COURSE TITLE: Advanced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition
LEVEL: 12th Grade (Advanced)
LENGTH/CREDITS: Full Year and 1.0 Credit
PREREQUISITES: Either the English III course or AP English Literature and Composition
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. Integrated with the Senior Math course and the Senior Project Independent Study course, the senior will research and write “The Senior Project Essay”. In preparation for Advanced Placement (AP) English Language and Composition, over the preceding summer all incoming seniors will begin their Senior Project by researching, reading, and note-carding some of their sources; an assessment of the summer assignment will be part of the first grading period.