AP English Language & Composition
Syllabus
James W. Cook
Gloucester (MA) High
School
Gloucester, MA
Course Overview
AP English
Language and Composition at Gloucester (MA) High School is an introductory
college-level course in which students study rhetorical analysis, argument, and
synthesis through composition activities (prewriting, writing, self-assessment,
peer-assessment, and revising) and close reading of demanding texts with an
emphasis on nonfiction.
Through active,
analytical reading students identify and explain rhetorical strategies and
techniques used by authors in a variety of language-based and visual texts
(memoirs, essays, speeches, plays, novels, letters, comics, photographs, etc.).
Students also employ those strategies and techniques in their own expository,
analytical, and argumentative compositions for a wide variety of purposes and
audiences. Furthermore, students extend these rhetorical strategies and
techniques into researched argument papers in which they evaluate and
synthesize several reference texts to develop and support a sophisticated
central assertion with appropriate citation of primary and secondary sources.
To achieve these
goals students will progress through a series of units in which they learn
rhetorical strategies and techniques and apply their understanding of these
techniques to a diverse range of texts from graphic memoir to documentary film,
from twenty-first century letters-to-the-editor to late sixteenth century
essays, from English drama of the renaissance to book-length researched
argument about their own city, Gloucester Massachusetts. The reading and
analysis of texts will lead to the production of each student’s own writing,
including timed one-draft writing of the sort required on the AP exam and
processed writing, requiring pre-writing activities, drafts, self-assessment,
peer-assessment, written and oral feedback from the teacher, and extensive
rewriting.
The objectives
and approaches presented in this course overview were written in close
consultation with the latest AP English Language and Composition Course
Description, other AP Central materials, and AP English Language and Composition: Workshop Handbook, 2009-2010.
Semester One
Introduction to close reading &
rhetorical analysis; introduction to integrated units; further studies in
audience, occasion, purpose, and technique; application of rhetorical
strategies to one’s own arguments; introduction to the synthesis essay
Unit 1: Book-length argument (and an introduction to rhetorical
analysis)
Understanding
purpose and technique in book-length narrative arguments
summer and two weeks
Essential Questions
How can a reader analyze a text in
order to determine its purpose?
How can a reader analyze a text in
order to understand how a writer’s choices (strategies and techniques)
contribute to a purpose?
One rhetorical strategy is to employ
several different stories to illustrate a point. How do authors use a series of
stories to construct an argument? How does research contribute to this
strategy?
Key Texts
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan
(non-fiction)
Century of the Wind, Eduardo
Galeano (history—anecdotes, facetiae,
satire, etc.)
Rationale
Summer reading creates a common
ground upon which we will build an understanding of close reading and
rhetorical analysis. During the summer before the course begins students
explore the relationship between purpose and technique in Michael Pollan The Omnivore’s Dilemma, a work of
nonfiction that constructs its argument using anecdote, observation and research,
and Eduardo Galeano’s Century of the Wind,
a pointed history of the Americas in the twentieth century told through
extensively researched poetic vignettes. What arguments are Pollan and Galeano
making? How do the language choices each makes contribute to their arguments?
These two books anticipate one of the course’s ultimate goals: the synthesis of
many sources into a single argument.
Learning Activities
As students read over the summer they
keep a quotation response journal, in which they record passages on the left
side of a page and on the right side explore how the passage contributes to the
argument the book makes.
Students also attend four summer
sessions during which they are introduced to rhetorical techniques and
strategies. Students also explore the readings through small group and large
group class discussions.
During the first week of the regular
school year, the students’ summertime introduction to rhetorical techniques and
strategies is deepened with further exploration of Aristotle’s rhetorical
triangle in relation to audience, context, and purpose. Exploration of
organization, syntax, diction, figurative language, and imagery begins to flesh
out the students’ understanding of rhetorical strategies and techniques,
particularly in relation to the summer reading.
Assessment
Students create a rhetorical analysis
web.
Choose one of the three
summer reading books to write about.
The Web, part one: the center
Make a web. At the center of the web write a robust paragraph (100 words to 300 words or so), explaining in your own words, your understanding of the rhetorical purpose of the book summer reading book you've chosen and how the choices the writer has made (the language, the selection of detail, the structure) contribute to the purpose. (Some teachers of rhetoric break purpose down into three parts: to persuade, to inform, to entertain. And the last two --information and entertainment--are often used to support the first--persuasion.)
