APLiterature and Composition
2013-2014
Goals and Expectations
Purpose and Goals: AP Literature and Composition is intended to give the student an intensive focus on reading challenging, classic texts and writing challenging essays in exposition, analysis, and persuasion. It is also an opportunity to study the artistry of writing, the techniques and strategies that authors employ to evoke feelings, to entertain, to make a statement. And, we study the social and historical contexts in which our chosen authors’ styles and ideas were created. No artist is left untouched by their environment. The district’s senior requirement of completing a researched paper will also be accomplished during the course.
Expectations: The course is designed for thought. Hence, class participation and preparedness is of high importance and expected. Each of you is expected to do your best, as am I. Respect for every student in the class, whether you agree with an opinion or not, is also a minimum expectation. All work should be at college level completion and should be edited as such. It is recommended that a student have taken AP Language and Composition, since the focus on syntax and other rhetorical strategies in that course will only be of assistance to you here. If you have not taken AP Language, some rhetorical strategies will be new to you, and thus, you will need to discover those, as well.
All writing will be reviewed after an initial draft and it is expected that students will make the necessary adjustments in tone, voice, emphasis, diction, and syntax that I recommend. This is the best way to enhance written expression and to increase effective use of rhetorical strategies.
Objectives: Upon completing the Language and Composition course, students should be able
2013-2014
Goals and Expectations
Purpose and Goals: AP Literature and Composition is intended to give the student an intensive focus on reading challenging, classic texts and writing challenging essays in exposition, analysis, and persuasion. It is also an opportunity to study the artistry of writing, the techniques and strategies that authors employ to evoke feelings, to entertain, to make a statement. And, we study the social and historical contexts in which our chosen authors’ styles and ideas were created. No artist is left untouched by their environment. The district’s senior requirement of completing a researched paper will also be accomplished during the course.
Expectations: The course is designed for thought. Hence, class participation and preparedness is of high importance and expected. Each of you is expected to do your best, as am I. Respect for every student in the class, whether you agree with an opinion or not, is also a minimum expectation. All work should be at college level completion and should be edited as such. It is recommended that a student have taken AP Language and Composition, since the focus on syntax and other rhetorical strategies in that course will only be of assistance to you here. If you have not taken AP Language, some rhetorical strategies will be new to you, and thus, you will need to discover those, as well.
All writing will be reviewed after an initial draft and it is expected that students will make the necessary adjustments in tone, voice, emphasis, diction, and syntax that I recommend. This is the best way to enhance written expression and to increase effective use of rhetorical strategies.
Objectives: Upon completing the Language and Composition course, students should be able
- To carefully read and critically analyze imaginative literature
- To understand the way writers use language to provide meaning and pleasure
- To consider structure, style, and themes in literature, along with smaller scale literary elements for imagery, tone, symbolism
- To explore the variety of genres from varying time periods
- To understand the complexities of meanings as embodied in literature
- To consider the social and historical influences on literature
- To write focusing on critical analysis in expository, argumentative, and analytic modes
- To write creatively to sharpen understanding of writers’ craft
- To revisit the purposes and strategies of rhetoric
- To expand vocabulary knowledge and use
- Move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to inquiry and research, drafting, revising, editing, and review.