Welcome to Spring Semester, 2005-2006. Parents are encouraged to take an active role in students' educations and assist them by making certain that all outside reading and homework assignments, note taking activities, test preparation requirements, and individual or group project work is completed on time and submitted in advance of the due date set by the instructor. Periodic grade reports will be issued to students who should apprise parents of how they are progressing in these courses. It is this periodic assessment that can identify the emotional and intellectual maturity of the student and signal in advance any instructional intervention strategies necessary to avert poor academic performance and prevent sub par grades that will eventually affect the students' overall grade point average. I wish students a successful year of rigorous studies as they undertake the challenges of the rigorous and demanding AP and Honors English curriculums. If students or parents wish to contact me, I can be reached on school voice mail, which I check frequently during the semester, at 323-461-3891, Extension 419. Homework and other necessary communication between the instructor and students is posted on my web log at the hollywoodhighschool.net website.
The Honors English Grade Ten School for Advanced Studies (SAS) curriculum, denotes, by its very designation, that students will encounter rigorous demands of the rhetorical approach to reading and writing, with instruction paced more rapidly than normal tenth-grade coursework requires. Grade Ten Honors readies students for an eleventh-grade Advanced Placement high school class as they learn to think, read, write, listen, and speak academically, successfully arguing a well-constructed thesis, skills necessary for entering post-secondary educational institutions. Students enrolled in Grade Ten Honors experience a curriculum that spans genres such as short stories, poetry, novels and plays, as well as nonfiction and contemporary literature selections that necessitate the student's ability to elicit the author's purpose, the author's persona, the author's claim and evidence, and then be able to offer a precise response to the author's argument. Successful student compositions are also measured by rubrics, and it is strongly suggested, at the outset of this course, that learners familiarize themselves with this tool so they can produce thoughtful, precise, and insightful works of prose in response to the series of writing prompts that will be assigned.
AP English Language and Composition (SAS) offers students a year of intense training in reading and writing that prepares them for the AP Language and Composition Examination, successful University study and lifelong learning. This class focuses on rhetorical analysis of fiction and non-fiction, and works of American literature. Students learn to identify an author’s purpose and strategies and examine the ways people think about and use language. Students read and analyze models of good writing and write compositions of various lengths and complexity, participating in peer response and rigorous revision. Students are introduced to analytical tools designed to develop levels of questioning at the factual, inferential, and analytical tiers of knowledge, which ultimately provide them with mastery of the highest forms of analysis and synthesis, necessary for participation in class discussions and note taking. They are able to read rhetorically pieces of American literature and write effective prose at first year college level. Students are expected to complete outside reading on time and, independently, produce class discussion notes using the Cornell method. In this course, rhetorical interpretation of text primarily focuses on the Classical, Rogerian, and Toulmin models which demand that claims, taken with the writer’s purpose, the intended audience, and speaker’s persona, will lead to argument for persuasion using both a thesis and opposite thesis that is necessary to accomplish successful academic writing. Students in AP English Language and Composition will be able to read difficult nonfiction text with speed, annotating and outlining as they recognize shifts of perspective and tone. They will be able to quote with authority and precision, discern the writer’s purpose and comprehend responses elicited from audiences and synthesize how authors manipulate readers to prove theses in various modes of written discourse. *
*GLAAPSI, July 2005 Marcy Bowman AP Packet
