1. AP Composition Templates
introductory paragraphs

2. Starter words and phrases SamplesIF
ALTHOUGH
UNLESS
IN (name of novel, play, or poem)
DESPITE
CONTRARY TO
THE CONTRAST OF

3. ALWAYS use a comma after an introductory phrase or clause.

4. Include the title of the work within the first two or three lines.

5. Examples Write a statement that needs proof.
IF the speaker of this passage understood his own assumptions about ______, a reader could consider his words brave instead of cowardly.
ALTHOUGH most people think of disease as disaster, the speaker of this (poem or passage) has found gifts of wisdom and comfort within the suffering of her mother.
UNLESS rejection and hurt have turned a person into a cynic about love, the joyful celebration of the positive and negative experiences of love affirms the value of taking a risk to fall in love
IN (title of poem, play, or novel), the speaker admits that no man likes work but does like what is in work: the chance to find the self.

6. Examples
CONTRARY TO the reader’s expectations, Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice is much more than a marriage plot because of the satire that critiques many social and financial aspects of the time.
THE CONTRAST OF Poe’s poem “To Helen” with H.D.’s “Helen” resembles the difference between an ornamental Corinthian temple and the ruins of that temple.