Literature & Composition

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Authors

Renee Shea

Renée H. Shea was professor of English and Modern Languages and director of freshman composition at Bowie State University in Maryland, where she taught graduate seminars in rhetoric. A College Board faculty consultant for more than thirty years in AP® Language and Literature, and Pre-AP® English, she has been a reader and question leader for both AP® English exams. Renée served as a member on many committees for the College Board, including the AP® Language and Composition Development Committee, the English Academic Advisory Committee, and the SAT Critical Reading Test Development Committee. She is co-author of Literature & Composition, American Literature & Rhetoric, Conversations in American Literature, Advanced Language & Literature, and Foundations of Language & Literature, as well as volumes on Amy Tan and Zora Neale Hurston for the NCTE High School Literature Series. Renée continues to write about contemporary authors for publications such as World Literature Today, Poets & Writers, and Kenyon Review. Her recent publications focused on Celeste Ng, Imbolo Mbue, Namwali Serpell, Manuel Muñoz, and Ohio’s 2020–2025 poet laureate, Kari Gunter-Seymour.

Robin Aufses

Robin Dissin Aufses is director of English Studies at Lycée Français de New York, where she teaches AP® English Language and Composition. Previous to this position, Robin was the English department chair and a teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, New York, and prior to that she taught English at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, New York. She taught AP® English Literature and AP® English Language at both schools. She is co-author of Literature & Composition, American Literature & Rhetoric, and Conversations in American Literature and has published articles for the College Board on novelist Chang-rae Lee and the novel All the King’s Men.

Lawrence Scanlon

Lawrence Scanlon taught at Brewster High School for more than thirty years and then for another ten years at Iona College in New York. For twenty-five years, he was a Reader and Question Leader for the AP® Language and Composition Exam. As a College Board consultant over that same period of time, he has conducted AP® workshops in both AP® English Language and AP® English Literature throughout the United States and in South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He has also provided professional development as a private consultant for many school districts. He served on the PSAT Review Committee and the AP® English Language Test Development Committee. Larry is co-author of Literature & Composition, American Literature & Rhetoric, and Conversations in American Literature and has published articles on curriculum and method for the College Board and elsewhere.

Katherine Cordes

Katherine E. Cordes is a National Board Certified English teacher with a BA in English, psychology, and medieval studies; an MEd in curriculum and instruction; and an MFA in poetry. She has more than twenty years of experience in the secondary English Language Arts classroom and currently teaches AP Seminar®/Honors English 10 and AP® English Literature at Skyview High School in Billings, Montana, where she has also taught dual enrollment college writing and AP® English Language. As part of the College Board’s Instructional Design Team, Katherine contributed to the development, review, and dissemination of the 2019 AP® English Literature Course and Exam Description, and she has been an AP® Reader for the AP® English Literature and AP® Seminar Exams. She is a co-author of Literature & Composition and The Language of Composition.

Carlos Escobar

Carlos Escobar teaches tenth-grade English and AP® English Literature and Composition at Felix Varela Senior High School in Miami, Florida, where he is also the AP® Program Director. Carlos has been the College Board Advisor for AP® English Literature, an AP® Reader, a presenter at local and national AP® workshops and conferences, and a member of the AP® English Literature and AP® African American Studies Test Development Committees. As part of the College Board’s Instructional Design Team, he contributed to the development, review, and dissemination of the 2019 AP® English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description. Carlos designed and delivered daily live YouTube lessons streamed globally by the College Board and was the Lead Instructor for AP® Daily, the College Board’s skill-based, on-demand video series accessed through AP® Classroom. He is also a co-author of Bedford, Freeman & Worth’s The Language of Composition and Literature & Composition.

