AP Language and Composition
High School
English Language Arts
Course Description:
The AP English Language and Composition course focuses on the development and revision of evidence-based analytic and argumentative writing, the rhetorical analysis of nonfiction texts, and the decisions writers make as they compose and revise. Students evaluate, synthesize, and cite research to support their arguments. Additionally, they read and analyze rhetorical elements and their effects in nonfiction texts—including images as forms of text— from a range of disciplines and historical periods.
Semester 1
Big Ideas and Enduring Understandings
The big ideas are cross-cutting concepts that build conceptual understanding and spiral throughout the units of the course. The enduring understandings are the long-term takeaways related to the big ideas.
RHETORICAL SITUATION (RHS)
Enduring Understanding RHS-1: Individuals write within a particular situation and make strategic writing choices based on that situation.
CLAIMS AND EVIDENCE (CLE)
Enduring Understanding CLE-1: Writers make claims about subjects, rely on evidence that supports the reasoning that justifies the claim, and often acknowledge or respond to other, possibly opposing, arguments.
REASONING AND ORGANIZATION (REO)
Enduring Understanding REO-1: Writers guide understanding of a text’s lines of reasoning and claims through that text’s organization and integration of evidence.
STYLE (STL)
Enduring Understanding STL-1: The rhetorical situation informs the strategic stylistic choices that writers make.
Semester 2
Note: if the following section is blank the course is 1 semester long
Course Skills
The course skills, and their related essential knowledge statements, are the content of this course. They describe what students should know and be able to do by the end of the course.
Rhetorical Situation-Reading
Skill Category 1
Skill Category 2
Claims and Evidence Reading/Writing
Skill Category 3
Skill Category 4
Reasoning and Organization-Reading
Skill Category 5
Skill Category 6
Style-Reading
Skill Category 7
Skill Category 8