Advanced Placement Language and Composition
Course Number: #1603
This course has two equally important goals. First it will prepare students to succeed on the Advanced Placement Language and Composition test, which is administered in May. Second, it will offer students the chance to work at a college level, providing excellent preparation for the challenges and demands they will meet in college. The class focuses on the rhetoric of non-fiction of literary merit. Students work to develop as writers by integrating into their own writing the rhetorical skills they study in the writing of master authors. Students also read a number of classic American novels and aggressively study advanced vocabulary that will contribute to their success on the AP, SAT, and ACT tests. A fully documented research paper that meets all required criteria is required for successful completion of this class.
Prerequisites: Exemplary completion of Language Arts 9 or 10. Students should also be committed to the careful reading and critical analysis of fiction and non-fiction. Required summer reading: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and Class Matters by the New York Times and Bill Keller. (Please refer to the Advanced Placement page 1 of the course book.)
Credit(s): 1
Open to Grade(s): 10 and 11
Texts and Materials: The Essay Connection; The Elements of Style; Quick Access; The Catcher in the Rye; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Fountainhead; The Republic; The Apology; Civil Disobedience; Self Reliance; Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God; Macbeth; King's "I Have a Dream" speech