AP® English Literature and Composition—Semester A

This course has been approved by the College Board, which indicates that the syllabus "has demonstrated that it meets or exceeds the curricular expectations colleges and universities have for your subject." Please contact sales@shmoop.com if you would like to add this course to your official record of AP course offerings.

It has also been granted a-g certification, which means it has met the rigorous iNACOL Standards for Quality Online Courses and will now be honored as part of the requirements for admission into the University of California system.

We're gonna be honest: taking Shmoop's AP® English Literature and Composition course isn't exactly a bag-lunch picnic in the park. It's more like dinner at a five-star restaurant with a spectacular view, live entertainment (tasteful, of course), and an impressive guest list.

Mouth watering, yes—but it doesn't come cheap. You can expect to put in some hard work while you rub elbows with the classics, discourse brilliantly about nuances of style, tone, or genre, and weigh in on loads of literary masterpieces.

From literary giants like Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, and Langston Hughes to lesser-read members of the canon like Jamaica Kincaid, May-lee Chai, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil; this course is the literary equivalent of Bill &Ted's Excellent Adventure minus the low IQs. It will transform you from a good reader into a great one and help you hone your writing skills.

Through intros, readings, activities, and more practice than you could shake a 700-page tome at, you will

• move with relative ease (and minimal grumbling) between literary texts of varying genres (poetry, fiction, and drama).
• read with fluency texts across several centuries. Yep—grab the Dramamine and get ready to do some time traveling.
• become a resident expert on literary analysis. Just don't expect a big paycheck.
• recognize that literature does not exist in a vacuum—history, politics, social and cultural values all impact a text like whoa.
• practice and hone different kinds of writing: writing to understand, writing to explain, and writing to evaluate.
• develop a literary vocabulary and use it.
• understand and explain how an author's choice of genre can contribute to, impact, or inform a text.
• handle multiple-choice questions about a text's literary qualities, meaning and purpose, point of view, style, diction and syntax…under timed conditions.
• produce strong and clearly written analytical essays at the drop of a hat—with no advance warning and under severe time restrictions.

In short, you'll get to spend two glorious semesters among some of the greatest literary minds that have ever existed. Not too shabby.

P.S. This is a two-semester course. You're looking at Semester A; you can find Semester B here.

Unit Breakdown