This "introductory" paragraph will explain your "big idea," your "bold, insightful assertion" about the writer's purpose and how his choices contribute to that purpose. Spend some time developing this. The GHS schoolwide rubric says that in order for introductory paragraphs to be considered proficient they must present ideas that are clear, supportable, debatable, and insightful; the advanced introductions will also be sophisticated and/or original. (Warning: Do not turn to the internet looking for an answer. Rely on your own interpretive skills, your own heart and mind.)
The Web, part two: the threads
Then you will connect the central paragraph to interpretations of how at least four passages in the book support your "big idea," your "bold assertion," your "central insight". The passages you choose must adequately represent the whole of the book's rhetoric purpose (its argument) and several of the writer's rhetorical choices. (Let me make it clear that four is a minimum and to create a thoroughly convincing web you might need to refer to more passages.)
These "interpretations" need to show three things: an understanding of the passage's meaning, an understanding of how the writer makes particular choices meant to achieve a purpose, and an understanding of how the passage contributes to the book's overall rhetorical purpose. How you show your understanding of the passage, its rhetorical features, and your understanding of its connection with the overall purpose of the book is up to you.
To show your understanding of a passage what will you do? Will you write a paragraph (in the manner of a standard essay) explaining how the passage supports the central paragraph? Will you quote the passage in one font and offer an explication (an unfolding of meaning) in relation to your big idea by using another font? Will you create a picture that shows an understanding of the passage (and its relationship with the central paragraph)? Will this picture show symbolic understanding as well as literal understanding of the passage?
To show the connections what will you do? Will you draw lines? Will each connecting line include a sentence linking the passage with the big idea? Will you use a "footnote" or "endnote" system in which you put numbers in your central paragraph that will lead to numbers which offer explanations of how passages support the central paragraph? Will you create Powerpoint slides to show connections?
And, finally, will you go beyond? Will you show not only how the big idea is connected with passages but also how the passages are connected with each other? What else might you do to show the relationship between the parts of the book and your understanding of the whole?
The Web, part three: teaching your peersYou will be creating a physical object -- a web -- and you will be called upon to explain the web at some point during the first several days of the school year.
Grading
The Web, part one: the center
Make a web. At the center of the web write a robust paragraph (100 words to 300 words or so), explaining in your own words, your understanding of the rhetorical purpose of the book summer reading book you've chosen and how the choices the writer has made (the language, the selection of detail, the structure) contribute to the purpose. (Some teachers of rhetoric break purpose down into three parts: to persuade, to inform, to entertain. And the last two --information and entertainment--are often used to support the first--persuasion.)
This "introductory" paragraph will explain your "big idea," your "bold, insightful assertion" about the writer's purpose and how his choices contribute to that purpose. Spend some time developing this. The GHS schoolwide rubric says that in order for introductory paragraphs to be considered proficient they must present ideas that are clear, supportable, debatable, and insightful; the advanced introductions will also be sophisticated and/or original. (Warning: Do not turn to the internet looking for an answer. Rely on your own interpretive skills, your own heart and mind.)
The Web, part two: the threads
Then you will connect the central paragraph to interpretations of how at least four passages in the book support your "big idea," your "bold assertion," your "central insight". The passages you choose must adequately represent the whole of the book's rhetoric purpose (its argument) and several of the writer's rhetorical choices. (Let me make it clear that four is a minimum and to create a thoroughly convincing web you might need to refer to more passages.)
These "interpretations" need to show three things: an understanding of the passage's meaning, an understanding of how the writer makes particular choices meant to achieve a purpose, and an understanding of how the passage contributes to the book's overall rhetorical purpose. How you show your understanding of the passage, its rhetorical features, and your understanding of its connection with the overall purpose of the book is up to you.
To show your understanding of a passage what will you do? Will you write a paragraph (in the manner of a standard essay) explaining how the passage supports the central paragraph? Will you quote the passage in one font and offer an explication (an unfolding of meaning) in relation to your big idea by using another font? Will you create a picture that shows an understanding of the passage (and its relationship with the central paragraph)? Will this picture show symbolic understanding as well as literal understanding of the passage?
To show the connections what will you do? Will you draw lines? Will each connecting line include a sentence linking the passage with the big idea? Will you use a "footnote" or "endnote" system in which you put numbers in your central paragraph that will lead to numbers which offer explanations of how passages support the central paragraph? Will you create Powerpoint slides to show connections?
And, finally, will you go beyond? Will you show not only how the big idea is connected with passages but also how the passages are connected with each other? What else might you do to show the relationship between the parts of the book and your understanding of the whole?
