The three keys to this course are rhetorical analysis, argument, & synthesis of ideas. We’ll be looking closely at the idea that arguments and claims about the world exist in many places and in many forms, and analyzing how these arguments are constructed.
An AP course in English Language and Composition engages students in becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of rhetorical contexts, and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes . Both their writing and their reading should make students aware of the interactions among a writer’s purposes, audience expectations, and subjects, as well as the way genre conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing
The goals of an AP English Language and Composition course are diverse because the college composition course is one of the most varied in the curriculum . Although the college course provides students with opportunities to write about a variety of subjects from a variety of disciplines and to demonstrate an awareness of audience and purpose, the overarching objective in most first-year writing courses is to enable students to write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives . Most composition courses emphasize the expository, analytical and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication, as well as the personal and reflective writing that fosters the development of writing facility in any context.
In addition, most composition courses teach students that the expository, analytical and argumentative writing they must do in college is based on reading as well as on personal experience and observation . Composition courses, therefore, teach students to read primary and secondary sources carefully, to synthesize material from these texts in their own compositions, and to cite sources using conventions recommended by professional organizations such as the Modern Language Association (MLA),the University of Chicago Press (The Chicago Manual of Style), the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Council of Biology Editors (CBE) .
As in the college course, the purpose of the AP English Language and Composition course is to enable students to read complex texts with understanding and to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers . An AP English Language and Composition course should help students move beyond such programmatic responses as the five-paragraph essay that provides an introduction with a thesis and three reasons, body paragraphs on each reason, and a conclusion that restates the thesis . Although such formulaic approaches may provide minimal organization, they often encourage unnecessary repetition and fail to engage the reader . Students should be encouraged to place their emphasis on content, purpose and audience and to allow this focus to guide the organization of their writing .
College writing programs recognize that skill in writing proceeds from students’ awareness of their own composing processes: the way they explore ideas and draft and revise their work . This experience of the process of composing is the essence of the first-year writing course, and the AP English Language and Composition course should emphasize this process, asking students to write essays that proceed through several stages or drafts, with revision aided by teacher and peers . Although these extended, revised essays are not part of the AP Exam, the experience of writing them will help make students more self-aware and flexible writers and thus may help their performance on the exam itself . The various AP English Language Released Exams and AP Central® (apcentral .collegeboard .com) provide sample student essay responses to exercises that can be useful as timed writing assignments and as the basis for extended writing projects .
An AP English Language and Composition course may be organized in a variety of ways . It might be organized thematically around a group of ideas or issues, using a variety of works and examining rhetorical strategies and stylistic choices . A course focusing on the theme of liberty, for example, might use such writers as John Stuart Mill, Frederick Douglass, Toni Morrison, Susan B . Anthony, Joseph Sobran, Elie Wiesel, Emile Zola and Mary Wollstonecraft to examine the wealth of approaches to subject and audience that these writers display . Another possibility is to organize a course around sequences of assignments devoted to writing in particular forms (argumentative, narrative, expository) or to group readings and writing assignments by form, theme or voice, asking students to identify writers’ strategies and then practice them themselves . Still another alternative is to use genre as an organizing principle for a course, studying how the novel, compared to the autobiography, offers different possibilities for writers, and how classical debate or argument influences us in ways that are not the same as those used in consensus building . The study of language itself — differences between oral and written discourse, formal and informal language, historical changes in speech and writing — is often a productive organizing strategy for teachers .
Whatever form the course takes, students write in both informal and formal contexts to gain authority and learn to take risks in writing . Imitation exercises, journal keeping, collaborative writing and in-class responses are all good ways of helping students become increasingly aware of themselves as writers and of the techniques employed by the writers they read . As well as engaging in varied writing tasks, students become acquainted with a wide variety of prose styles from many disciplines and historical periods and gain understanding of the connections between writing and interpretive skill in reading (see the AP English Language and Composition Teacher’s Guide for ideas on readings and sample curricula) .Concurrently, to reflect the increasing importance of graphics and visual images in texts published in print and electronic media, students are asked to analyze how such images both relate to written texts and serve as alternative forms of text themselves .
In addition, the informed use of research materials and the ability to synthesize varied sources (to evaluate, use and cite sources) are integral parts of the AP English Language and Composition course . Students move past assignments that allow for the uncritical citation of sources and, instead, take up projects that call on them to evaluate the legitimacy and purpose of sources used . One way to help students synthesize and evaluate their sources in this way is the researched argument paper .
Research helps students to formulate varied, informed arguments . Unlike the traditional research paper, in which works are often summarized but not evaluated or used to support the writer’s own ideas, the researched argument requires students to consider each source as a text that was itself written for a particular audience and purpose . Researched argument papers remind students that they must sort through disparate interpretations to analyze, reflect upon, and write about a topic . When students are asked to bring the experience and opinions of others into their essays in this way, they enter into conversations with other writers and thinkers . The results of such conversations are essays that use citations for substance rather than show, for dialogue rather than diatribe .
While the AP English Language and Composition course assumes that students already understand and use standard English grammar, it also reflects the practice of reinforcing writing conventions at every level . Therefore, occasionally the exam may contain multiple-choice questions on usage to reflect the link between grammar and style . The intense concentration on language use in the course enhances students’ ability to use grammatical conventions appropriately and to develop stylistic maturity in their prose . Stylistic development is nurtured by emphasizing the following: a wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively; a variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination; logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions and emphasis; a balance of generalization and specific illustrative detail; and an effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure.
When students read, they should become aware of how stylistic effects are achieved by writers’ linguistic choices . Since imaginative literature often highlights such stylistic decisions, fiction and poetry clearly can have a place in the AP English Language and Composition course . The main purpose of including such literature is to aid students in understanding rhetorical and linguistic choices, rather than to study literary conventions.
Because the AP course depends on the development of interpretive skills as students learn to write and read with increasing complexity and sophistication, it is intended to be a full-year course . Teachers at schools that offer only a single semester block for AP are encouraged to advise their AP English Language and Composition students to take an additional semester of advanced English in which they continue to practice the kind of writing and reading emphasized in the AP class
Upon completing the AP English Language and Composition course, then, students should be able to:
Check out the ACLU student webpage to learn more.
Check out the best poetry, essay & short story contests
Your source for testing info: SAT/AP, even ACT, if you're into it.
Vocab game that supports the World Food Programme.