Carol Jago

Carol Jago has taught English in middle and high school for thirty-two years and directs the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA. She is a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English. Jago served as AP Literature content advisor for the College Board and now serves on their English Academic Advisory committee. She has published six books with Heinemann, including With Rigor for All and Papers, Papers, Papers. She has also published four books on contemporary multicultural authors for NCTE’s High School Literature series. Carol was an education columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and her essays have appeared in English Journal, Language Arts, NEA Today, as well as in other newspapers across the nation. She edits the journal of the California Association of Teachers of English, California English, and served on the planning committee for the 2009 NAEP Reading Framework and the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework.

1 | Analyzing Short Fiction
SECTION 1
     Edward P. Jones, The First Day
Elements of Fiction
     Character
          Character Development
     Activity: Analyzing Character
          James Welch, from Fools Crow
     Setting
     Activity: Analyzing Setting
          Khaled Hosseini, from The Kite Runner
     Plot
     Activity: Analyzing Plot
     Narrative Perspective and Point of View
          First-Person Point of View
          Second-Person Point of View
          Italo Calvino, from If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
          Third-Person Point of View
          Katherine Mansfield, from Miss Brill
          Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice
     Activity: Analyzing Narrative Perspective and Point of View
          Louise Erdrich, from The Round House
Putting It All Together: Interpreting Major Elements of Fiction
Culminating Activity | Section 1
Interpreting Short Fiction: Defending a Claim with Evidence
     Lydia Davis, Blind Date

SECTION 2
          Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, from Americanah
Close Reading: Analyzing Literary Elements and Techniques
          Willa Cather, from My Antonia
          Diction
          Activity: Analyzing Diction
          F. Scott Fitzgerald, from The Great Gatsby

Figurative Language
     Imagery
     Activity: Analyzing Figurative Language
          Lan Cao, from Monkey Bridge
     Syntax
     Activity: Analyzing Syntax
          Tommy Orange, from There There
          Tone and Mood
          Charles Dickens, from Bleak House
     Activity: Connecting Literary Elements and Techniques with Tone and Mood
          Zora Neale Hurston, from Their Eyes Were Watching God
From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
     Jamaica Kincaid, Girl
     Preparing to Write: Annotating Short Fiction
     Activity: Annotating Short Fiction
     Developing a Thesis Statement
     Supporting Your Thesis
          Writing Topic Sentences
          Developing Claims with Evidence from the Text
     Activity: Writing a Body Paragraph
     Revising an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
     Analyzing a Sample AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
          Selin Selcucker, “Girl”
     Activity: Providing Peer Feedback for Revision
Culminating Activity | Section 2
Crafting an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
          Edith Wharton, from The House of Mirth

SECTION 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis
     Analyzing Complexities and Tensions within a Text
     Qualifying Your Argument
Culminating Activity | Section 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay

2 | Analyzing Poetry
SECTION 1
Reading for Literal Meaning
          Seamus Heaney, Digging
Activity: Reading a Poem for Literal Meaning
          Christina Rossetti, Promises like Pie Crust
Considering the Speaker: Analyzing Contrasts
     Diction
     Juxtaposition, Antithesis, and Paradox
     Shifts
     Activity: Analyzing Contrasts
          Lucille Clifton, Poem to My Yellow Coat
     Tone and Mood
     Irony
Activity: Analyzing Tone and Mood
          Elizabeth Barrett Browning, My Heart and I
Reading for Detail
     A. E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young
     Figurative Language
          Symbol
          Imagery
Activity: Connecting Figurative Language to Meaning
     Peggy Robles-Alvarado, When I Became La Promesa
     Structure
          Poetic Syntax
          Meter
          Form
Activity: Connecting Form to Meaning
     Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, Sonnet
          Sound
          Rhyme
Activity: Connecting Sound to Meaning
     Marilyn Nelson, The Century Quilt
Putting it All Together: Connecting Poetic Elements of Style to Meaning
     Robert Herrick, Delight in Disorder
Culminating Activity | Section 1
Interpreting Major Elements of Poetry
Paisley Rekdal, Happiness