The Web, part three: teaching your peersYou will be creating a physical object -- a web -- and you will be called upon to explain the web at some point during the first several days of the school year.
Grading
Advanced webs will offer an insightful, sophisticated, perhaps
original understanding of the author's overall purpose and the book's central
argument. This understanding will be supported by persuasive, nuanced
development of how at least four passages drawn from key moments throughout the
book contribute to the author's purpose. Advanced webs may go
"beyond" the parameters of the assignment in some significant,
meaningful ways.
Proficient webs will offer a clear, thoughtful, plausible, understanding of the author's overall purpose and the book's central argument. This understanding will be linked to an adequate understanding and interpretation of how at least four passages from the beginning, middle, and end of the book contribute to the whole. The webs are generally considered to have succeeded in fulfilling the assignment but not to have exceeded expectations for a student entering an introductory college-level course at a competitive college or university.
Webs that need improvement may not offer a clear or plausible understanding of the author's overall purpose. (Often the paragraph at the center of webs that receive this score demonstrate significantly partial understanding of purpose.) These webs refer to at least four passages but may not adequately show an understanding of the passage or of how the passage contributes to the work as a whole. The passages may not be drawn from the beginning, middle, and end of the book. In general these webs do not meet the expectations for a student entering an introductory college-level course at a competitive college or university.
Webs that receive warning status may include the weaknesses cited above but also fail to adhere to the basic parameters of the assignment. They may show little to no understanding of the book or of the passages.
Any web that includes language or material taken directly from another source will receive a zero.
Proficient webs will offer a clear, thoughtful, plausible, understanding of the author's overall purpose and the book's central argument. This understanding will be linked to an adequate understanding and interpretation of how at least four passages from the beginning, middle, and end of the book contribute to the whole. The webs are generally considered to have succeeded in fulfilling the assignment but not to have exceeded expectations for a student entering an introductory college-level course at a competitive college or university.
Webs that need improvement may not offer a clear or plausible understanding of the author's overall purpose. (Often the paragraph at the center of webs that receive this score demonstrate significantly partial understanding of purpose.) These webs refer to at least four passages but may not adequately show an understanding of the passage or of how the passage contributes to the work as a whole. The passages may not be drawn from the beginning, middle, and end of the book. In general these webs do not meet the expectations for a student entering an introductory college-level course at a competitive college or university.
Webs that receive warning status may include the weaknesses cited above but also fail to adhere to the basic parameters of the assignment. They may show little to no understanding of the book or of the passages.
Any web that includes language or material taken directly from another source will receive a zero.
Students write a rhetorical analysis
essay, applying rhetorical analysis approaches and vocabulary to a previously unexamined
piece of rhetoric.
Unit 2: Memoir & personal essay as argument
Applying rhetorical analysis to memoir and personal essay
three weeks
Essential Question
How do writers use personal stories
to make an argument?
Key Texts
All Souls, Michael Patrick MacDonald (a
memoir)
Fun Home: Old Father, Old Artificer,
Alison Bechdel (a graphic
memoir)
The Art of the Personal Essay, Philip Lopate,
editor (an expository
essay)
Selections from Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction
including
“Somebody Else’s Genocide” by Sherman Alexie, “The Potato Harvest” by April
Monroe, and “Vitamin M” by Jehanne Dubrow (personal essays)
“Stories from My Mother” by Amy
Carpenter (a student’s personal
essay in
response to “The Potato Harvest”)
“On Seeing England for the First
Time” by Jamaica Kincaid (personal
essay)
Rationale
For a deepening engagement with
rhetorical strategies students analyze how authors present memories of personal
experiences and personal observations in ways that make an implicit or explicit
argument. In this unit students ask questions like “What purpose does a story
about a personal memory serve? How is the memory presented in a way that serves
that purpose?” To this end students examine diction, syntax, tone, pacing,
figurative language, imagery, characterization, sequencing of stories, etc. Students
show their understanding in analyses and personal narrative essays of their
own.
Learning Activities
As students read the memoir they keep
a quotation response journal in which they record and analyze passages that
show the author’s rhetorical strategies.
Before writing personal essays of
their own students annotate and analyze a variety of personal essays, applying
Philip Lopate’s observations about the genre of personal essays and an
understanding of a range of rhetorical strategies.
Before writing an analysis essay
students work alone, in small groups, and as a class to evaluate analysis prompts,
scoring guidelines, and sample essays from previous AP English Language exams.
Teacher feedback guides the process.
