AP English Language and Composition

This course is designed to assist junior and senior students to prepare, develop, and exercise the critical thinking, reading, and writing skills that will be required of them in college composition classes. The class may be considered the equivalent to a yearlong college writing course and so is aligned along the expected outcomes approved by the Council of Writing Program Administrators in 2000. Students’ utmost commitment will be required to succeed in this class. But our goal will be to foster an environment of collaboration within which we will read challenging texts and explore issues of identity, worldview, political speech, media, culture, and more through writing.

IMPORTANT RESOURCES
• Grades
• Turn It In (account creation instructions)
• State of Arizona English 11 Education Standards
• College Board for Students
• Advanced Placement English Language at the College Board
• WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition
• United States Charters of Freedom
• Amphitheater Public Schools Student Handbook
• Student Rights Handbook

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
• The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, Oxford University Press
• A Pocket Style Manual, 5th edition, Diana Hacker
• The Deluxe Transitive Vampire and The New Well-Tempered Sentence, Karen Gordon
• A World of Ideas, Chris Rohmann (You gotta get this book!)

CLASS MATERIALS
• AP Open Essay Rubric and Its Connection to Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy
• Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy
• Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy and Levels of Questioning
• Course Outline
• Examples of Organization
• How to Prepare for a Revision Conference
• How to Process a Text
• How to Take and Review Notes
• MLA template
• Rhetorical Devices: Common Schemes and Tropes

ASSIGNMENTS, TOPICS, ET CETERA
• Complete Timed-writing 1, 2003 free-response question 1, John Downe to his wife, in class Wednesday, August 11.
• Print, review, and bring to class Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy, Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy and Levels of Questioning, and the Course Outline (all under Class Materials) Thursday, August 12, and Friday, August 13.
• Survey culture, worldview (metaphysics, ontology, epistemology) and schemata, and text concepts (icon, index, symbol, cohesion, coherence), in-class lecture, Thursday, August 12, and Friday, August 13.
• Print, review, and bring to class the AP Open Essay Rubric and Its Connection to Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy, How to Prepare for a Revision Conference, How to Take and Review Notes, and Rhetorical Devices: Common Schemes and Tropes (all under Class Materials) Monday, August 16.
• Read the Course Outline thoroughly with your parents and guardians; sign and return the Affirmation Monday, August 16.
• Cognition and metacognition, Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy, levels of questioning, in-class lecture, Monday, August 16.
• Apply Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy in creating, asking, and answering knowledge, comprehension, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation questions of Automat, Hopper, in class Tuesday, August 17, and Wednesday, August 18.
• Apply Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy in creating, asking, and answering knowledge, comprehension, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation questions of “The History Teacher”, Collins, in class Thursday, August 19, and Friday, August 20.
• Definitions of rhetoric, in-class lecture, Thursday, August 19, and Friday, August 20.
• Re-read and analyze the prompt and text of, and highlight in-class responses to timed-writing 1 for Monday, August 23.
• Discourse, speech and text events, rhetorical triangle (speaker, audience, context, text of the text), in-class lecture, Monday, August 23.
• Frame Katy Perry’s “Hot n Cold” in class Monday, August 23.
• Frame and develop level 1, 2, and 3 questions for John Downe’s letter to his wife in class Tuesday, August 24, and Wednesday, August 25.
• Read “The Capricious Camera”, Ayad, handout; answer “Meaning” qq. 1 and 3, “Strategy” qq. 1, 2, and 3, and “Language” qq. 1, 2, and 3, and highlight essay for Thursday, August 26, and Friday, August 27.
• Discuss Ayad text in class Monday, August 30.
• New ways of understanding logos, ethos, pathos, in-class lecture, Tuesday, August 31, and Wednesday, September 1.
• Read “Nine Ideas about Language”, Daniels, handout; answer qq. 1-5, and highlight essay for Thursday, September 2, and Friday, September 3 Tuesday, September 7, and Wednesday, September 8.
• STANDING EXTRA-CREDIT OPPORTUNITY: The one-ended stick.