Untitled, Franz Kline

Number 28, 1950, Jackson Pollock

Red Fragmented Figure, Louise Bourgeois

Are Years What? (For Marianne Moore), Mark di Suvero

Untitled, Mark Rothko

Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 70, Robert Motherwell

Excavation, Willem de Kooning

Film

A Streetcar Named Desire, Elia Kazan (dir.)

A Streetcar Named Desire, Glenn Jordan (dir.)

Projects/Assignments

Compare a scene from the 1951 film of A Streetcar Named Desire with the same scene in the 1995 film or a stage performance. Do you think the film or stage production is faithful to the authors intent? Why or why not? Cite at least three pieces of evidence to support an original thesis statement. Share your initial thoughts on the classroom blog in order to get feedback from your classmates and from me.

View the two works of architecture, one residential and one commercial. The same architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, designed these buildings. How do they compare? Do you see similar elements in both of them? What is different? How is each building site-specific (i.e., reacting specifically to the place where it resides)? Compare this duo to the di Suvero and Bourgeois sculptures. How might you compare themor can we even compare them? Does the comparison suggest that artists and architects sometimes work on similar ideas?

The paintings listed are all signal examples of abstract expressionist art. What do you see in each image? Consider these paintings in comparison to Romantic painting, discussed in Unit Three, and the early modernist works in Unit Five. Why do you believe the abstract expressionists took such a grand leap away from figurative art (i.e., creating a representational image)? What words come to mind when you see these images? Many of these works are large-scale paintings. Can you appreciate the monumental scale of these works without being in front of them? Do you need to view this image in person to be affectedby the colors, textures, and shapes used? What happens to an image when it is reproduced?

Parent/Student SummaryImportant Dates

Wednesdays are important; students will either be completing timed writings or literary terms quizzes.

Fridays will have vocabulary quizzes. Each quiz will build on the previous.

Important Information

Assigned readings are importantas are assigned homework and studying. Being that this is a college-level class, late work will not be accepted. I expect your best effort on everything you do, and I understand that some material is very difficult. Therefore, if your best effort isnt up to your (and my) standards, a different retake over the material will be allowed (and expected).

Parent/Guardian Signature: _______________________________________Date: ______________

Student Signature: ______________________________________________Date: ______________

Two 9-Week Tests (10% each)

SLO Exam (15%) & 9-Week Test (5%)

40%Compositions

30%Tests

20%Quizzes

10%Homework