Assessments
Personal essay. Students work
with their teacher to create a prompt in response to one of the personal essays
studied in this unit. (“Stories from My Mother” serves as a model essay in this
regard.) Students then write a personal essay of no more than 750 words in
response to the prompt. Students include the prompt and explain how the prompt
was derived in an informal reflection that will accompany the essay. Use “Old Father, Old Artificer” as a model for a personal essay. Write
about a significant relationship using memories to illustrate that
relationship. Narrate the memories and reflect upon them. Weave the narration
and reflection together. Consider narrative tone and style, consider imagery
(both metaphorical and literal), consider sequence and pacing. Use these
elements to achieve a desired effect and to serve a desired purpose. In this
reflection each student also metacognitavely discusses the rhetorical techniques
she employed in her essay. These essays undergo drafts and receive
self-assessment, peer-assessment, and teacher-assessment along the way.
Analysis essay. Students read
and annotate “On Seeing England for the First Time” before writing their first
in-class timed analysis essay in response to question 2 from the 1999 AP
English Language and Composition exam.
Unit 3:
Shakespeare’s drama and Montaigne’s essays as argument
Applying
rhetorical analysis to personal essay and drama, particularly soliloquies
three weeks for
Hamlet and Montaigne
one
week for the argument essay
Essential Questions
What does Hamlet suggest about (in)justice, (un)certainty, and (in)action?
How?
How do Montaigne’s essays make an
argument? How do they relate to Hamlet
and Hamlet?
Key Texts
Hamlet, William Shakespeare (play)
Hamlet, 1948, directed by Laurence Olivier
(film)
Hamlet, 1990, directed by Franco Zeffirelli
(film)
Hamlet, 1996, directed by Kenneth Branagh
(film)
Hamlet, 2000, directed by Michael Almereyda
(film)
Selections from essays including
“That to Learn to Study Philosophy is
to Learn to Die”
and “Of Husbanding the Will”, Michel de Montaigne
Excerpt from A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599, James
Shapiro
Rationale
In this unit students engage one of
the pivotal texts of English language literature using an approach that
augments traditional literary analysis with rhetorical analysis. Students walk
the landscape of the Elizabethan text, considering the relationship between the
features of the text, its purpose, its audience, and its context. Furthermore,
students consider the purpose, audience, and context of the speeches made
within the text. (Question two from the 2002 AP English Language and
Composition exam (Form B) takes the same approach.) Reading Shakespeare’s play,
especially its soliloquies, next to Montaigne’s essays will help students see
how soliloquies in Hamlet and the
personal essays studied in the previous unit function similarly. As James
Shapiro writes in A Year in the Life of
William Shakespeare, 1599, Hamlet shows
Shakespeare “exploring how essays – with their assertions, contradictions,
reversals, and abrupt shifts in subject matter and even confidence – captured a
mind at work (‘It is myself, I portray,’ Montaigne had famously declared).”
This unit extends the previous unit’s exploration of the personal essay and
introduces aspects of argument.
Learning Activities
In this unit students annotate and
analyze two essays by Montaigne, Hamlet’s soliloquies, as well as several other
passages of rhetorical interest in Hamlet:
his speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (2.2), the “Mouse Trap” dialogue
(3.2), his explanation of why he doesn’t kill Claudius (3.3), his attempt to
convince his mother not to sleep with Claudius (3.4), his mocking of Claudius
(4.3), his apology to Laertes (5.2).
Students watch and take double-entry
active viewer notes on several versions of two key scenes in Hamlet. Students then write (and receive
teacher feedback on) one-page analyses of how choices made by different actors
and directors in two key scenes in the play serve different purposes.
After each act students engage in
student-led and teacher led-discussions and they write comments on the class
blog concerning the central question: What does Hamlet suggest about the fundamental relationship between
(in)justice, (un)certainty, and (in)action?
Students are introduced to Toulmin
Argument – claim, grounds, warrants, backing, rebuttals, qualifiers – and read
Renee Shea’s article at AP Central entitled “Shaping Argument Lessons from 2003
Exam Samples”. Students then apply ideas about argument to an excerpt from Hamlet, an essay by Montaigne, sample
student essays, and an essay about Hamlet.
Finally, students try their own hand at argument in a timed essay that is
assessed by the teacher and then revised.
Assessment
Argument essay.
Timed Essay (40
minutes)
“A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he is not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning the ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.”
Georges Clemenceau
“A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he is not a man of action. It is as if a tennis player before returning the ball stopped to think about his views of the physical and mental advantages of tennis. You must act as you breathe.”
