This course will cover a challenging curriculum based on the practices of rhetorical analysis, argument, and exposition. The main textbook is The Language of Composition 3rd Edition, supplemented by collections of essays found in Quarterly Course Readers as well as some fictional and nonfictional choices for the year. The class will read, analyze, and describe essays, articles, journal entries, declarations, decisions and speeches and discover in them, and through students’ own work and process, the principles of the craft of composition. Students will learn and have their performance assessed in a wide variety of genres ranging from relatively casual narratives based on feelings and personal experience to formal research reports. Through arguments adhering to rigorous standards of proof, students will deliberate on matters of public policy and aspects of popular culture. Instruction and assignments will act as a coordinated sequence throughout the year to provide students with appropriate levels of feedback, assessment, and challenge in order to develop their skills fully in time for the AP exam. Each extended literacy task required will involve the student in a structured process of revision with several stages, peer and teacher feedback, and explicit standards and expectations oriented towards measurable outcomes. Prerequisite: Formal Assessment for placement