2009-2010 Courses

Adavnced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition

COURSE TITLE:                     Advanced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition
LEVEL:                                  12th Grade (Advanced)

LENGTH/CREDITS:                 Full Year and 1.5 Credits

PREREQUISITES:                   Either the English III course or AP English Literature and Composition and consultation with the English teacher   and counselor.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:        This course examines prose writing (e.g., biographies and autobiographies, fiction, essays, journalism, social and political writing, science and nature writing) and poetry across a wide range of periods and rhetorical contexts. Students become skilled at writing for a variety of purposes, audiences, and rhetorical contexts. This course prepares the student for the Advanced Placement test in English Language and Composition; students are required to take this exam. This course continues to emphasize writing in a variety of forms and for a variety of purposes; stresses the nuances of grammar and usage and the study of vocabulary and spelling, both for the purpose of improving the student's own reading and writing; continues to develop research techniques and citation methods; and expands several models of speaking, listening, and viewing. The student will research and write “The Senior Research Essay” and prepare the presentation for his/her Senior Project. In preparation for Advanced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition, over the summer all incoming students will read a work of literature, selected each year by the English Department; an assessment of the summer reading will be part of the first grading period.