Georges Clemenceau
Write a thoughtful, carefully constructed essay in which you use specific evidence from Hamlet to defend, refute, or qualify Clemenceau’s position. (Consider the relevant approaches suggested by Shea: “Yes/No + examples,” “Redefinition [challenging some aspect of the prompt],” “Yes…But…,” “narration”.)
Note: A version of this prompt is a common assessment for juniors at Gloucester High School. The prompt has been adapted
from a prompt created by Helen Mathur.
Unit 4: Philosophical novel as argument
Applying rhetorical analysis to a philosophical novel and
crafting one’s own argument using rhetorical strategies
three
weeks for Grendel
one week for synthesis essay
Essential Questions
Does existence have inherent meaning
or not? Can meaning be constructed in good faith or is all constructed meaning
false? Are some ways of asserting the meaning of existence better than others?
What strategies and techniques might
an author use to make a philosophical argument? What strategies and techniques
might the characters within a philosophical novel use to construct arguments
with each other?
Key Texts
Grendel, John Gardner
“A Letter: ‘Dear Susie
West and Students’” by John Gardner
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/monsters/drake/Lecture%20Notes/gardner%20on%20grendel.htm
Excerpts of nonfiction writing, Cornell West, Jean Paul
Sartre, Albert Camus,
Frederick
Nietzsche, and Alfred North Whitehead to
contextualize
the novel’s argument
“Day job officially becomes job,” Onion 18Feb04 (satire)
“Mainstream Commercial Nihilism” Calvin and Hobbes by Bill
Watterson
(comic)
Rationale
The philosophical novel Grendel is a book-length argument
against existential nihilism. Students analyze the features of Gardner’s argument with special attention
given to the difference between arguments made in novels and in other forms of
rhetoric. Students also evaluate the effectiveness of the novel’s argument. At
the end of the unit students are introduced to the process of synthesizing an
understanding of several texts into an argument of their own.
Learning Activities
Students take active reader notes,
annotate passages and complete “says/does” analyses to show an understanding of
the arguments made by characters within the novel; how those arguments are
constructed; and how the author undermines certain philosophical positions,
makes other positions more attractive, and ultimately suggests his own
position. (A “says/does” analysis asks students to explain what a text “says”
and what a text “does.” What is its paraphrasable content? How does it deliver
that content with literary and rhetorical strategies?)
Students use Toulmin Argument to analyze
the dragon’s speech to Grendel in chapter five.
Students write responses comparing
and contrasting how the supplemental readings – essays, satire, comic – present
arguments on meaning-making and nihilism.
Assessment
Synthesis essay. Students use at
least three of the texts studied in the unit to respond to a question John
Gardner poses in a 1976 letter to an AP Literature class in Vermont, “if there isn't a reachable god, and if life has no inherent
meaning how should one live?” (Gardner
restates the question a bit differently later in the letter, “if the world really is meaningless (as it now stands) how should
I live?”) This will be a processed paper, which
means it will undergo drafts and be the subject of self-assessment,
peer-assessment, and teacher-assessment before a final revision. Much of Gardner’s letter itself
will serve as a model for integrating sources into an argument. Students will
be expected to use MLA format to site the texts used in the essay.
Unit 5: Advertising (and advertising parodies) as argument
three
weeks
Essential Questions
How do advertisements (and, more
broadly, marketing campaigns) employ rhetorical strategies? How do
advertisements link products with identities and lifestyles? Do you identify
with certain products and brands? Is consumption a social good (promoting
economic growth) or a social vice (promoting environmental harm and economic
disparity)? What is cool? How do advertisers use it?
Key Texts
The Ad and the Ego (documentary
film)
Readings on psychographic marketing strategies including “There are
Seven Types of
People in the World,” Young & Rubicam and “The VALS Types,” Strategic
Business Insights
“I shop therefore I am,” Barbara
Kruger (visual art)
“The Coolhunt,” Malcolm Gladwell”
(feature)
“The Conquest of Cool,” Thomas Frank
(essay)
“How to Create Your Own Print Ad” and
“Think Globally before You
Decide It’s So
Cool,” AdBusters (parody
advertisement)
Rationale
In term two students respond to texts
that address a common topic but have different aims and use a variety of
strategies. In this integrated unit students will explore texts whose common
subject-matter is the relationship between commercial products and personal
identities.
