Ap english course syllabus
- 2. Unit One Duration: Approximately six weeks Unit Overview: Much of this time period is spent getting to know who students really are—their strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, etc…As students are led on a search for their own identities, through reflective writing, they use the characters of Okonkwo, and Danny and Reuben (summer reading) to parallel their own intimate look into who they are and who they wish to be. The study of religions helps students put into perspective their own belief systems and how current events affect all of us, not just those in certain areas of the world. Literary/Textual Focus: • Summer Reading selections (Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, The Chosen by Chaim Potok, and selections from The Holy Bible) • Kenyatta, Jomo “The Gentlemen of the Jungle” • African proverbs • Religion in the news (various news/current events selections) • Cisneros, Sandra “My Name” from House on Mango Street • Roth, Philip “The Conversion of the Jews” • Chapter 26Everything’s An Argument “What Role Should Religion Play in Public Life?” Viewing: • Stainedglass windows depicting creation and other religious stories • Political cartoons depicting religious views (Note: this will be a very general introduction into the world of political cartoons. An indepth study will come at a later date) • ChannelOne video of world religions Writing Focus: The Revision Process • Syntax • Audience • Purpose • Sentence style (loose, periodic, cumulative, balanced) • Active vs. passive voice
- 3. Vocabulary Focus: Tone Words (denotation and connotation) Major Writings/Assignments: • Group Essay (analysis) over Things Fall Apart collaborative efforts through online discussion group process. Students will select one from a group of teacher provided topics and work together to create one essay. Instructor will be able to view individual student contributions and brainstorming efforts among students through group conferencing set up in FirstClass. Instructor, as a member of each conference, will provide feedback and direction for writing process. This provides additional, valuable insight into the strengths and weaknesses of individual students working in group situations. • Summer analysis essay – one chosen to submit for major revision (to include peer and teacher editing) and final submission. Students have written two essays over the summer break. After a series of lessons and practices over writing techniques (see above) students will revise, edit, and resubmit one essay for a major test grade. This essay will undergo the peer evaluation as well as teacher evaluation process before final submission. • Reflective Essay– students will interview a parent/guardian for insight as to why their given name was chosen. Students will write a brief (125200 word) personal narrative about what they discovered and how they feel about their own names. Peer evaluation in which students focus on specific areas as designated by the instructor will be part of the revision process for this paper. Students will have read Cisneros’ “My Name” beforehand. • Family Interview/Personal Narrative – embracing the form of “oral tradition.” Students will interview a family member (at least one generation removed) to interview about their life as a teen. Students will submit their “family story” in written form to instructor and share with classmates in the “oral” tradition. World/Current Events Focus: Three major world religions: Christianity, Islam, Judaism and how they relate to current events. Unit Two Duration: Approximately three weeks
- 4. Unit Overview: Using The Crucible as the foundation of this unit, students begin to relate ideas of stereotyping and the effects of group dynamics/hysteria to personal experience. Students begin to also see literature as a means of exposing social injustices by connecting The Crucible to McCarthyism. Literary/Textual Focus: • Miller, Arthur The Crucible • Zeinert, Karen, selections from The Devil’s Helpers • Edwards, Jonathan “Sinners in the Hand’s of an Angry God” • Selected current events articles dealing with group hysteria (these will vary in an attempt to acquire current information) • Chapter 7 – America Now: Short Readings from Recent Periodicals” 3rd ed. “Can We Resist Stereotypes?” Viewing: • “Act III – courtroom scene” of The Crucible w/ Winona Ryder Literary Strategies: • Irony (all forms) • Character motivation • Allusion • Conflict Writing Focus: • Parenthetical documentation (what needs it and how to do it) • Audience • Word choice • Purpose Vocabulary Focus: More Tone Words Major Writings/Assignments: • Synthesis Essay: After reading and analyzing released AP student synthesis essays from the 2006 exam, students will begin to formulate their own synthesis essay, “The Effects of Stereotyping”. Students will select from various teacher provided resources to use as support for their
