Robert T. Harrell, Instructor
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Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter
Kate Chopin The Awakening |
Ralph Ellison Invisible Man
Flannery O'Connor Mystery and Manners |
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The Course Advanced Placement English Language is taught at this school in the context of the American Literature course, as is the case in many public and private high schools throughout the United States. This means that we will be reading texts of various genres by American writers, but our attention will be quite different from other English courses. We focus on rhetorical styles and strategies. Rhetoric is the art of making effective argument, taking into account the speaker's credibility, the characteristics of the audience, and the logic employed by the speaker to make the case and move the audience from one way of thinking to another. We will, therefore, be reading a substantial number of non-fictional texts, especially essays, rhetorical analysis being our primary concern. Style is the art of choosing the right words (diction) and placing them in the right order (syntax) to serve the rhetorical purpose. In addition to diction and syntax, effective writers employ imagery and figurative language to develop weight and force in their rhetoric. Because fiction, poetry and drama also have rhetorical purposes and are stylistically rich, we will read and study literary texts. As with the non-fiction, our primary concern will always be rhetorical and stylistic analysis. Does this suggest that we are not concerned with literary interpretation? Certainly not! The difference between rhetorical and stylistic analysis on the one hand and literary interpretation on the other has to do with prioritizing our tasks. Before we explore literary meaning, we must read the text at a level and in such a way that we penetrate as deeply as possible how the writer's style has shaped the message. It will mean that we examine the words, the phrases, the clauses, the logic, the audience, and the writer's own persona to see as clearly as possible just what is going on in a piece of writing before we suggest possibilities of literary interpretation. Thus the AP English Language course requires a very disciplined way of reading that studies the language in its complex context. Everything we read, non-fiction and |
fiction alike, requires rhetorical readers to ask the following questions: • Who is writing (or speaking), and what makes this voice one that I should pay attention to? • What does the audience already know? What does the writer know about the audience that shapes the rhetorical strategy? • What change in thought and/or action does the writer seek to bring about in the hearers? How does this writer make sense to the intended readers, and does it make sense to me? • How does the writer make the ideas accessible and forceful through the linguistic choices? AP English Language will require us to become effective readers who are deeply sensitive to the nuances of the language, looking for the writer's use of style to make key elements of the discussion unmistakably clear. We will also have to understand ourselves as an "audience" as we read material originally written for audiences different than we are. We must ask: how does the writer's style and logic work (or not work) for us? Various magazines that we can access online, such as The New Yorker, The Economist, National Review, The New Republic and First Things (note the wide range of perspectives reflected in these titles!) will provide for us a rich variety of non-literary and literary writings to study and reflect on alongside the traditional texts from the American literary canon. We will identify, explore and respond to the variety of perspectives and voices shaping contemporary discourse. A great deal of information comes to us through images in various forms, especially in journalistic photography, advertising and cartoons. Visual information is heavily coded, making assumptions about how we see and how our response is shaped by content and composition of pictures. Often there is language included with the images we see, but an image governs how we will understand the words associated |
with it.
In other words, image makers have rhetorical purpose and use deliberate
strategy to convey meaning to specific audiences. The creators of images
seek to shape our thinking, just as writers do. We will examine pictures
at various stages of the course, assessing their rhetorical composition
and strategy and the success or failure of that strategy. This should
make us more careful viewers using the same tools that make us more
careful readers.
So far I have addressed only the reading aspect of the course. From the kind of reading described above, we will work on learning to write effective rhetoric. You will be asked to examine your own and your peers' essays along the same lines that you examine the texts that we study. Your own work will become the subject of rhetorical and stylistic scrutiny such that you will be able to write about things that matter to you with clarity and force. You will develop "a voice of your own." Think of the writing aspects of this course along the same lines as the reading. The rhetorical and literary authors we study will in effect become our writing mentors. They will show us how to form good thinking habits and urge us toward a higher level of proficiency. I am certain that this course will change our way of thinking and our power of communicating. My goal is that every one of us becomes "a force to be reckoned with." You already have enough experience to know that becoming a good rhetorical reader and writer will put you in the minority in our world of shallow discourse and sound byte politics. Imagine yourself as one of those who can cut through the nonsense and whose words (written and spoken) carry the weight of strong argumentation and powerful, engaging style. This is a worthy goal, and I urge you to engage the challenge with resolve. If you will rise to this challenge, you will be prepared to tackle the AP English Language Examination in late Spring 2009. I look forward to learning with you as we reach toward that goal. Bert Harrell August 2008 |
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Assignments Click on the file to open a PDF download Assignment: April 20, 2009 to end of semester PDF Download
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Writing Assignments (Click hyperlinks to open or download) Essay on The Scarlet Letter due May 11 A short essay will be assigned soon. Please stand by. |
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Writing Resources Web site: Clauses and Phrases Web site: Sentence Types Comprehensive Website for Writing: The Writer's Resource Lab |
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