SECTION 2
From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay
     Maxine Kumin, Woodchucks
     Preparing to Write: Creating a Graphic Organizer
     Activity: Preparing to Write about Poetry
          Major Jackson, Mighty Pawns
     Developing a Thesis Statement
     Supporting Your Thesis
          Writing Topic Sentences
          Developing Claims with Evidence from the Text
          Documenting Sources
     Activity: Writing a Body Paragraph
     Revising an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay
     Analyzing a Sample AP® Poetry Analysis Essay
          Alyssa Pierangeli, “A Fall from Grace”
     Activity: Providing Peer Feedback for Revision
Culminating Activity | Section 2
Crafting an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay
     Major Jackson, Mighty Pawns

SECTION 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Poetry Analysis
     Situating Your Interpretation in a Broader Context
     Qualifying Your Argument
Culminating Activity | Section 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Poetry Analysis

3 | Analyzing Longer Fiction and Drama
SECTION 1
Literary Elements of Longer Fiction and Drama
     Character
     George Bernard Shaw, from Pygmalion
     William Shakespeare, from Richard III
     Activity: Analyzing Character in Longer Fiction and Drama
     Setting
          Henrik Ibsen, from A Doll’s House
          Historical Contexts
          Jesmyn Ward, from Salvage the Bones
          Social and Cultural Contexts
          Zee Edgell, from Beka Lamb
Activity: Analyzing Setting in Longer Fiction and Drama
Plot
     Activity: Analyzing Plot in Longer Fiction and Drama
     Narrative Perspective and Point of View
          Stream of Consciousness
          James Joyce, from Ulysses
          Layered Points of View
          Suzanne Berne, from A Crime in the Neighborhood
          Emily Bronte, from Wuthering Heights
          Unreliable Narrators
          Kazuo Ishiguro, from Never Let Me Go
     Activity: Analyzing Narrative Perspective and Point of View in Full-Length Works
     Symbol
     Toni Morrison, from Song of Solomon
          Symbol and Allegory
          Stephen King, from The Gunslinger
     Activity: Analyzing Symbol in Longer Fiction and Drama
Putting It All Together: Interpreting Theme in Longer Fiction and Drama
Culminating Activity | Section 1
Interpreting Longer Fiction and Drama

SECTION 2
From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP® Literary Argument Essay
     Susan Glaspell, Trifles
     Preparing to Write an AP® Literary Argument: Analyzing Literary Elements
     Activity: Preparing to Write an AP® Literary Argument
     Developing a Thesis Statement
          Moving from Summary to Interpretation
          Connecting Literary Elements to Interpretation
     Activity: Revising Thesis Statements
     Supporting Your Thesis
          Writing Topic Sentences
          Supporting Your Interpretation
     Activity: Writing a Body Paragraph
     Revising an AP® Literary Argument Essay
     Analyzing a Sample AP® Literary Argument Essay
          Fabiana Martínez, “Susan Glaspell’s Trifles”
     Activity: Providing Peer Feedback for Revision
Culminating Activity | Section 2
Crafting an AP® Literary Argument Essay

SECTION 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Literary Argument
     Developing Alternative Interpretations through Critical Lenses
          Psychological Perspective
          Cultural Criticism
          Gendered Perspectives
     Incorporating Alternative Interpretations into an Argument
Culminating Activity | Section 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Literary Argument

