Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Information and Guide Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Instructor: E-mail: Room: Course Overview An AP course in English Language and Composition engages students in becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of rhetorical contexts, and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes. Both their writing and their reading should make students aware of the interactions among a writer’s purposes, audience expectations, and subjects, as well as the way genre conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing. Goals The goals of an AP English Language and Composition course are diverse because the college composition course is one of the most varied in the curriculum. Although the college course provides students with opportunities to write about a variety of subjects from a variety of disciplines and to demonstrate an awareness of audience and purpose, the overarching objective in most first- year writing courses is to enable students to write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives. Most composition courses emphasize the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication, as well as the personal and reflective writing that fosters the development of writing facility in any context. In addition, most composition courses teach students that the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing they must do in college is based on reading as well as on personal experience and observation. Composition courses, therefore, teach students to read primary and secondary sources carefully, to synthesize material from these texts in their own compositions, and to cite sources using conventions recommended by professional organizations such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), the University of Chicago Press (The Chicago Manual of Style), the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Council of Biology Editors (CBE). As in the college course, the purpose of the AP English Language and Composition course is to enable students to read complex texts with understanding and to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers. An AP English Language and Composition course should help students move beyond such programmatic responses as the five-paragraph essay that provides an introduction with a thesis and three reasons, body paragraphs on each reason, and a conclusion that restates the thesis . Although such formulaic approaches may provide minimal organization, they often encourage unnecessary repetition and fail to engage the reader. Students should be encouraged to place their emphasis on content, purpose, and audience and to allow this focus to guide the organization of their writing Summer Read Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave The following text is required of each student: Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Scarlet Letter (will need by the second grading period) 2 Select ONE of the following (will need the second semester): Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Dillard, Annie. An American Childhood Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers McCourt, Frank. Angela’s Ashes Nafisis, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran Skloot, Rebecca. Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Wolff, Tobias. This Boy’s Life Wright, Richard. Black Boy **Please review each text before making your final selections as some may contain content that is not acceptable to all families. **Each of these titles come from College Board recommended reading lists. Required Materials Composition/Spiral Notebook Folder/Binder that is strictly for English Perforated lined writing pad—legal size (this is the extra long one) Grading Grading Scale Test/major writing assignment 70% A…..90-100 D…..70-74 Quizzes 20% B…..80-89 F…..<69 Daily Grades 10% Heading for all TYPED papers Name Teacher’s Name AP English Language and Composition- class period day month year Example: Taylor Mustang All of this information is double spaced and flush left. Mrs. Instructor AP English Language and Composition-2 17 August 2015 3 Cheating/Plagiarism When writers use materials from other sources, they MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THESE SOURCES. Not doing so is called plagiarism, which means: using material without crediting the ideas or expression of another. This includes taking information from books, articles, or the internet without citing your source. It also includes presenting another student’s work as your own or using the ideas, passage or general outline of another person’s work whether professional (published) or amateur (unpublished). I am aware of the many, many material on the internet that have been uploaded by students and teachers that could be used by you to improve your score in this course; however, a high grade does not, and will not, indicate learning. Please act as an individual thinker and writer; I want to read your work, not someone else’s. Websites It would be wise to bookmark these websites on your computer. www.dictionary.com www.collegeboard.com http://rhetoric.byu.edu/ STYLE ANALYSIS One of the most time-honored methods of elaborating one’s style is to employ figures of rhetoric in a piece of writing. A critical reader will learn to recognize when a writer is using one or more of the figures, just as a mature writer will learn to incorporate them effectively in a composition. H.L. Mencken, great American satirist and social critic, once noted that “style cannot go beyond the ideas which lie at the heart of it. If they [the ideas] are clear, it [style] too will be clear. If they are held passionately, it will be eloquent.” An analysis of prose style begins with understanding the roles of grammatical competence and diction, as well as the function of tone; it then moves into an examination of specific figures of speech. Rhetoricians divide the figures into two broad categories: schemes and tropes. There are at least four areas that may be considered when analyzing style: diction, sentence structure, treatment of subject matter, and figurative language. I. Diction (choice of words) – Describe diction by considering the following: A. Words may be monosyllabic (one syllable in length) or polysyllabic (more than one syllable in length). The higher ratio of polysyllabic words, the more difficult the content. B. Words may be mainly colloquial (slang), informal (conversational), formal (literary) or old-fashioned. C. Words may be mainly denotative (containing an exact meaning), e.g. dress, or connotative (containing a suggested meaning), e.g. gown. D. Words may be concrete (specific) or abstract (general). E. Words may be euphonious (pleasant sounding), e.g. butterfly, or cacophonous (harsh sounding), e.g. pus. Some questions to consider when analyzing for diction: Which of the important words in the passage (verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs) are general and abstract? Which are specific and concrete? Are the important words formal, informal, colloquial, or slang? Are some words nonliteral or figurative, creating figures of speech such as metaphors? 4 Words That Describe Language Jargon Pedantic Poetic Vulgar Euphemistic Moralistic Scholarly Pretentious Slang Insipid Sensuous Idiomatic Precise Exact Concrete Esoteric Learned Cultured Connotative Symbolic Picturesque Plain Simple Homespun Literal Figurative Provincial Colloquial Bombastic Trite Artificial Abstract Obscure Detached Grotesque Precise Emotional Concrete Exact II. Sentence Structure/ Syntax - the combination and arrangement of words into phrases, clauses, and sentences. Coordination, subordination, and placement are syntactical techniques for achieving sentence variety. However, sentence variety should not be used for its own sake but rather to express ideas clearly, clarify the relationships among ideas, and emphasize the most important ideas within each sentence. Describe the sentence structure by considering the following: A. Examine the sentence length. Are the sentences telegraphic (shorter than 5 words in length), medium (approximately eighteen words in length), or long and involved (thirty words or more in length)? Does the sentence length fit the subject matter, what variety of lengths is present? Why is the sentence length effective? B. Examine sentence patterns. Some elements to consider are listed below: 1. A declarative sentence (assertive) makes a statement, e.g., The king is sick. An imperative sentence gives a command, e.g., Stand up. An interrogative sentence asks a question, e.g., Is the king sick? An exclamatory sentence makes an exclamation, e.g., The king is dead! 2. A simple sentence contains one subject and one verb, e.g., The singer bowed to her adoring audience. A compound sentence contains two independent clauses joined by a coordinate conjunction (and, but, or) or by a semicolon, e.g., The singer bowed to the audience, but she sang no encores. A complex sentence contains an independent clause and one or more subordinate clauses, e.g., You said that you would tell the truth. A compound-complex sentence contains two or more principal clauses and one or more subordinate clause, e.g., The singer bowed while the audience applauded, but she sang no encores. 3. A loose sentence makes complete sense if brought to a close before the actual ending, e.g. We reached Edmonton that morning after a turbulent fight and some exciting experiences. A periodic sentence makes sense only when the end of the sentence is reached, e.g., That morning, after a turbulent flight and some exciting experiences, we reached Edmonton. 5 4. In a balanced sentence, the phrases or clauses balance each other by virtue of their likeness or structure, meaning, and/or length, e.g., He makes me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters. 5. Natural order of a sentence involves constructing sentences so the subject comes before the predicate, e.g., Oranges grow in California. Inverted order of a sentence (sentence inversion) involves constructing sentences so the predicate comes before the subject, e.g., In California grow oranges.