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?