AP English Language and Composition

Term: Year

Prerequisites: Completion of English II

Credit: 1

Fee: Cost of required AP exam and paperbacks

Grade: 11, 12

The goals of an AP English Language and Composition course are diverse because the college composition course is

one of the most varied in the curriculum. Although the college course provides students with opportunities to write about

a variety of subjects from a variety of disciplines and to demonstrate an awareness of audience and purpose, the

overarching objective in most first-year writing courses is to enable students to write effectively and confidently in their

college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives. Most composition courses emphasize

the expository, analytical and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication,

as well as the personal and reflective writing that fosters the development of writing facility in any context. In addition,

most composition courses teach students that the expository, analytical and argumentative writing they must do in college

is based on reading as well as on personal experience and observation. Composition courses, therefore, teach students

to read primary and secondary sources carefully, to synthesize material from these texts in their own compositions, and

to cite sources using conventions recommended by professional organizations such as the Modern Language

Association (MLA), the University of Chicago Press (The Chicago Manual of Style), the American Psychological

Association (APA) and the Council of Biology Editors (CBE).