page contents

Bayonne High School

Advanced Placement English Language and Composition

Mr. Lombari

[email protected]

 

English Language and Composition Course Description:

 

[The] AP course in English Language and Composition engages students in becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of 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 genre conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing. (English Language and Composition Course Description, 9)

 

The course will delve into the nuances of language and argument, paying particularly close attention to rhetoric. Reading materials will be rigorous, and the course load will be equivalent to a college-level course. American History and Literature will provide “lenses” with which we will identify and analyze the disparate pieces of language as craft.

 

Absences and Makeup Work:

  • Two ways to find out about missed assignments: check our district web page at www.bboed.org, and find a reliable fellow student whom you can contact and will give you the missing assignment information.
  • If you are absent the day before an assessment is scheduled, you are still required to complete the assessment the day you return. If the assessment is related to the previous night’s reading you may make it up. Students are required to schedule an appropriate make up time within a week of the missed assessment.
  • Incomplete assessments will result in no credit.

Plagiarism:

  • If any phrase or sentence from your essay is directly copied from a website, book, or other source without an MLA-formatted citation, you have plagiarized.
  • Quotations and citations must be formatted according to MLA guidelines.
  • Plagiarism is inexcusable, and Bayonne High School’s plagiarism policy will be strictly enforced.

Cutting:

  • When you choose to cut class you receive no credit for classwork or participation for that session. No make-up work will be accepted for cut sessions.

Drills:

  • Fire Drill: we leave the classroom via the emergency route posted on the classroom bulletin board. Attendance will be taken.
  • Lockdown Drill: all windows and doors will be closed; students must move away from the door, sit, and be silent.

Extra Help:

  • Tutorial periods will be available during periods 0, 4, 5, and 6. Rooms and teacher names will be announced.
  • Mr. Lombari will be available for extra help most, but not all, mornings in room 6-247. Students are encouraged to make an appointment.

Grading:

  • Departmental Grading Policy:

❖      60% papers, tests, and projects

❖      40% homework and classwork (including quizzes, notebook checks, and participation)

Cell Phones:

  • As wondrous a technological device as it is, the cell phone inherently causes distraction. Before entering the classroom, all cell phones must be silenced and put away. Cell phones may only be used when related to a lesson and after receiving instructor permission. The same rules apply to smart watches, tablets, and headphones in all their forms.

 

Course Work (includes but is not limited to):

  • Sophie’s World (summer assignment)
  • The Language of Composition (course textbook)
  • The Sun Also Rises
  • The Great Gatsby
  • The Grapes of Wrath
  • The Things They Carried
  • No Country for Old Men
  • Various non-fiction works (speeches, articles, literary non-fiction, scholarly journals, etc.)
  • Poetry
  • A comprehensive research paper at least 7 pages in length (explicit instructions will be delivered in class)
  • Various writing assignments
  • 5-minute speech presentations
  • Debates
    • Students are expected to be well-versed in current events
  • Vocabulary assignments

 

Late Work:

  • A late assignment cannot receive a grade higher than a 70.  If an assignment is a week late it will receive no credit.

 

Materials Needed:

  • Several blue or black pens
  • A pencil for Scantron tests
  • 3 highlighters (yellow, orange, blue)
  • A binder with white lined paper
  • A marble or spiral-bound one-subject notebook for vocabulary entries
  • AP Test-prep book (provided, though it is strongly recommended students purchase their own)
  • The Language of Composition (provided)
  • You must have access to a dictionary (or online dictionary)
  • All students should have a Bayonne Public Library card (it’s free)
  • Student Chromebooks

❖      Bring these materials to class every day unless told otherwise

Notes:

  • You are expected to take notes and organize handouts in your binder each day.

 

 

By signing this document, I acknowledge and agree to adhere to the aforementioned procedures.

 

Student Name (print): _________________________________

Student Signature:      _________________________________

Parent Name (print):  _________________________________

Parent Signature:        _________________________________

Date:                           ______________