• Course Description 

    An AP English Language and Composition course cultivates the reading and writing skills that students need for college success and for intellectually responsible civic engagement. The course guides students in becoming curious, critical, and responsive readers of diverse texts and becoming flexible, reflective writers of texts addressed to diverse audiences for diverse purposes. The reading and writing students do in the course should deepen and expand their understanding of how written language functions rhetorically: to communicate writers’ intentions and elicit readers’ responses in particular situations. 

     

    • Rhetorical Situation - Reading: Explain how writers’ choices reflect the components of the rhetorical situation (exigence, audience, writer, purpose, content, message)

    • Rhetorical Situation - Writing: Making strategic choices in a text to address a rhetorical situation (introductions, conclusions, audience’s values)

    • Claims and Evidence - Reading: Identify and describe the claims and evidence of an argument (claims, evidence, thesis, qualifications, counter arguments, etc)

    • Claims and Evidence - Writing:  Analyze and select evidence to develop and refine a claim (paragraphs with claims, evidence; defensible thesis, counter arguments)  

    • Reasoning and Organization - Reading: Describe the reasoning, organization, and development of an argument (line of reasoning, organization of text) 

    • Reasoning and Organization - Writing: Use organization and commentary to illuminate the line of reasoning in an argument (transitional elements, development)

    • Style - Reading: Explain how writers’ stylistic choices contribute to the purpose of an argument (diction to create tone, syntax for organization, grammar for clarity) 

    • Style - Writing: Select words and use elements of composition to advance an argument (create tone/voice; clarity and concision; standard usage and mechanics) 

     

    What this means is you’ll be asked to think, read, and write critically. No one is born doing this well - it takes practice and involves getting out of your comfort zone. That can be uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing for many people (me too!), but we will work together to become stronger readers, writers, and thinkers. I’m not interested in you parroting back to me what you think I want to hear. I want you to think for and challenge yourself to grow this year. 

    The syllabus has more detailed information on polices, procedures, supplies, etc for the course.