AP Language and Composition The Columbus School

David Gold dgold@columbus.edu.co

Please call me Toro.
Office Hours: TBA

Course Overview AP English Language and Composition is skills based course is designed to help students become
analytical, rhetorical readers and writers. Students learn to read critically by focusing their attention on the choices
that authors make in relation to social context(s), audience(s), and purpose(s). Most texts are nonfiction and will
come from a variety of formal and informal sources and genres (e.g., academic journals, advertisements, scientific
arguments, letters, political cartoons, critical essays, charts and graphs, etc.). Students will produce formal and
informal writings of the same sort; consequently, the course helps students become skilled, rhetorical writers who
compose for a variety of purposes within a variety of contexts. Students learn to write while making their own
choices that pay careful attention to social context(s), target audience(s), rhetorical mode(s), and overall purpose.

These are skills. Like all skills, mastery requires regular practice, so get over it and get into it. Understand that each
student begins the year with his/her own strengths and challenges. Your goal is to build on those strengths and
overcome those challenges. This is a challenging course. Each of you will struggle at times; you will feel frustrated.
My job is to support and help you through those times, and you can call on me for help whenever you feel the
need. I want you to succeed.

AP English Language and Composition enables students to read complex texts with understanding, while also
teaching them to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers.
The ultimate goal of building the rhetorical skills the class fosters is to help mold students into individuals who
actively and intelligently engage with the world around them. AP English Language and Composition course helps
students move beyond reading for mere comprehension and composing programmatic responses; it encourages
them to think critically and purposefully about the rhetorical choices that authors make, and it leads them to
consider the choices they make when deciding to add their voice into any given discourse: civil or academic.

Course Expectations As this is a college-level course, performance expectations are appropriately high, and the work
is challenging. That is not to say that there will be more work than a typical English course; rather, AP assignments
will require responses that explore the uses and functions of language in greater depth. While the ultimate goal is
college level reading and writing proficiency, a more pragmatic goal is improved efficiency; you should strive to
make better use of your time, to do more, do it faster and do it better.

Course Organization Like college courses, you will have a great deal of autonomy in regards to how and when to
organize your time. Direct instruction accounts for only about 1/3 of all instructional minutes; the rest of our time
together is focused on you working independently, with your study group or conferencing with me. Often, work in
this class involves assignments that have extended deadlines, so it is expected that students have—or prepare to
quickly develop—effective, appropriate time management skills. This will be a challenge for some of you, but I am
here to help.

The class is organized into Units 1-9 with each unit broken down by individual lessons. Powerpoints and/or videos for
all lessons will be available on Schoology.

Study Groups Each student will be assigned to a 3-4 person study group. These groups are designed to support your
learning, provide regular opportunities for peer feedback, and to give and receive support with peers developing
similar skill sets. A variety of assignments and activities will be done in your study groups; for some you will earn a
group grade, for others an individual grade.

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Primary Texts Our primary text is AP Language and Composition by Abdon, et al. There is a pdf version in Schoology. You
will be provided with a printed version of the text to write and annotate in. Other texts are available in Schoology and I
will print any other paper documents you need for class.

Secondary Texts Not all of the texts and visuals we will work with are found in the Course Guides. However, all
secondary texts will be available on Schoology.

Grading Guidelines All writing will be graded on the AP standard grade scale from 1-6. Below are the grade
equivalents based on the TCS 4 point scale. Like all our AP classes, at the end of each bimester, grades 3.0 and above
will earn and extra 0.5, which will be added to your final grade. Both formative and summative assessments are
given regularly.

AP Rubric TCS High School Grading

Score Scale

6 4.0

5 3.5

4 3.0

3 2.5

2 2.0

1 1.0

Late Policy There are no surprises in this class. All summative assessments are assigned well in advance, so unless
there are extenuating circumstances, no late work will be accepted.

Digital Notebooks and Conferences Each student will have a digital notebook where most of the class activities will be
completed. It is imperative that these notebooks be kept up-to-date because the assignments found therein will be
what guides the student-teacher conferences that will take place regularly.

Conferences will usually be done during class time, and students, with their instructor, will review assignments (e.g.,
essays, draft essays, timed essays, etc.) found within their writing folders. The primary purpose of this time is to
promote an individual awareness of your strengths and weaknesses as a reader and writer and plan for and monitor
your individual growth. Special focus will given to diction, syntax, arrangement and function, and use of rhetorical
devices, appeals and strategies. These conferences will lead to a tailored learning environment and help promote
greater individual success in the course.

Hand-Written Work While many writing assignments will be completed on the computer, many of the skills you will
develop this year require good old-fashioned pen and paper. Both educational research and my own experience
teaching the course, clearly show a connection between your hand and brain. For this reason, each of you should

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have a physical copy of both the Course Reader and Skills Book. Normally, I provide those. Unfortunately, given the
constraints of the distance learning environment, you will have to print the PDFs from Schoology. Because the AP
exam requires students to hand-write all of their essays, it is imperative that students practice expressing
themselves through the hand-written word. In order to practice and improve writing fluency and cognitive fluidity,
all work must be completed—with exception to online assignments—in black or dark blue pen.