Learning Activities
Students respond to The Ad and the Ego by taking double
entry notes. On the left hand they write down observations about the film. What
points does it make? How does it make those points? On the right they respond
by supporting, refuting, or qualifying statements in the documentary and by
analyzing the documentary’s rhetorical strategies.
Students read and annotate guides
produced by marketing companies. They then apply their understanding of
advertising strategies to an analysis of a particular advertising campaign.
Students also analyze the rhetorical strategies of advertising parodies and
create parodies themselves.
Finally, students analyze the
arguments made by Gladwell and Frank about the use of “cool” in marketing and
advertising.
Assessment
Analysis essay. Satirical advertisement. Argument essay.
Students write an analysis and
evaluation of an advertising campaign (with pre-writing, drafts, teacher feedback,
and rewriting), create a satirical advertisement, and write a timed in-class
argument essay on the relationship between “cool” and consumerism.
Unit 6: Midyear Exam Preparation
two weeks
Rationale
The midyear exam preparation and the
exam itself will provide students with an opportunity to assess their progress
in relation to the AP English Language and Composition Exam.
Learning Activities
Students practice rhetorical analysis
on released AP English Language and Composition multiple choice questions.
Students explain correct answers to each other. Students examine essay
questions, sample responses, rubrics, and the commentaries of evaluators with
teacher guidance.
Assessment
Students take a 90-minute exam which
includes passage analysis questions and an AP free-response question requiring
students to construct an argument.
Semester 2
Putting it all together: analysis,
argument, and synthesis; Intensification of AP exam preparation; Gloucester arts and
culture project
Unit 7: Dystopian novel, essay writing, letter writing, comic
as argument
four weeks
Essential Questions
How do dystopian novels use
rhetorical strategies to make arguments about the present and future of
societies? Based on the present and the past what is your vision of the
prospect for individuality, freedom, the pursuit of truth, and the realization
of human potential in the future?
Key Texts
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
(dystopian novel)
1984 by George Orwell (dystopian novel)
Aldous Huxley’s letter to George
Orwell, October 21, 1949
Excerpts from Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
“Amusing ourselves to death” by
Stuart McMillen (graphic essay)
“Politics and the English Language”
by George Orwell (essay)
Rationale
Students continue respond to texts
that address a common topic but have different aims and use a variety of
strategies. Students continue to practice rhetorical analysis, analytical essay
writing, and the construction of arguments of their own.
Learning Activities
Students use passage analysis
strategies, including say/do and annotation activities, to identify the
relationship between the techniques used in passages and each novel’s central
argument.
Students use information about each
novel’s historical context and about contemporary American culture to explore
the relevance of each novel’s argument to the twentieth century, the
twenty-first century and beyond. This exploration takes the form of student-led,
teacher-guided discussions and responses in comment boxes on the
teacher-moderated class blog.
Students analyze the arguments made
by Orwell’s essay, Huxley’s letter, and McMillen’s images and text.
Assessment
Analysis essay. In a
well-developed timed, in-class essay students will analyze how Aldous Huxley
uses a variety of rhetorical techniques to critique the World State’s
form of utilitarianism.
Argument letter. In a
well-developed essay addressed to Aldous Huxley students will support, refute,
or qualify the claims about the future made in Huxley’s letter to Orwell.
Students use experiences, observations, and
reading to defend their positions. This is an extended essay, which undergoes
revision based on self-assessment, peer-assessment, and teacher feedback.
Students also reflect on their use of supporting details and the effectiveness
of their arguments.
Unit 8: Integrated Unit: Arguments about beauty and the body
two weeks
Essential Questions
What is beauty? How do images and
texts convey ideals of physical beauty and appearance of the body? How is
gender significant in arguments about beauty and the body? How do rhetors use
strategies to make arguments about beauty and the human body?
Key Texts
Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis and
Writing the Synthesis Essay, John
Brassil,
Sandra Coker, and
Carl Glover (including the written texts “What is Beauty and How Do We Know
It?” by Nancy Etcoff, “What is Beautiful?” by Alex Kuczynski, “The
Democratization of Beauty” by Christine Rosen, and “The Truth About Beauty” by
Virginia Postrel and the visual texts “Marily Monroe, New York, 1954” by
Matthew Zimmerman, “Swahili Woman” by C.E. Gomes, and “We’re luck, aren’t we,
Isabella?” by Buddy Hickerson)
“Selling Out: Consumer Culture and
Commodification of the Male
Body,” Eric
Tyrone (essay)
“Beauty,” Susan Sontag (essay)
Dove ads, Ogilvy & Mather (video
commercials)
Rationale
In this unit students apply and
deepen their facility with and understanding of strategies introduced in
previous units. To practice analysis, argument, and synthesis, students work with
a range of texts on a given theme. Students apply some of the understandings
gained in unit five (advertising) to their study of beauty and the body.
