A.P. Literature and Composition Exam Date: 8 a.m. Wednesday, May 6, 2026
Welcome to AP Literature and Composition! If you are a human, I have good news for you: you are the perfect intelligence form to succeed in this class. While GPT-4 was incredibly successful on the AP Macroeconomics, AP Biology, and SAT Exams, it bombed the AP Literature Exam magnificently. Only you--a sentient human with a heart--can do the kind of cognition required by AP Literature. But that is not all it takes.
Follow humans, we are here to study Great Literature and to consider the myriad ways it speaks to the mind, the heart, and the soul. This class is all about the exam but also not about the exam at all. Thus, while we are here in part to prepare for an exam, we are not here to get ten extra points on our GPA or have a fancy course listed our the transcript--or at least we had better not be. Ultimately, we have to be here to love literature, because believe me, an extrinsic motive will not suffice when you are knee-deep in a forty-page swath of letters holding up the plot of a novel you thought was going to be about a cool monster.
Ultimately, we are here to be entangled with other complex minds and to take the honor of that entanglement seriously without taking ourselves too seriously.
As our most rigorous English offering, this course will demand a sharpened mind and vigorous work ethic. Developing that mindset and ethic is its own reward, but the College Board recently threw another reward our way: according to the College Board, studies begun in 2017 and released in late June of this year have found success in AP Literature to be so tightly correlated with college success that they decided to change the scoring of the Literature exam, rewarding an unprecedented number of 3s, 4s, and 5s--in fact, the number of 5s increased nearly threefold in 2022 and 2023. Their aim is to honor the extraordinary level of success that AP Literature students experience in their post-secondary education.
Thus, I hope this course will offer you both the intrinsic satisfaction that literature brings us but also the extrinsic reward of success on the exam and in future endeavors.
Your AP Literature and Composition course is built upon the framework delineated in the AP English Literature Course and Exam Description. Our specific course will unfold as a genre study in which we cycle through three poetry units, two short story units, one drama unit, and an ongoing series of novel studies.
Our literature selection balances four interrelated priorities: to honor the historical precedent of the local course, to honor the requirement of college-level rigor, to allow an uncensored and "unflinching" encounter with evidence, and to foster an open-minded approach to the histories and experiences of the rich variety of people who make up humanity (What AP Stands For).
The college essay is no more a part of the AP Literature and Composition curriculum than it is the AP Physics curriculum. Many adults in your lives are capable of providing meaningful, helpful feedback for your college essay. As such, I will not be reading your college essay unless you proactively solicit my feedback. That said, if you are sincerely interested in receiving feedback from me, I am happy to provide it.
I am available for this purpose during fourth period on odd days, or after school until 3:00 on Mondays. We usually need two 20-minute sessions. We will focus on one essay: the main essay or one of the supplements. Please email me to make an appointment.
Course texts may be presented for whole-class study, excerpted, offered as choices, or "visited" briefly. All of the selected novels have appeared as options on the A.P. Literature and Composition exam at least one time.
The Norton Anthology of Poetry: We will work our way through the Norton Anthology chronologically, stopping at key forms and periods so that you may develop the foundational knowledge that only a survey-style study of literature can build.
Sound and Sense by Laurence Perrine
contemporary selected poetry, including Amanda Gorman's new Call Us What We Carry and Clint Smith's Counting Descent
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders
Short Stories and excerpts from the likes of Richard Wright, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jorge Borgés, Kate Chopin, Kurt Vonnegut, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and more (to be adjusted as needed)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
There, There by Tommy Orange
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and/or Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Sophocles' Three Theban Plays: visit Oedipus, read the entirety of Antigone
Shakespeare's Sonnets
A 20th-Century Play, such as Fences by August Wilson Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett or Rosencrans and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
Come to class prepared to learn for learning's sake. There will be few completion points and no effort points in this course. You will need to be motivated by long-term goals like having the knowledge to succeed on summative assessments, having the skills and knowledge to succeed on the exam, having the habits to succeed in college, wanting to be able to sit on a rock by a stream and remember your favorite lines of poetry, wanting to return to a favorite classic to renew your purpose in life and, perhaps most importantly, putting your phone down and noticing that there is an unexplored world in your mind and in the mind of the friend or stranger sitting next to you.
You will be required to cultivate the skills of the independent learner by keeping a thorough and updated notebook that reflects course content and skills practice.
Attendance matters. If you miss class, you miss learning experiences that are relevant to your success on future assessments and the exam. The AP Literature exam is not just about doing more of the same reading and writing you've been doing for years--it's about reading and writing in very specific, deliberate ways that this course will hone.
Preparation matters. If you attend class without preparing, you will not be able to engage in a meaningful way. Yes, you may be able to get through class unscathed because polite society demands that your peers and teacher nod kindly while you fake your way through a response, but you will not be the better for it, and neither will we!
Academic Integrity matters. Please review and understand the Academic Integrity Guidelines.
Literature Mind Maps and/or Notebook: 20% of cumulative average.
Essay and Composition: 30% of cumulative average (Term 1 this will be slightly boosted by the completion grade for the College Essay.)
Essays will be graded with the AP Literature Rubrics for Free Response Questions 1, 2, and 3. Half points will be utilized in this class to indicate a student is approaching the next level, but they are not by College Board. 6 = 100, 5.5 = 97, 5 = 95, 4.5 = 90, 4 = 85, 3.5 = 80, 3 = 75, 2.5 = 70, 2 = 65, 1 = 50
Tests and other Knowledge-Based Assessments: 20% of cumulative average
Knowledge-Based Assessments: Content knowledge is directly and indirectly necessary to your success on the exam and will be assessed in various formats. Content knowledge includes qualities of literary periods, knowledge of historical context, names of characters and settings, literary techniques and concepts, elements of genre and form, and academic vocabulary.
Multiple-Choice Practice: 15% of cumulative average (25% or better correct = 65, 50% or better = 85, 75% or better = 100)
Dialogues and Seminars: 15% of cumulative average. A seminar is graded with this rubric and requires preparation, while a dialogue is less formal and earns you full credit for participating; for that reason, seminars will be 40-50 points while discussions will be only 10-20.
For your final exam, you will teach a lesson and lead a discussion on an academic topic of your choice.