Course Description/AP* Language Syllabus
College Board Equity Policy
AP* Course Audit
Topics to Cover in AP* English Language & Composition
What is college-level reading? What is college-level writing?
AP*/College Board Materials:
AP* English Language and Composition Workshop Handbook, 2011-12
AP* English Language: Reading and Writing Analytically (special focus booklet)
Fundamentals of Rhetoric: Audience and Purpose, Logos, Pathos, and Ethos
Fundamentals of Rhetoric: Repetition, Parallelism, Antithesis, and Rhetorical Questions
Visual connection to Rhetorical Terms: Anti-Pirating Commercial, An Inconvenient Truth
Messin’ with Media: Rhetoric through Media Messages (because everything’s an argument)
Comic Strips and Rhetorical Analysis
Rhetorical Terms through video
Five Concepts of Media Literacy
Reading Visual Text: Writing about Art
Advertisements and commercials
Film: Inside Job
Free-Response Questions
Synthesis Question
Rhetorical Analysis Question
Argument Question
Simulated Reading from 2012 AP Language Exam
Introducing Rhetoric with a Touch of Humor
Jill Conner Browne: “Funeral Food—The Brighter Side of Death”
Eric Schlosser: Fast Food Nation and diction
A Vocabulary of Rhetoric
Rhetorical Analysis worksheet
PJ O’Rourke: Modern Manners: Etiquette for Rude People
Tim O’Brien: “Step Lightly” from If I Die in a Combat Zone
Ian Frazier: “Coyote v. Acme”
Onion Articles: theonion.com
Rhetoric and Revolution
de Crevecoeur: “Letters from an American Farmer”: definition of an American
Jefferson: “Declaration of Independence”
Style analysis: balanced sentences, independent clauses, etc.
Students declare their independence from something in a 50+ word sentence
Henry: “Speech in the Virginia Convention”
Paine: from The Crisis, #1
King, Jr: “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
Kennedy: “Inaugural Address”
Bush: “Second Inaugural Address”
Obama: “Inaugural Address”
Prose Analysis Exercise
Analyzing an Argument Exercise
Writing in Rhetorical Modes: example, cause and effect, comparison and contrast, classification, process analysis, definition, argument
Didion: “The Santa Ana”
Baker: “The Plot against People”
Prager: “Our Barbies, Ourslves”
Cox:“Barbie and Her Playmates”
Fun with Rhetoric, Parallelism, Antithesis, Agreement, Punctuation, Passive Voice, etc. (examine sentences from student writing for impact, correctness, etc.)
Let’s Get Specific Workshop
Pop Culture Essay
Multiple Choice/Multiple Guess
Exploring ways to help students read multiple choice questions critically yet (hopefully) quickly
Exploring Websites for Rhetoric
collegeboard.comamericanrhetoric.com
apcentral.orgrhetoric.byu.com
appliedpractice.comuky.edu/AS/classics/rhetoric.html
readwritethink.orgquizlet.com
whitehouse.govlessonplanet.com
logicalfallacies.infoteenink.com
From Rhetoric to Literature: Finding Connections between AP Language and AP Literature
Mark Twain: Huck Finn and a Sense of Place
Open Mind Diagram w/chapters 14-18 and chapters 21-22
Descriptive writing
Huck Finn passage from chapter 19 (description)
Huck Finn passage from chapter 21 (argument)
Truman Capote: In Cold Blood chapter 1
A Sense of Place/Remembered Event writing assignment
Walt Whitman and a Rhetoric of Poetry: “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” and “O Captain! My Captain!”
Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman: Character and Rhetoric
Nonfiction Seminar and Research Project
Group and Individual work
A Spring Final Examination for AP* Language Juniors
Comedy plays with character and theme analysis and 10-minute performances
Discussion: Connecting AP* English Language & Composition with Common Core State Standards
