Annotating/Highlighting/Note-taking Tips:

Each of you will develop your own individualized style and process for annotation and highlighting. Some students like to use a variety of colors to follow specific thematic strands through the novel. Some students use different colors for characters, setting, symbols, and notable/significant quotes. Other students choose to use one color of highlighter, and then underline, circle, or asterisk specific items within the highlighted areas. Whichever method or combination of methods you use for highlighting, remember that annotation must accompany your underlining/highlighting to demonstrate your interaction with the text.

Annotation will indicate evidence of thoughtful, relevant comments and questions written in margins as you interact with the text. As you probably already know, good readers have an internal voice that constantly converses with the text. The notes you take in the margins should be those kinds of "conversational" comments as you notice things, question the author, react to characters, and become aware of patterns with symbols and in the setting. You should make notes about topics that you feel would be great for discussions and debates in class. Formulate questions that you would like to share with others, and we’ll use these to generate discussions.

The idea is not for you to coat the pages with highlighting, but for you to really focus on sorting significant passages and literary devices you see the authors employ throughout their writing. The keys here are "sorting" and "significant" indications of thought. Basically, the expectation is that for each underlined or highlighted section/passage on the page, you will have textual comments in the margins.

Ultimately the value of annotation is three-fold:

(1) Comprehension: Thoughtful interaction with the text not only increases comprehension, but allows for re-reading a second time in a meaningful, skimming manner. After all, the first time you read a piece of literature, you are reading for plot - to see what happens. The second time you read is when you can focus on rhetorical devices and sub-text.

(2) Re-entry into the Text: Once you have read a piece and you are ready to analyze and write about what you have read, effective annotation allows you to re-enter the piece and find evidence to support your analysis.

(3) Analysis: And speaking of analysis, annotation is a skill which encompasses the sorting that is integral to the sorting and logic processing which is key to effective analysis.

Master this skill of marking text and you will find your reading becomes much more effective.

____________________________________________________________

Syllabus

AP English Language and Composition Course Description and Expectations:

AP English Language and Composition utilizes American literature in a chronological and thematic approach, but nonfiction text is the main vehicle for the study of language and rhetoric. The course provides an opportunity for advanced high school students to pursue and receive credit for college-level course work completed at the high school level. Accordingly, the rigors of the course are intended to be commensurate with introductory college-level rhetorical and composition courses.

Students are being trained to be excellent critical thinkers, readers, analysts of language, effective writers, and creative, cogent producers of argument. Students focus on the writing skills needed to be successful in the course and on the AP Language exam in May, as well as in their later college work. Students write effectively for a range of audiences and a variety of purposes, demonstrate mastery of the conventions of standard written language, and use the steps of the writing process as needed.

Basic Course Outline

Unit 1: Summer Reading plus Introduction to Rhetoric and AP Language rhetorical analysis, close reading and on-demand writing. Begin year-long vocabulary and independent reading programs. ~

Unit 2: Everything's An Argument ~ Revolutionary Era & the Literature of Persuasion

Unit 3: Documented Argument, Synthesis & Research

Unit 4: American Romanticism ~ Selected readings from Bryant, Poe, Melville, Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, and others

Unit 5: Methods of Development ~ Modes of Writing ~ narration, description, process analysis, comparison and contrast, division and classification, definition, cause-effect, and argument

Unit 6: The Rise of Realism ~ One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Unit 7: Modernism ~ Twentieth Century Fulfillment and Disillusionment ~ The Great Gatsby

Unit 8: Contemporary Times ~ Kite Runner

In addition to the above, the course includes three important strands:

1.  Vocabulary Study: Done weekly, throughout the school year, this strand includes word acquisition appropriate for the SAT and other standardized testing, and the technical vocabulary of literary and rhetorical analysis for the AP Language test.

2. Independent Reading: Students read from six chronological eras in American literature. The titles are selected for their historical and literary significance. In addition to the six required selections, students have a free choice selection each semester, where they may read a book of their choice, written by an American author.