- 5. own papers. Students are instructed in how to select sources necessary to their purpose and how to choose information pertinent to their stance. Selective peer evaluations (best paragraph, worst paragraph submitted for peer review) • Style analysis: Students will analyze the use of biblical allusion and/or irony in The Crucible. StepbyStep self editing and revision strategies will apply. Instructor feedback will be provided. At this point, students will engage in a conference with the instructor in order to discuss their individual writing strengths and weaknesses. World/Current Events Focus: stereotyping/racial profiling/cultural awareness, group dynamics/group hysteria Unit Three Duration: Approximately six weeks Unit Overview: Students will engage in a variety of activities in which they analyze the problem of poverty/homelessness in the U.S. A variety of resources including children’s stories, periodical articles and a classic American novel will serve as the foundation for this thematic unit. A major project in which students dress as “modern day paupers” and eat in a “nice, family” restaurant is the basis for a personal experience narrative in which the student will analyze and report on various aspects of the experiment. Literary/Textual Focus: • The Prince and the Pauper • Bunting, Eve “Fly Away Home” • Periodical (nonfiction, non literary) articles dealing with poverty and homelessness Literary Strategies: • Character motivation • Word choice in creating character, mood, and atmosphere • Foil • Juxtaposition • Point of View
- 6. Writing Focus: • Tone • Audience • Purpose • Syntax Vocabulary Focus: SAT vocabulary Major Writings/Assignments: • Synthesis essay: The issue of poverty in the United States (students will select from various teacher provided resources) This assignment will undergo intense peer and instructor evaluation in an effort to create a final product that has included the following: proper documentation of sources, selection of pertinent information, organization/structure, voice • Personal narrative/reflective: Modern Day Pauper Experiment. Upon completion of the “pauper experiment” students will share their experience in a narrative/reflective essay. Organization strategies (chronological, cause and effect, or comparison/contrast) will be reviewed as students choose the approach best suited for their purpose. Students will be instructed as to how to determine purpose and how best to approach various audiences. Students will be instructed in how to find the appropriate balance in use of literal detail versus reflective and generalized detail. Selfevaluations will apply to this essay. World/Current Events Focus: poverty/homelessness Unit Four: Duration: Approximately 3 weeks Unit Overview: This “mini” unit will largely be a “drill and practice” unit with students engaged in various activities of memorization and recognition of rhetorical strategies. Students will compile an ongoing “rhetoric journal” in which they will not only define terms, but gather samples from literature and nonfiction pieces of each term.
- 7. Literary/Textual Focus: • MLKing’s “I Have a Dream Speech” • Selected American speeches from www.americanrhetoric.com • Selections from Everything’s An Argument Rhetoric Focus: • Issues, Positions, and Assertions • Three major appeals (emotional, logical, ethical) • Rhetorical terms and strategies Writing Focus: • Released AP exams/timed essays (with instructor response)and MC selections • Writing folders using OP Eds for students to analyze and respond No significant writing assignments are included in this mini unit. Vocabulary Focus: SAT vocabulary Unit Five: Duration: Approximately six weeks Unit Overview: This unit will focus on the issue of censorship while continuing the study of rhetorical strategies. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 will be the main focus of this unit as students continue to fine tune their rhetoric recognition and usage skills. This unit will culminate in a persuasive speech in which students apply their gained rhetoric skills. Students will also begin a major research project in which they choose and read a book that has been banned or challenged and research the reasons for, results of, etc…Students will also participate in a class “blog” in which they share their views on censorship and their comments/votes for best persuasive speech. (see www.classblogmeister.com) Literary/Textual Focus: • Fahrenheit 451 • “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut
- 8. • Various media selections (nonfiction, non literary) based on topic of censorship Literary Strategies: • Symbolism • Personification • Allusion • Direct and indirect characterization • Word choice Writing Focus: • Sentence structure to achieve variety/interest (complex, compoundcomplex sentence structures with coordination and subordination, etc…) • Syntax • Audience and purpose (research) • Documentation (MLA) • Quotes (embedded, long, quote within quote, etc…) • Voice appropriate to audience • Tone and diction Vocabulary Focus: SAT vocabulary Major Writings/Assignments: • Research paper in which students choose a book that has been banned/challenged and research the situation and results of the challenge. They will also be expected, after reading the novel for themselves, whether or not the challenge was justified and qualify their own views on censorship. Students will be expected to use “original sources” including an interview with the community and/or school librarian/s. Students will be expected to use MLA documentation and appropriate citations including a Works Cited page. • Upon completion of Fahrenheit 451, students will select the one sentence from the entire novel they feel should be preserved above all others; in other words, should this novel be banned from society and only one sentence survive, which would it be? From this they will develop a persuasive/argumentative essay/speech using their newly acquired rhetoric skills and present their case to the class in a formal speech. Peer evaluation/feedback will be provided in the form of online blogging.