4 | Identity & Culture
Chapter Introduction: AP® Unit 4 / Short Fiction II
Central Text Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies (short fiction)
Classic Text Ralph Ellison, Boy on a Train (short fiction)
Texts in Context: Ralph Ellison and the Influence of the Harlem Renaissance
1. Alain Locke, from The New Negro (nonfiction)
2. Countee Cullen, Heritage (poetry)
3. Zora Neale Hurston, Spunk (short fiction)
4. Langston Hughes, I look at the world (poetry)
5. Jacob Lawrence, Migration Series #3 (painting)
Short Fiction
          Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
          Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
          Nadine Gordimer, Homage
          Chimamada Ngozi Adichie, Apollo
          Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Belles Lettres
          Weike Wang, The Trip
          Sakinah Hofler, Erasure
Poetry
     John Milton, When I consider how my light is Spent
          TalkBack | Emma Lazarus, City Visions I
     Emily Dickinson, I’m Nobody! Who are you?
     Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool
     Mahmoud Darwish, Identity Card
     Kamau Brathwaite, Ogun
     Natasha Trethewey, Southern History
     Natalie Diaz, The Facts of Art
     Molly Rose Quinn, Dolorosa
     Gregory Pardlo, Written by Himself
     Quan Barry, loose strife [Somebody says draw a map]
     Jose Olivarez, (citizen) (illegal)
     Alexis Aceves Garcia, AQUí HAY TODO MIJA
Chapter 4 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
     Jhumpa Lahiri, from Interpreter of Maladies
     Ralph Ellison, from Boy on a Train
Suggestions for Writing: Identity & Culture

5 | Love & Relationships
Chapter Introduction: AP® Unit 5 / Poetry II
Central Text Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box (poetry)
Classic Text William Shakespeare, My love is as a fever, longing still (Sonnet 147) (poetry)
Texts in Context: William Shakespeare and the Sonnet Form
     1. Edward Hirsch, My Own Acquaintance (nonfiction)
     2. William Shakespeare, My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (poetry)
     3. William Wordsworth, Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room (poetry)
     4. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Face of All the World (Sonnet 7) (poetry)
     5. Claude McKay, America (poetry)
     6. Marilyn Nelson, How I Discovered Poetry (poetry)
     7. Julian Talamantez Brolaski, What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends (poetry)
     8. David Baker, Peril Sonnet (poetry)
     9. Oliver de la Paz, Diaspora Sonnet 40 (poetry)
Short Fiction
     James Joyce, Araby
     William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
     Maxine Clair, The Creation
     Kirsten Valdez Quade, Jubilee
Poetry
     Sir Thomas Wyatt, They flee from me
     Sir Philip Sidney, Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust
     John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
          TalkBack | Adrienne Rich, A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
     The Flea
     Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
     Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband
          TalkBack | Rebecca Hazelton, My Husband
     Andrew Marvell, Mower’s Song
     Lord Byron, She Walks in Beauty
     John Keats, Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
     Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights, Wild Nights
     T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
     Rainer Maria Rilke, Untitled [Do you still remember: falling stars]
     Edna St. Vincent Millay, Love is not all
     Frank O’Hara, Having a Coke with You
     Margaret Atwood, Siren Song
     Elizabeth Bishop, One Art
     Billy Collins, Weighing the Dog
     Dana Gioia, Summer Storm
     Major Jackson, Urban Renewal XVIII
     Ross Gay, Say It
     Warsan Shire, For Women Who Are Difficult to Love
     Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Chess
     Tracy K. Smith, Wade in the Water
     Chen Chen, I invite My Parents to a Dinner Party
     Amy Alvarez, How to Date a White Boy
     Denice Frohman, Lady Jordan
Chapter 5 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
     Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box
     William Shakespeare, My love is as a fever, longing still
Suggestions for Writing: Love & Relationships