Learning Activities
Through annotation, guiding
questions, and says/does analysis, students develop an understanding of the
arguments and techniques used in several texts, including essays, articles, and
photographs, in preparation for the synthesis essay.
Assessment
Synthesis fiction. Applying
techniques studied while reading Grendel,
each student writes a scene involving three of the rhetors in the unit. The
scene should demonstrate the student’s understanding of the voices and
arguments of the chosen texts, as well as your own voice and argument. This
last element may be accomplished overtly – the explicit inclusion of the
student’s own views – or, better yet, indirectly through tone, subtle
characterization, and selection of detail. (The assignment is adapted from Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis.)
Unit 9: Integrated Unit: Arguments about war
three weeks
Essential Questions
Can war lead to peace? What (if
anything) defines a just war, a moral war, a civilized war? What are the moral
implications of watching war from a distance, of reporting on a war, of
participating in a war? What techniques and strategies do rhetors use to
construct arguments about war?
Key Texts
Writing the Synthesis Essay, John Brassil,
Sandra Coker, and Carl
Glover
The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (novel)
“On War” by James Boswell (essay)
“The War Prayer,” Mark Twain (satire)
“When I Was Invited to Speak at West Point,” Marjane Satrapi
(graphic
narrative)
“Watching Suffering from a Distance,” Susan
Sontag (persuasive
essay)
“My Lai
villagers before and after being shot,” Ronald L. Haeberle
(photographs)
“My Lai,
March 16-18, 1968,” Thomas R. Partsch (journal)
“My Lai Court-Martial Transcript,
1970,” William L. Calley (transcript)
Rationale
In this unit students apply and
deepen their facility with and understanding of strategies introduced in
previous units. To practice analysis, argument, and synthesis, students work
with a range of texts on a given theme. In this unit the theme is war.
Learning Activities
Students complete a quotation
response journal and participate in a graded discussion in response to The Things They Carried.
Students record double-entry notes
while visiting Gloucester’s
memorials for those who fought in the Spanish-American War, Vietnam War, World
War I, World War II. Students then write a one-night personal essay using their
observations of the memorials.
Students complete rhetorical analyses
of Boswell’s essay “On War,” Twain’s satire “The War Prayer” and Satrapi’s
graphic narrative “When I Was Invited to Speak at West
Point”.
To prepare for the unit’s assessments
students annotate the My Lai readings and
examine the synthesis essay on previous AP exams, including the prompt, the
clustered texts, the rubric, student essays, and the grading commentaries on
those essays.
After receiving teacher-feedback on
the formative assessments and engaging in teacher-guided reflection and
discussion of the work students will be prepared to write a synthesis essay.
Assessment
Synthesis essay. In a
well-developed timed, in-class essay incorporating at least three of the five
sources provided students respond to a prompt from Writing the Synthesis Essay: “is war part of an effort toward its
eventual eradication or is it an inevitable element of human existence?”
(Because of the need for reading and writing time, this assessment must take
place during a “long block”.)
Synthesis essay. Working in small
groups students create a synthesis essay prompt using five My
Lai texts, including at least one found on their own. The creation
of this prompt and the composition of the subsequent essay entail significant process
work, formative assessment, and metacognitive reflection. Students use MLA
format in the essay.
Unit 10: Integrated Unit: Arguments about work
two weeks
Essential Questions
How do a variety of texts present
arguments on the relationship between work and identity, work and family, work
and society, work and justice?
Key Texts
Excerpts from Working and The Great Divide,
Studs Terkel (oral
histories)
Excerpts from Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (researched
argument)
Excerpts from When Gloucester Was Gloucester, Peter Parsons and
Peter Anastas
(oral histories)
Earth Angels, Nancy Buirski (photographs)
Modern Times, directed by Charlie Chaplin (film)
“My Daily Dives in the Dumpster,”
Lars Eighner
“The Right Stuff,” Tom Wolfe
Rationale
Students continue to deepen their
rhetorical skills and understanding through an investigation of labor. To
practice analysis, argument, and synthesis, students work with a range of
texts, including a film and oral histories.
Learning Activities
Students complete rhetorical analyses
of a film, photographs, oral histories, essays, and narratives. To prepare for
the unit’s assessments students examine the argument essay and synthesis essay
on previous AP exams, including the prompt, the clustered texts, the rubric,
student essays, and the grading commentaries on those essays.
