Course Audit

AP English Language and Composition
2007-2008

AP Language and Composition/American Literature

General Overview:   This course is designed as a college-level expository and persuasive writing course.   Students will practice daily writing utilizing many rhetorical styles and will study literature that exemplifies use of these different styles and structures.   Students will study the techniques and the literary elements of description, narration, process analysis, comparison/contrast, division/analysis, classification, process analysis, definition, cause and effect analysis, and argument/persuasion.   Students will work on attaining proficiency in writing by studying and analyzing these different rhetorical modes and they will learn how to plan, organize, and construct well thought out and well written essays.

Rationale:   This course has been developed to train students in becoming skilled analytical thinkers in order to read and write in diverse genres and modes of composition.

Objectives:   Students will be preparing to take the Advanced Placement test in Language and Composition.   Students will be studying a vast array of literature and rhetorical strategies and how they relate to an author’s use of language in order to convey specific points or ideas.   Since there are two portions to the test, an objective and subjective portion, students will focus on the test taking skills and essay writing skills needed in order to read and analyze passages cogently.   (See Curricular Requirements to follow.)

Grading Procedures:   All assignments are graded on a point grading scale and a computer program weighs each assignment and averages those into one grade.   The traditional scale is used for calculating grades.   (See below.)   All missed assignments will be averaged in as a zero.   Assignments have different grade point allocations.   For example, tests are worth anywhere from 50 to 100 points and quizzes are worth 20.   In class assignments are usually worth 10 to...