Advanced Placement (AP) English Literature and Composition

Advanced Placement or AP courses are meant to prepare high school students for rigorous college coursework.  The nationally prepared and scored AP exams are designed to measure a student's proficiency in the subject area.  As a result, many colleges award credit in English for good scores on the AP English Literature and Composition exam.  While practice exams and test preparation are part of the course, the focus is on developing the skills needed for success on the test and in college.

 

AP English course in Literature and Composition engages students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature.  Through the close reading of selected texts, students deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers.  As they read, students 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.

 

In short, students in an AP English Literature and Composition course read actively.  The works taught in the course require careful deliberative reading.  The approach  to analyzing and interpreting the material involves students in learning how to make careful observations of textual detail, establish connections among their observations, and draw from those connections a series of inferences leading to an interpretive conclusion about a piece of writing's meaning and value.  

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