6 | Conformity & Rebellion
Chapter Introduction: AP® Unit 6 / Longer Fiction and Drama II
Central Text Nella Larsen, Passing (novel)
Classic Text William Shakespeare, Hamlet (drama)
Texts in Context: Hamlet and the Evolution of Character
     1. Marjorie Garber, from Hamlet: The Matter of Character (nonfiction)
     2. William Hazlitt, from Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (nonfiction)
     3. C. S. Lewis, from Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem? (nonfiction)
     4. Zbigniew Herbert, Elegy of Fortinbras (poetry)
Short Fiction
     Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street
     Te-Ping Chen, Lulu
Poetry
     Alexander Pope, Sound and Sense
     Percy Bysshe Shelley, Song: To the Men of England
     Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense
     Constantine Cavafy, Waiting for the Barbarians
     Wallace Stevens, Emperor of Ice Cream
     Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night
     Anne Sexton, Her Kind
     Allen Ginsberg, Is About
     Carol Ann Duffy, Penelope
          TalkBack | A. E. Stallings, The Wife of the Man of Many Wiles
     Harryette Mullen, We Are Not Responsible
     Robin Coste Lewis, Art & Craft
     Jamila Woods, Ghazal for White Hen Pantry
     Kristiana Rae Colon, a remix for remembrance
     Laura Da’, Passive Voice
     Nathalie Handal, Ways of Rebelling
     Taylor Johnson, Trans Is Against Nostalgia
     Jericho Brown, Crossing
     Elisa Gonzalez, Failed Essay on Privilege
     Danielle DeTiberius, The Artist Signs Her Masterpiece, Immodestly
          TalkBack | Carravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes (painting) & Artemesia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes (painting)
     Jason Reynolds, Match
Chapter 6 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
     Nella Larsen, from Passing
     William Shakespeare, from Hamlet
Suggestions for Writing: Conformity & Rebellion

7 | War & Peace
Chapter Introduction: AP® Unit 7 / Short Fiction III
Central Text Edwidge Danticat, The Book of the Dead (short fiction)
Classic Text Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (short fiction)
Texts in Context: The Things They Carried and Voices of the Vietnam Conflict
     1. Viet Thanh Nguyen, True War Stories (nonfiction)
     2. Bao Ninh, Savage Winds (short fiction)
     3. Quan Barry, Napalm (poetry)
     4. Hai-Dang Phan, My Father’s “Norton Introduction to Literature,” Third Edition (1981) (poetry)
     5. Paul Tran, East Mountain View (poetry)
     6. Ann Le, Between Home and Here: Woman Soldier (collage)
Short Fiction
     Leo Tolstoy, After the Dance
     Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl
     Louise Erdrich, The Red Convertible
     Bharati Mukherjee, The Management of Grief
     Scholastique Mukasonga, Grief
     Jamil Jan Kochai, Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Poetry
     Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta, Going to the Wars
          TalkBack | Robert Graves, To Lucasta on Going to the War—for the Fourth Time
     Julia Ward Howe, Battle Hymn of the Republic
     Thomas Hardy, A Wife in London (December, 1899)
          TalkBack | Yusef Komunyakaa, Between Days
     Siegfried Sassoon, Lamentations
     Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est
          TalkBack | Dunya Mikhail, The War Works Hard
     Anna Akhmatova, The First Long-Range Artillery Shell in Leningrad
     Henry Reed, Naming of Parts
     Wislawa Syzmborska, The Terrorist, He Watches
     Claribel Alegria, Not Yet
     Naomi Shihab Nye, For Mohammed Zeid of Gaza, Age 15
     Brian Turner, Sadiq
     Jill McDonough, Twelve-Hour Shifts
     Amit Majmudar, True Believer
     Solmaz Sharif, Reaching Guantanamo
     Amorak Huey, We Were All Odysseus in those Days
     Nikky Finney, A New Day Dawns
Chapter 7 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
     Edwidge Danticat, from The Book of the Dead
     Tim O’Brien, from The Things They Carried
Suggestions for Writing: War & Peace

