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Ms. Blackwill's Webpage
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Contact Information
Email Address : hblackwill<at>ccscambridge<dot>org
Phone / Extension : x 520
Course 1: English Language and Composition- Advanced Placement
This AP course in English Language and Composition will engage students in becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts, and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes. Both their writing and their reading should make students aware of the interactions among a writer’s purposes, audience expectations, and subjects as well as the way generic conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing. This college level course provides students with opportunities to write about a variety of subjects and to demonstrate an awareness of audience and purpose. It will enable students to write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives. Therefore, this composition course will emphasize the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication, as well as the personal and reflective writing that fosters the development of writing facility in any context. In addition, this course will teach students that the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing they must do in college is based on reading, not solely on personal experience and observation, and will therefore teach students to read primary and secondary sources carefully, to synthesize material from these texts in their own compositions, and to cite sources using conventions recommended by professional organizations such as the Modern Language Association (MLA), the University of Chicago Press (The Chicago Manual of Style), and the American Psychological Association (APA).
As a college level course, students will be expected to move at a rapid pace and be self motivated. That said, the teacher will certainly be available for extra help should a student feel the need for it. This course culminates in an exam. If a student does well on this test, he or she may qualify for one college class credit and/or may earn exemption from a freshman writing course.
(Adapted from the description found at: http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/ap/students/english/ap-english-0607.pdf)
Course 2: English Language and Composition
This college prep course will instruct students in writing skills for a variety of purposes as well as skills in reading prose from a variety of time periods and genres. The class will focus on writing, specifically the formation of argument throughout a piece of writing, taking into consideration the purpose of the piece and the audience for whom it is written. Students will also continue to practice analytical writing in which they will be expected to comment upon and analyze a piece or group of pieces that they have read and discussed in class. Additionally, students will be expected to work on their personal and reflective writings through the form of a college application essay and a short memoir. Readings will be used to teach and support writing, and as such are an important aspect of the course.
As an upper level English course designed to prepare students for college, students will be required to work diligently and consistently and should expect to stretch themselves throughout the duration of the course. However, students are, as always, welcome to come for extra help if they should feel the need to do so.
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