| Course Description |  |  | | Old Town, Prague, Czech Republic |
The Advanced Placement English course in Literature and Composition
engages students in the careful reading and critical analysis of
imaginative literature. Through the close reading of selected
texts, students should deepen their understanding of the ways writers
use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their
readers. As they read, students should consider a work’s
structure, style, and themes as well as such smaller-scale elements as
the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone.
The course includes an intensive study of representative works
from various genres and periods, concentrating on works of recognized
literary merit. The works chosen invite and gratify rereading,
and not, like ephemeral works in such popular genres as detective or
romance fiction, yield all (or nearly all) of their pleasures of
thought and feeling the first time through.
Reading in an AP course should be both wide and deep. Students
will read works from several genres and periods—from the sixteenth
century to the twentieth century—but, most importantly, they should get
to know a few works well. Students should read deliberately and
thoroughly, taking time to understand a work’s complexity, to absorb
its richness of meaning, and to analyze how that meaning is embodied in
literary form. In addition to considering a work’s literary
artistry, students should consider the social and historical values it
reflects and embodies. Careful attention to both textual detail
and historical context should provide a foundation for interpretation,
whatever critical perspectives are brought to bear on the literary
works studied.
Writing is also an integral
part of the AP English Literature and Composition course, for the AP
Examination is weighted toward student writing about literature.
Writing assignments will focus on the critical analysis of literature
and will include expository, analytical, and argumentative
essays. Although critical analysis will make up the bulk of
student writing for the course, creative writing assignments may help
students see from the inside how literature is written. Such
experiences will sharpen student’s understanding of what writers have
accomplished and deepen appreciation of literary artistry. The
goal of both types of writing assignments is to increase student’s
ability to explain clearly, cogently, even elegantly, what they
understand about literary works and why they interpret them as they do.
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