What's the difference between AP Lang and Lit?

One of the questions we get most in the English department is "what's the difference between AP English Literature and Composition and AP English Language and Composition?

The short answer is that AP Lit focuses mainly on analyzing fiction and drama, and that AP Lang focuses mainly on analyzing non-fiction and on making effective arguments.

A slightly longer answer is that AP English Literature is essentially a survey course of British literature.  The focus is on reading notable works of British (and European) fiction, drama, and poetry. Of the two AP English courses, this is the one that is the most like "regular" English class. Students read fiction, poetry, and drama and analyze it for meaning.  In the class you will read works by Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, Mary Shelley, and many other significant British authors. Writing will be a major part of the course and will focus on literary analysis/explication of themes, characters, etc. The summer reading list for AP Lit (from 2012-2013) can be viewed here.

AP English Language is very different from AP Lit and from other English classes you may have taken. It's primarily a rhetoric class, which means that students study the ways in which language is used to persuade. As I mentioned before, the reading is mostly non-fiction with a few fiction works sprinkled in. Students read famous literary non-fiction (non-fiction but not like a textbook) works such as Utopia, The Prince, and Silent Spring, as well as numerous short essays and other literary non-fiction writings. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett are two of the major fiction works that will be covered. As with AP Lit, writing will be a big part of the experience, but it will be a different type of writing. Students will focus on analyzing persuasive essays by famous authors and determining the meaning as well as the methods (form & content) behind the author's persuasion. In addition students will write argumentation essays about topics that are a currently a part of the larger national discussion. The summer reading list for AP Lang (from 2012-2013) can be viewed here.

The even longer answer comes in when you ask about the AP English exams and what the difference is between the AP English exams and the exams for almost every other subject?

The answer to that question is this--the AP English exams (Lit or Lang) differ from almost all of the other major exam topics because they focus on process not product.  What "process" means is that the exams focus on the student's ability to use the reading and writing "process" to analyze (and write critically about) works of literature that he or she has never seen before.  Literally no one other than the test makers know what writings are going to be on the AP English exams before they come out.  AP English courses are not given a specific list of works of literature that they need to cover.  The College Board in both cases essentially says we should cover literature from the 1500s to the present, and that's a lot of literature.

Because of this huge range of potential subjects, it's next to impossible to find any two AP English curricula that are exactly the same anywhere in the country or that focus on exactly the same works of literature.  It's not like calculus or physics or history where the instructor largely knows they need to get from concept A to concept Z by the end of the year, and that lack of certainty can cause some students (and teachers) anxiety.

But I choose to focus more on the positive side of that uncertainty.  The breadth of the potential topic matter frees the AP English student from the pressure of having to cover a set amount of content in time for the AP exam in May, and instead the AP English student can concentrate on a deeper understanding of the content presented and the skills necessary to successfully read and interpret literature.

This reduction in pressure, however, should not imply a lackadaisical or non-Advanced Placement mindset toward the work.  This is ENGLISH after all, the lingua franca of the world, and we study only a small fraction of some of its greatest works in both AP Lit and AP Lang.  And AP being a "college level" class means we study those works with an eye for detail and an intensity that rises above the typical honors level English classroom.  The focus is on quality over quantity but the quantity is still significant.  The aim is for you to look back at the end of both AP Lit and AP Lang and be impressed with yourself and with how much literature you have read and discussed and with how much erudite writing you have produced.