AP Literature and Composition Overview Mr. Lott 5-213

AP Literature Course Details The AP English Literature and Composition course is designed to help you engage in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of selected texts, you can deepen your understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. In the course, you’ll learn to 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. - College Board Website

Reading in AP Literature “The AP English Literature and Composition course is intended to give you the experience of a typical introductory-level literary analysis course in college. The course includes intensive study of representative works from various genres, periods, and cultures, concentrating on works of recognized literary merit. Reading in the course builds on the reading done in your previous English courses. Although the course will cover several literary texts, you will also have the opportunity to get to know a few works well. In the course, you will learn to 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, you will also learn to consider the social and historical values it reflects and embodies. Careful attention to both textual detail and historical context provides a foundation for interpretation of the text.” - College Board Website

Writing in AP Literature “The close reading described above involves the experience, interpretation, and evaluation of literature. All these aspects of reading are important in the AP English Literature and Composition course, and each corresponds to an approach to writing about literary works. Writing to understand a literary work may involve writing response and reaction papers along with annotation, freewriting, and keeping some form of a reading journal. Writing to explain a literary work involves analysis and interpretation and may include writing brief, focused analyses on aspects of language and structure. Writing to evaluate a literary work involves making and explaining judgments about its artistry and exploring its underlying social and cultural values through analysis, interpretation, and argument.” - College Board Website

Writing in AP Literature “Writing is an integral part of the AP English Literature and Composition course and of the AP Exam. Writing assignments in the course will address the critical analysis of literature and will include expository, analytical, and argumentative essays. In addition to the critical analyses you will write, creative-writing assignments will help you see from the inside how literature is written. The goal of both types of writing assignments is to increase your ability to explain clearly, cogently, and even elegantly what you understand about literary works and how you interpret them.” - College Board Website

AP Literature Texts How To Read Literature Like A Professor – Summer Reading The Big Sleep – Summer Reading Hamlet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Pride and Prejudice The Importance of Being Earnest Wuthering Heights Tess of the d’Urbervilles Pygmalion

AP Literature Texts The selected texts for AP Literature provide a basis for the Exam in May, but also a solid foundation for upper level college courses. These are core pieces of literature which are frequently taught in college settings.

Previously Taught Works The works that you have already studied in your English classes provide the foundation for AP Literature. Core pieces such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, Odyssey, Iliad, Ethan Frome, Julius Caesar, and others will be very important building blocks for what you read later. Poetry will also be studied.

Parts of AP Lit. Exam Multiple choice: approx. 55 questions in 1 hour – 45 percent of your grade 3 essays in 2 hours with no time limits on individual essays – 55 percent of your grade

College Credit for AP Classes As of 2012 there were 3,026 4-year postgraduate degree- granting institutions in the United States – U. S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences Website More than 90 percent of four-year colleges and universities in the United States grant students credit, placement or both on the basis of successful AP Exam scores. Universities in more than 60 countries recognize AP Exam scores in the admission process and/or award credit and placement for qualifying scores. – National Center on Education and the Economy Website AICE credit is awarded at 470 institutions (15.5 percent) – Park Vista Website PowerPoint Presentation

University of Florida Credit Policy English Lit. & Comp. score of 3 = 3 college credit hours and replaces AML 2070 English Literature & Composition score of 4 or 5 = 6 college credit hours and replaces AML 2070 and LIT 2120

Florida State University Credit Policy English Lit. & Comp. score of 3 = 3 college credit hours and replaces ENC 1101 or LIT 1005 English Literature & Composition score of 4 or 5 = 6 college credit hours and replaces two of the following courses: ENC 1101, ENC 1102, or LIT 1005

College Board Website This is the link to check how many credits a university gives for AP Literature and Composition: itpolicy/index.jsp itpolicy/index.jsp You can also just Google – AP College Credit

Importance of AP Literature A 2008 study found that students who took AP Literature and Composition had a 62 percent higher four year graduation rate than students who took other English courses in high school. – “College Outcomes Comparisons by AP and Non-AP High School Experiences”

Importance of AP Literature “Readers of the AP Literature and Composition Exam (mainly college professors) continue to believe that close readings of works in AP classes are the single best preparation for success not only on the AP Exam generally, but also in college course work.” - Susan Strehle of Binghamton University, the State University of New York at Binghamton, College Board’s Chief Reader

Reasons for Choosing AP Classes “One of the best standard predictors of academic success at Harvard is performance on Advanced Placement Examinations.” -William R. Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Harvard University “Students who have prepared for and taken the AP Exams more easily adapt to taking college essay exams, and are especially skilled in including a thesis and a well-developed argument. They are also less intimidated by sophisticated, college-level multiple- choice questions that seek to test understanding over memorization.” - Robert Blackey, Professor of History, California State University: San Bernardino

Questions? You may any questions regarding AP Literature and Composition to