“An AP English Literature and Composition course 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 smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone” (The College Board).
The primary goal of this course is to provide you with literature experiences that are both wide and deep and that represent various genre and literary time periods. We will study literature primarily through the lens of certain types of criticism. The class is organized into broad categories that generally deal with identity; people’s place in the world and in literature; and their relationships with their children, their spouses, and with societal expectations. While the subject matter is focused, it will serve as a vehicle through which to gain a better understanding of literary terminology and analysis; intensive academic scholarship; personal connections with literature; how literature both reflects and shapes our lives as well as the lives of those who came before us; and how literature may predict and shape the future. The secondary goal is to help you improve your writing skills, especially as they pertain to the analysis of literature.