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AP English Language

Online for the 2024-2025 School Year

Teacher: Alexia Reed

Tuition: $750 Early Bird / $800 After July 1

Length of Course: Friday, August 23, 2024 to Friday, May 9, 2025. This will include breaks for major U.S. holidays and seasonal breaks.

Course Description: This is a college-level course to prepare students for the Advanced Placement Language and Composition exam by engaging in critical reading, writing, and discussion. The stated purpose of the course (from the College Board) is to “emphasize the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication.” To accomplish this goal, we learn to read texts closely to determine the author’s purpose and means of conveying his or her message. In addition to literature, we engage in analysis of images and audio recordings to better understand the processes of communication and persuasion. Our goal is to develop skills in describing, explaining, and arguing through examining texts from various time periods and genres and through writing formal and informal responses to them in various modes. We also complete timed essays and practice tests to help prepare students for the AP^® exam.

Course Outlook: How I generally run my composition course is that I will take students through a progression of how to write using different styles of texts and themes as examples. For example, students will look at different essay structures, business/technical writing genres, satire, personal narrative, documentary, and more. The start of the course will focus heavily on rhetoric, rhetorical devices, a study of classical writing, and answering "what is argument and how do I write one?". The course will introduce more styles of assignments as students progress in their writing, with regular essay assignments and exam-oriented practice testing. By the end of the course, the goal is for students to not only be prepared for the AP^® test, but for collegiate level writing, research, and for beyond the academy.

Goals for Next Year: Greater student interaction with one another, one-on-one attention and instruction. In the 2023/2024 school year, we were lucky to have a small and intimate cohort of students. I like to keep classes small and focus on the personal growth and achievements of students, facilitating an environment where students feel motivated to take risks in their work and go above-and-beyond what they previously thought themselves capable of doing.

Workload: Expect weekly reading excerpts, short discussion responses, practice multiple choice questions, research, and essay writing. Students should expect weekly themed assignments, except for major writing assignments and practice testing periods.

*I do not penalize late work except in the case of major writing assignments since late draft submissions will affect my ability to give detailed commentary. It is the student's responsibility to keep up with the coursework. I am flexible with deadlines in the case of emergencies or illness if contacted via email ahead of time. Students will receive grades and feedback from myself directly. The hard deadline for grades is at the end of each semester. I will submit a grade to PA Homeschoolers at the end of each semester for transcript purposes, but information on grades is available to students and parents through Canvas at any point during the semester.

Structure: There are three major units in this course. Each unit builds off of the last, resulting in cumulative work where skills are continuously practiced. Each major unit will end with one major writing assignment which is merely a larger version of one of the three AP Language and Composition essays students will be asked to write (rhetorical analysis, argument, and synthesis) . The final week or two of the course will be spent strictly studying for the AP exam.

Meeting: Each week, there will be time set aside for students to meet with me and to discuss weekly work, readings, and questions if they choose to. There will be some dates where students will be required to meet and either discuss or debate via Zoom. Lessons are recorded and available throughout the course. For times outside of the "digital office hours," please email me and I will be more than happy to set up a time to video chat with you.

Technology: This course will use Canvas and so students must have access to the internet in order to use Canvas and complete assignments. Video calls/meetings will be made via Zoom. Students should also have access to their emails for occasional updates/information.

Required Texts:

The Elements of Style (Fourth Edition) by Strunk and White
The Elements of Rhetoric by Ryan N.S. Topping
“They Say, I Say”: The Moves That Matter (Fifth Edition) by Graff, Birkenstein, and Durst

Readings from Writing Arguments: A Rhetoric With Readings (Tenth Edition) by Ramage, Bean, and Johnson will be provided online via Canvas Other readings such as sermons, speeches, essays, narrative nonfiction, philosophy, and other material will be included in each unit.

Sample Literature for unit 1:

A Personal Odyssey by Thomas Sowell
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift
"Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat" by Winston Churchill
"Sermon on the Mount" by Jesus of Nazareth

Sample Literature for unit 2:

"Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell
Students will vote on and select two texts from a wide range of topics (such as philosophy, science, history, and more) to read within book clubs. This is to study synthesis of sources in argument and to explore different perspectives within a given discourse.

Sample Literature for unit 3:

Students will engage in rigorous guided research on topics of interest to them. They will engage with statistics, data, and studies, personal accounts, and expert opinions in order to craft well-researched writing.

Instructor Qualifications and Background:

Mrs. Reed is an English writing, literature, and composition instructor. She is a 2021 honors graduate of Rosemont College where she studied English literature, writing, Spanish language, and partook in the creative writing MFA program. She graduated in the spring of 2023 from the University of North Dakota with a Master of Arts Degree in English and a thesis on building composition curricula in addition to novel writing. While at the University of North Dakota, Mrs. Reed taught freshman writing courses in composition, business writing, and information literacy. In the past, she has worked as a writing tutor at the Harrisburg Area Community College of Lancaster and a philosophy tutor at Rosemont College. She has worked with several university literary magazines including Thorn and Woodcrest Literary Magazine. She is also an experienced tutor in English, writing, reading, and philosophy having worked with special education as well. This is her third year of teaching AP^® Language and Composition and she is excited to continue. She currently lives in North Dakota with her husband Jacob, her daughter Elowen, and two large dogs. She hopes to move somewhere warmer and publish a variety of works in progress from YA novels to cookbooks.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out using my email at alexiareed725@gmail.com.

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