Readings Class activities will most often be based on a weekly reading assignment. In order to participate, you will
have to read and annotate the readings by the scheduled class meeting. You will receive grades for annotations, but
there are not usually tests on the readings. However, that can be arranged. Do your reading.

Writing Process Writing

Expository writing is the instrument that carries students’ voices to their audiences. Workshops and
student-teacher conferences have been programmed into the course; ultimately, with the aid of peers and mentors,
students should come to see writing as a multiple-step process that requires research and multiple revisions. As
such, random CRP’s, essays, and other formal writing assignments will receive a grade based on your

Timed Writing
Throughout the year students will complete numerous timed essays to develop skill in writing argumentative and
analytical essays. These writings are integrated into the natural progression of the course. Timed writing is
accelerated and, therefore, distinct from more deliberate expository writing processes. Students need to learn how
to gather, organize, and express their ideas quickly in order to succeed on standardized tests, on college exams, and
in the workplace.

Research
Throughout the course students will learn to evaluate, select, and synthesize source material based on validity and
purpose. They will draw on the strategies outlined in The Language of Composition (e.g. Chapter 4) as they compose
major papers and timed (synthesis) essays; with timed-writing the research process is condensed. The research
component of this course is intended to help students incorporate ideas from credible authors to increase the
validity of their own arguments. During initial research, students will be explicitly taught how to search for, find, and
evaluate credible evidence.

Citation and Documentation Standards

All written work for the course will adhere to the citation and documentation standards set forth in normas APA.
With that, timed-writing exercises and other assignments will also include seamlessly-woven direct quotes and
paraphrased references that competently credit authors and their works. Ultimately, students should recognize
that citing sources is not merely an administrative function; rather, it is a necessary step toward producing essays
that are rich, informative, and, above all, free from plagiarism.

Practice Exercises AP Language is a skills based course. You will learn how to do things, namely read and write with
fluency and purpose. Like any skill, playing guitar, painting or futbol, mastery requires practice. In the Skills Book,
you will complete a variety of writing and rhetorical analysis exercises including Voice Lessons, Killgallon’s Sentence
Composition, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style. The purpose of all these activities will be to transfer those
skills to your own reading and writing.

Weekly Questions I don’t want to waste your time. In order to make sure that you are receiving the support you
need, students will submit questions for the following week’s classes. Questions are due by 10pm every Friday.

Plagiarism Policy Plagiarism=Zero. No excuses, no exceptions. Plagiarism is stealing or “borrowing” someone else’s
work or ideas and presenting them as your own. Using a document or part of a document written by another

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student is plagiarism. Buying an essay from one of the services that sells such documents is plagiarism. Using a
document published on the Web is plagiarism. Having someone else write an essay for you is plagiarism. If you
plagiarize, you will fail the assignment, your parents and the administration will be contacted, and you will be subject
to other disciplinary action as outlined in the Manual de Convivencia. Plagiarism is both stealing and cheating; both
acts are unacceptable.

Non-negotiables This is an AP class and as such, each of you should demonstrate the basic competencies needed for
success in a university level course. The following is a list of errors that no AP Language and Composition student
should make and are largely the result of carelessness. If I encounter any of these errors, I will immediately stop
assessing your assignment and you will receive an IE grade until the corrections are completed and I can properly
assess your work.

● All writing should meet the length specified in the directions and have the word count following the final word in
the assignment. (22)
● All summative writing assignments must use APA format (see CPR #1 Exemplar).
● Please proofread for the following Non-negotiable errors. I encourage you to ask your study group partners to
proofread your work as well.

▪ Errors in capitalization
▪ Misspelling of important information (names, titles, etc.)
▪ Referring to an author or resources incorrectly (“Bill” instead of “Shakespeare”)
▪ Improper APA format
▪ Essay titles that are not original
▪ Improper use of italics
▪ There/Their/They’re
▪ To/Too (meaning “also”)/Two
▪ Anyway (never ‘anyways’)
▪ A lot (not alot)
▪ Than/Then
▪ Papers that are clearly not proofread
▪ Affect/Effect
▪ Your (belonging to you)/You’re (you are)
▪ Omitting apostrophes in contractions and possessives
▪ Its (belonging to it)/It’s (It’s = It is)

These words are imprecise and should be avoided.

▪ a lot ▪ little
▪ bad ▪ make(-ing)
▪ basically ▪ nowadays
▪ big/bigger/biggest ▪ really
▪ do(-ing) ▪ so
▪ get(-ing) ▪ stuff
▪ good ▪ things
▪ got/gotten ▪ very
▪ huge ▪ well
▪ important
▪ just
▪ like
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