Welcome!

Welcome to all of my AP English Language and Composition students! I am incredibly excited about this class, and honored to teach it. I am also looking forward to getting to know each of you. It is hard to summarize all the things we will be tackling this year, so let me just say that you can expect to push your boundaries as a writer, reader, thinker, and citizen. We will be reading mostly nonfiction, but also some fiction and poetry. We will also be viewing and discussing political cartoons, fine art, photography -- art and expression, in other words, with messages to extract and analyze.

Oh, and you'll write. A lot. So I sure hope you like writing.

I also hope that as the year progresses, this blog will become a place where you (and your parents, too, for that matter) can:
• keep up with assignment deadlines, unit overviews, vocabulary lists, and daily assignments
• read or view supplementary texts or images
• post comments, opinions, and questions
• link to additional resources, such as online writing handbooks, national newspapers, research databases, and more
• get in touch with me
• make your own suggestions for additional links
• share ideas with one another

As you may have noticed, comments to this page will be moderated (by me) to keep things (reasonably) friendly and civilized, but unless you say something that is highly insensitive or inexcusably offensive, you can feel pretty confident that your comments will be posted. I will not edit comments that have been approved; whatever is posted can and very well may be read by everyone with access to this blog (which, really, is literally everyone with internet access).

That said, please take a moment to comment to this post by briefly summarizing what you hope to get out of this class (personally, academically, technically, intellectually, etc.). Thanks, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Weekly Agenda: 9/9-9/16

Friday, September 9

Welcome and introductions
Course Overview
Review syllabus and class expectations
Class “tour”
Student survey
HW: Read assigned NYT article; be prepared to discuss it on Tuesday

Tuesday, September 13
Assigned seating
Discuss NYT article
• What is the argument (for the writer and for Mr. Rembar?)
• Evidence/reasons/rationale?
• Do you agree or disagree? Why?
Group activity: Analysis of political cartoons: What statement is it making?
HW: Read Everything's An Argument, pp. 3-20 (Purposes & Occasions for Argument) -- Take notes on key points

Thursday, September 15
New Vocabulary
Discuss homework reading
Introduction to types of arguments
• Arguments of Fact (Did something happen?)
• Arguments of Definition (What is the nature of the thing?)
• Arguments of Evaluation (What is the quality of the thing?)
• Proposal Arguments (What actions should be taken?)
Read/discuss EEA pp. 29-32 (stasis questions and the global warming debate)
Categorize yesterday's political cartoons by argument type (partner work)
HW: Read Everything's An Argument, pp. 20-29 (Kinds of Argument) -- take notes on key points