Course Catalog - Oswego Community Unit School District 308

English 3 AP Language & Composition - 1 credit, weighted (2 semesters)
GRADUATION REQUIREMENT
Prerequisite: English 2 (any level); students must demonstrate strong writing and critical thinking skills. Summer reading
includes Confederates in the Attic, The Crucible, The Great Gatsby, and either The Catcher in the Rye or Old
Man in the Sea (teacher preference). Summer reading of reputable newspapers and newsmagazines to
develop familiarity with current affairs, thought, and style is recommended.
Grade Level: 11
Lab Fee: Cost of paperback books
Skill Focus: W R L RL RI SL
In this companion course to Advanced Placement Literature and Composition, students will read and respond skillfully to prose non-fiction
written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts. Students analyze themes and writing techniques used in selected works
of American literature ranging from Native American works to the more contemporary as they further develop sensitivity to language and
ideas and increase their ability to mirror these writers' rhetorical choices in their own writing. Students will analyze the historical, cultural,
social, political, religious, psychological, and philosophical influences on writers and their works. Students write in a variety of expository
and argumentative forms for multiple purposes. Students develop an awareness of their thinking and writing skills, voice, style, and
strategies. Writings are developed within the suggested framework of the Advanced Placement Program of the College Entrance
Examination Board. In addition, skills assessed on the PSAE (Prairie State Achievement Exam) are practiced in both a timed and no-timed
environment. Further building on skills obtained in Accelerated English 2 Honors, students will complete a more extensive and complex
research project, incorporating valid sources, cited according to MLA format. Students will purchase paperback copies of major texts in
which to practice annotation. Submission of essays and major projects is required to pass the course.
NOTE: While this course is open to any student wishing to enroll in it, students who have been in the Accelerated Honors program will be
the most prepared for this course as it is in the next in course sequencing at this level. This course fulfills the English 3 requirement for
Accelerated Honors students. Those students wishing not to enroll in AP Language may enroll in Honors English 3. As this course is part
of the English 3 American Literature study, students who wish to take AP Language should do so as juniors so as to not duplicate the
American Literature study.