AP English Literature and Composition

AP English Literature and Composition

This course prepares students for the AP Literature Examination in May and provides the equivalent of a freshman college course. This course is run like a seminar and active class participation is expected.

Students should be interested in stories and why we tell them; they should be prepared to consider the purposes of storytelling. This is a theme that will be explored throughout the year.

Students are required to read closely and actively, participate fully in class, write and revise papers frequently, prepare for the AP exam, and reflect on their progress. Student writings include quarterly “personal thoughts” that are presented to the class, informal reflections on the literature in class and on our classroom blog, literary analysis compositions, and, occasionally, other creative writings. Student writing is assessed using either the AP rubrics for a chosen prompt or a teacher-created assignment-specific rubric or the school writing rubric. Generally, vocabulary will generally be inquiry-based. Students will keep an individual vocabulary notebook as the read the texts in class, noting words they don’t know and looking them up to help them better understand the reading. For certain texts - Heart of Darkness and the 19th century novel - students will be assigned and will be responsible for specific vocabulary words from the texts. Students will also be given feedback specific to diction choices on their writing assignments.

Please note: Students who take the AP Literature class are required to take either College Board’s AP Literature and Composition Exam in May or the SHS version of the same. If you take the SHS version, your score on this exam will count as your final exam. Final exams in senior AP classes are worth 15 % of your grade.

For exam information: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition/exam?course=ap-english-literature-and-composition