Assessment
Argument essay. In a
well-developed timed, in-class essay students respond to a quotation by
Victorian English writer Reverend Charles Kingsley, “Being forced to work and forced to do your best
will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will,
cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle never know.” Students support, refute, or qualify Kingsley’s position with examples
from their reading, observations, or reading.
Synthesis essay. Students create
and respond to a synthesis essay prompt using the texts provided and ones they
discover on their own. The creation of this prompt and the composition of the
subsequent essay are the subjects of significant process work, formative
assessment, and metacognitive reflection. MLA format is used in the researched
argument.
Unit 11: Final Preparations for the AP Exam
two
weeks
Essential Questions
How do a variety of texts use
rhetorical strategies effectively? How can I use rhetorical strategies to
compose a persuasive argument? How can I synthesize a variety of sources into a
coherent, sophisticated, convincing composition? How can I apply my
understanding of rhetoric and the features of a variety of texts to effectively
answer questions about a particular text?
Key Texts
Material from released AP English
Language and Composition exams
Rationale
A few weeks into term four students
take the AP English Language and Composition exam. In this unit students apply
their growing rhetorical awareness and abilities to the particular tasks of the
exam.
Learning Activities
Students work alone and in groups on
released AP English Language and Composition exam questions. Students explain
correct answers to each other. Students examine essay questions, sample
responses, rubrics, and the commentaries of evaluators.
Assessment
AP English Language and Composition
exam
Unit 12: Integrated Unit: Arguments about Gloucester
five weeks
Essential Questions
How do a variety of texts present
arguments about Gloucester’s
identity? How do texts use depictions of Gloucester
to advance other arguments?
Key Texts
A choice of Gloucester narratives,
including Captains Courageous by
Rudyard Kipling,
The Lone Voyager: the Extraordinary Adventures
of Howard Blackburn, Hero Fishermen of Gloucester by Joseph Garland, The Finest Kind: the Fishermen of Gloucester by Kim Bartlett, The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger, Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New
England Ghost Town by Elyssa East, The
Last Fish Tale: The Fate of the Atlantic and Survival in Gloucester, America’s
Oldest Fishing Port and Most Original Town by Mark Kurlansky
“Growing Up Gloucester” by Rachel
Baker (feature) (photographs by
Erica
McDonald)
“The Fort and our
‘sense of place’,” a letter to the editor of the Gloucester Daily Times
by
Ernest Morin and other articles and letters from the Gloucester Daily Times
Excerpt from “Trade in
Goods Produced by Slaves” in Historical
Research
Report: Predecessor Institutions Research Regarding Slavery and
the Slave Trade, Citizens
Financial Group, Inc. and the Royal Bank of Scotland
Polis is This:
Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place directed by
Henry Ferrini (documentary film)
Selections from The Maximus Poems by Charles Olson, including
“Letter 3” and “Letter 6” (poems)
Rationale
After taking the AP Language and
Composition exam students conclude the course with an in-depth investigation of
depictions of Gloucester, Massachusetts, the city in which the high
school is located. This unit gives students an opportunity to analyze how
others have characterized the city, to respond to those characterizations, and
to investigate aspects of the city’s culture.
Learning Activities
Students begin the unit by completing
a quotation response journal while reading a Gloucester narrative. Then students
investigate the arguments and rhetorical strategies used by various writers
attempting to characterize the city and its citizens. Before students embark on
their own research into some aspect of Gloucester
culture they investigate arguments around the fate of the city’s Fort
area. In these lessons they examine the
relationship between arguments about an aspect of the city and rival depictions
of the city as a whole. Finally students embark on finding, analyzing, and
making an argument using a cluster of texts about some aspect of Gloucester culture that
they choose to focus on.
Assessment
Newspaper column. Students write a
My View column to submit (after self,
peer, and teacher assessment) to the Gloucester
Daily Times in response to depictions of Gloucester in various media, or in response
to proposed changes to the Fort neighborhood, or in response to another issue
of their choice.
Researched argument with an annotated bibliography. Using MLA format, students complete an annotated bibliography and write a
researched argument on an aspect of Gloucester
culture. (Student receive extensive guidance from their teacher and the
school’s librarian on using print, electronic, and archival sources; evaluating
the quality and relevance of sources; taking double-entry notes on the sources;
citing the sources; and synthesizing the sources.)
No comments:
Post a Comment