- 9. Unit Six: Duration: Approximately six weeks Unit Overview: Students will begin to analyze the use of humor in literary works and the purpose of humor: to entertain, to persuade, to expose. Students will study the “comedic ladder” using Wilde’s The Importance of Being Ernest as a main focus. Engaging in the study of satire and parody will culminate this unit. Students will engage in various “tutorial” activities (such as but not limited to the i*claim visualizing argument CD companion to Everything’s An Argument) concerning humor as used in political cartoons. Literary/Textual Focus: • Chapter 13 – Everything’s An Argument “Humor in Arguments” and tutorials CD • The Importance of Being Ernest • Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” Literary Strategies: • Comedy • Parody • Satire • Sarcasm • Pun • Paradox • Repartee • Epigrams Writing Focus: • Audience • Word choice (for purpose of humor) • Sentence structure (for purpose of humor) Vocabulary Focus: SAT vocabulary Major Writings/Assignments:
- 10. • Upon reading and analyzing Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” students will work in groups to create, through imitative and collaborative writing, their version of A “Modern” Proposal wherein they will choose a current social ill to satirize much in the way of Swift. Students, through this manner, are subtly introduced to the concept of “parody”. By working in groups, peer evaluation takes place, and instructor will provide additional feedback prior to the final product being submitted. • Students will do an inclass timed writing using the 1998 released AP exam. Essays will be evaluated by instructor and culminate in a teacherstudent conference concerning student strengths and weaknesses. • Having been collecting political cartoons all year long, students will finally begin to put these together into a project in which they analyze the cartoon for purpose, effect, humor, etc…This will be due the first week in May. Unit Seven: Duration: Approximately six weeks Unit Overview: Novels/stories of “social reform” will provide the foundation for this unit, the majority of which will focus almost entirely on John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Students will read and study the novel in depth. In addition, students will take a look at regional short stories for the overall effect of dialect and word choice. Literary/Textual Focus: • The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck • “Under the Lion’s Paw” – Hamlin Garland • “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” – Mark Twain • “A Pair of Silk Stockings” – Kate Chopin • “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” – Bret Harte • Student selected articles dealing with “social issues” Additional Resources: (musical) • “DustBowl Ballads” – Woodie Guthrie • “The Ghost of Tom Joad” – Bruce Springsteen • “The Ghost of Tom Joad” – Rage Against the Machine Literary Strategies:
- 11. • Tone • Symbolism • Style • Regional dialect/word choice • Point of view • Character motivation • Conflict (types of) Writing Focus: • Style and purpose • Audience • Word choice • Active vs. passive voice • Dialect Vocabulary Focus: review of tone words and rhetorical strategies before AP exam Major Writings/Assignments: • Students will create their own short story in which they incorporate regional dialect with their own original characters. Peer evaluators will look for regional dialect, voice, storyline, character development, conflict and conflict resolution. • Students will complete a tone analysis essay from one of the regional short stories studied in this unit. Again, self, peer and teacher evaluation will be incorporated into the revision process. • Students will search the internet for current articles dealing with “social issues” and write an editorial response/argument concerning these issues. Other on-going activities throughout the year: • Back copies of Literary Cavalcade are assigned on a sixweek basis. Students choose a magazine, complete the assigned worksheet task and take a quiz
- 12. individualized to the magazine they have chosen. The purpose of this assignment is to encourage their exposure to other literaturesome classic, some modern outside the setting of the classroom. • Folder activities created by the instructor force students to focus on opeds and the analysis of this type of writing style. Articles have been laminated into folders and questions, addressing such things as word choice, assertions, and rhetorical strategies, are there for students to answer. A twentyminute “essay” addressing the topic culminates this exercise. These are reusable when students use Visàvis markers and they are forced to think under preestablished time constraints. • Students will maintain a personal writing diary in which they will chart the errors marked in works submitted as “final”. In this way, students will have the opportunity to monitor their own strengths and weaknesses as writers. • Students keep a “dialectical journal” for most of the major works of literature studied in this class. Upon completion of a novel, students are expected to complete a Reading Record Card in which they record pertinent information about a work (symbol systems, language characteristics, etc…) • After completing Silent Sustained Reading activities students engage in informal writing of “literary letters” to the teacher. This informal avenue of writing opens up communication between teacher and student in many ways.