Syllabus

Grace Dodge High School

Mr. Sullivan

AP Language and Composition

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In order to help you succeed in English, we need to establish class guidelines in an atmosphere of mutual respect. 

 

Supplies (For this class only!)

  1. A large loose-leaf binder with dividers.
  2. A pocket folder.
  3. At least 2 new floppy disks and a disk protector.
  4. Dark blue or black pens. All class work should be written in dark blue or black ink.
  5. Two different color highlighters.
  6. If you wear reading glasses, bring them everyday!

 

Supplies at home

  1. A dictionary: The Oxford Concise Dictionary is good
  2. A thesaurus: Roget’s

 

Requirements for passing

A passing grade in this class depends upon your successfully completing the following requirements.

  1. Doing all homework completely, accurately, and promptly.  The assignments will include reading, writing, and thinking.
  2. Completing class work assignments and readings.
  3. Having organized notebooks, which contain all work for the term.  (Your notes will be graded.)
  4. Participating in class discussions, listening courteously, and writing class notes.
  5. Attending class every day and arriving on time.  If you are excessively absent, cutting, or late, you are missing important work that you need to know in order to pass.  You must make up missing class work and homework.
  6. Receiving passing grades on tests, quizzes, and reports.
  7. Completing projects on time.

 

NOTE: The final report card grade will be an average of the marks you received in the previous marking periods.  Grades are cumulative. 

      A grade of 65 or better on the Regent’s exam is necessary to receive Regent’s credit.

      A score of 3 or above may be satisfactory to receive college credit, depending on the college’s admission policies.

Homework

  1. You are responsible for obtaining the assignments you miss when absent from class.  Take the name and number of a classmate to get any assignments you missed, or you may visit my webpage: __________________________
  2. Homework is an important part of the course.  It must be turned in when due.  Homework that is handed in late means that you are unprepared to participate in class and it will lower your grade. 
  3. If the homework is a reading assignment, you will be expected to participate in the discussion of the reading as proof of your completion of the homework and hand in your notes; therefore, not completing the reading will negatively affect both your homework and class participation grades.

 

            Use the following heading for homework assignments:

 

Grace Dodge H.S.                                                                                                                     Name

Mr. Sullivan/period                                                                                                                    Date

 

Class size and make up:  Total enrollment should be no more than 25 students.  This class will be offered to Juniors who may take the AP Literature and Composition class as Seniors.

 

Rationale:  The AP Language and Composition course, as stated in the Advanced Placement Course Description, seeks “to enable students to read complex texts with understanding and to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers.”  Furthermore, students will enter into a writer’s workshop setting in which they engage in peer editing and tutoring to enhance their experience in the writing process. 

 

Objectives:  Through the process of reading, writing, listening, and speaking about the readings and the students’ writings, students will become skilled in writing for different audiences and purposes; students will understand how the use of style and rhetorical devices allow authors to make meaning; students will acquire these skills and use them in their own writing; moreover, students will learn to evaluate the choices of an author to increase their revision skills in several rhetorical patterns in their effort to pass the Advanced Placement Language and Composition Examination.  Furthermore, the students will make text-to-text, text to self, and text to world connections in preparation for the Regent’s Examination.

 

Readings:  The students will encounter a thematic based course in which they will read a variety of texts including: poetry, expository prose, and literature from textbooks, newspapers/magazines, novels, and online sources.  Readings will encompass multicultural texts from the past two centuries.  Themes encountered in this course may include: technology, nature, education, love, money, gender, life, race, equality, finding one’s self and utopian/dystopian civilizations.  Notes on readings will be kept in a Reader’s Journal.

 

(Special note to parents) Please read the stories that your son/daughter reads for class and discuss the texts with them.  The additional input your son/daughter brings to class because of your shared experiences helps to make for richer discussions in the classroom, deeper understanding of the texts, and allows you to take a more active role in his/her education.

 

Writing experience:  Through a workshop setting, each student will write, revise, and edit six major papers:  Narrative/Descriptive, Definition, Compare/Contrast, Analytical, Persuasive, and Argumentative.  A portfolio of each student’s work will be handed in at the end of each trimester, which will include the major papers (with all drafts), shorter papers, a reflection paper, the journal notebook, and AP and Regent’s practice essay papers. 

 

Tests:  The end of each marking period will culminate in a Regent’s or AP style exam.

 

The following outline includes the themes, major paper rhetorical pattern, and readings representative of the theme for the first three marking periods.

 

1st trimester

1st marking period

Diagnostics

Reading, writing, and speaking

Major paper

Narrative/descriptive

Readings

Nature

Nonfiction

“Jim Baker on Bluejays” Mark Twain

“Living Like Weasels” Annie Dillard@

“Jest and Earnest” Annie Dillard

“Flow of the River” Loren Eiseley@

“Nature” Ralph Waldo Emerson@

“A Reflection on the 2000 Reith Lectures” The Prince of Wales@

Short Stories

“A White Heron” Sarah Orne Jewett@

“The Man to Send Rain Clouds” Leslie Marmon Silko@

“To Build a Fire” Jack London@

“The Storm” Kate Chopin@

Poems

“The Lightning is a Yellow Fork” Dickinson@

“The Road not Taken” Frost@

“Birches” Frost*

“Root Cellar” Roethke@

“Flower in the Crannied Wall” Tennyson@

Plays

The Cuban Swimmer Milcha Sanchez-Scott

2nd Marking period

Major paper

Compare/contrast

Readings

Science/technology

Nonfiction

“The Method of Scientific Investigation” Huxley@

“Imaginary Impasse” Bettelheim

“As We Might Think” Vannevar Bush@

“The New Mexico Test” T. Farrell

“White House Press Release on Hiroshima”@

“Eyewitness Account of Atomic Bomb Over Nagasaki”@

 

Short stories

“Artist of the Beautiful” Hawthorne@

“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment” Hawthorne@

“Rappaccini’s Daughter” Hawthorne@

“Johnny Mnemonic” William Gibson

“Harrison Bergeron” Kurt Vonnegut jr. @

“Penal Colony” Franz Kafka

“Book of Sand” Jorge L. Borges@

Poems

“A Locomotive in Winter” Whitman

“The Flight” Brian Aldiss*

“To Science” Edgar Allan Poe@

Plays

Krapp’s Last Tape Beckett

Movie

Johnny Mnemonic

3rd Marking period

Major paper

Definition

Readings

Utopian/dystopian civilizations

Nonfiction

Excerpts from “Black Elk's Great Vision”@

“Description of New England” John Smith@

“Genesis” excerpted from the Bible@

The Declaration of Independence

Short Stories

“The Lottery” Shirley Jackson@

“The Ones Who Walk away from Omelas” LeGuin@

Novels

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court Twain

Fahrenheit 451

1984

Poems

“To One in Paradise” Poe

Movie

Blade Runner

2nd Trimester

1st Marking period

Major paper

Analytical

Readings

Life

Nonfiction

“Work, Labor, and Play” W. H. Auden

“Road Warrior” Dave Barry

“The Wound in the Face” Angela Carter

“Casa” Judith Ortiz Cofer

“No Man is an Island” John Donne

“Observation” Thoreau

“The Measure of Things” John Selden

“The Importance of Habit” William James

 

@ - Denotes online source

* - Denotes Literature text

All other texts will be handouts

 

 

Behavior

Any behavior that has a negative affect on the class as a whole or any student in the class will not be tolerated.

 

Please hand in this contract after you and your parent/guardian sign it.

 

I have read the class requirements and understand what is required of me/my son/my daughter to pass this class.

 

Student’s signature__________________________

 

Parent/guardian’s signature____________________________

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