AP ENGLISH 11

5 Credits            Full Year        Advanced Placement                              

Prerequisite: Recommendation of the department and a grade of 85% or above in English 10. Students are required to take the Advanced Placement exam in May. Payment for the exam is due to the principal at the end of the first quarter. A summer reading and writing assignment must be completed successfully before entering this course in the fall.

This is primarily a course in effective writing and critical reading and will prepare the student to take the AP Exam in Language and Composition. Students will learn methods of rhetorical analysis and civic discourse. In addition, they will learn how to convey information accurate­ly, without distortion or ambiguity and, where appropriate, how to use diction, figures of speech, and syntax to make their writ­ing serve its purpose, mode, and audience. Critical read­ing will involve students learning to discern and describe in an appropri­ate vocabu­lary how the arrangement of language shapes meaning. Students will examine the major devices that control tone and structure, and learn how they serve rhetorical purposes. Students are ex­pect­ed to read exten­sively beyond the required texts. Incoming juniors must have completed the summer reading and writing assignments. These are posted in the class syllabus on this website. Occasional weekend and evening meetings are required and will be an-nounced in advance by the instructor. Units on SAT and AP test-taking skills are includ-ed in this course.