8 | Home & Family
Chapter introduction: AP® Unit 8 / Poetry III
Central Text Richard Blanco, Mother Country (poetr     y)
Classic Text Marianne Moore, The Steeple-Jack (poetry)
Texts in Context: Marianne Moore and the Modernist Vision
     1. T. S. Eliot, from Tradition and the Individual Talent (nonfiction)
     2. Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose (poetry)
     3. H. D., Sea Rose (poetry)
     4. Amy Lowell, A London Thoroughfare. 2 A.M. & The Emperor’s Garden (poetry)
     5. Fernand Leger, La Ville (“The City”) (painting)
     6. Virginia Woolf, from Mrs. Dalloway (fiction)
Short Fiction
     Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing
     Helena María Viramontes, The Moths
     Laura van den Berg, Lessons
     Rivers Solomon, Prudent Girls
Poetry
     Ben Jonson, On My First Son
     Anne Bradstreet, Before the Birth of One of Her Children
     William Wordsworth, We Are Seven
     Langston Hughes, Mother to Son
     Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz
     Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
          TalkBack | Threa Almonstaser, A Mother’s Mouth Illuminated
     Richard Wilbur, The Writer
     Gladys Cardiff, Combing
     Mary Oliver, The Black Walnut Tree
     Ruth Stone, Pokeberries
     Marilyn Chin, Turtle Soup
     Li-Young Lee, The Hammock
     Mohja Kahf, My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears
     Victoria Redel, Bedecked
     Heid Erdrich, Intimate Detail
     Rita Dove, Family Reunion
     Adrienne Su, Peaches
     Hafizah Geter, The Widower
     Ada Limon, The Raincoat
     Saeed Jones, A Stranger
Chapter 8 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
     Richard Blanco, Mother Country
     Marianne Moore, The Steeple-Jack
Suggestions for Writing: Home & Family

9 | Tradition & Progress
Chapter introduction: AP® Unit 9 / Longer Fiction and Drama III
Central Text August Wilson, Fences (drama)
Classic Text Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (novel)
Texts in Context: Frankenstein and the Ethics of Creation
     1. Stephen Jay Gould, from The Monster’s Human Nature (nonfiction)
     2. Brian Aldiss, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (fiction)
     3. Jon Turney, from Frankenstein’s Footsteps (nonfiction)
     4. Janet Allinger, Frankenstein Drives a Tesla (illustration)
Short Fiction
     Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
     Alice Walker, Everyday Use
     Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day
     Hanif Kureishi, We’re Not Jews
Poetry
     Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
     William Blake, London
     William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much with Us
          TalkBack | Joy Harjo, For Calling the Spirit Back
     Walt Whitman, Mannahatta
          TalkBack | Carl Sandburg, Chicago
     Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach
     Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur
     Emily Dickinson, Crumbling is not an instant’s Act
     Robert Frost, Mending Wall
     William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
     Czesław Miłosz, Dedication
          TalkBack | Matthew Olzmann, Letter Beginning with Two Lines by Czesław Miłosz
     Seamus Heaney, Bogland
     Yehuda Amichai, The Eve of Rosh Hashanah
     Frannie Choi, Gentrifier
     Rajiv Mohabir, Why Whales Are Back in New York City
     Terrance Hayes, Pseudacris Crucifer
     Juan Felipe Herrera, i want to speak of unity
Chapter 9 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
     August Wilson, from Fences
     Mary Shelley, from Frankenstein
Suggestions for Writing: Tradition & Progress

Practice AP® English Literature and Composition Exam
Glossary/Glosario
MLA Guide to a List of Works Cited
Index

Product Updates

NEW! 9 Chapters, 9 AP® Units: Making the AP® Course work for you.
Nine chapters in this edition means it’s easy to align to the new AP® Course and Exam Description’s nine units. Yet the flexible structure you know and love hasn’t changed: Skill-building opening chapters and an engaging thematic anthology of some of the best literature through the ages. Take a look at how we’ve incorporated the course units without sacrificing any of the flexibility you need to teach effectively.

NEW! An extensive library of full-length works.
Almost 100 full-length works, many of which commonly appear on the AP® exam, are available at your fingertips in the ebook. With these works to choose from, you have all the options and all of the support you need to plan your year.

NEW! AP® exam prep where you need it.
• AP® tips in the margins of the opening chapters give students memorable, on-the-spot advice for how to apply the reading and writing skills they’re learning when it comes time to take the AP® exam.
• AP® Unit Chapter Introductions give an overview of essential knowledge and AP® Unit skills in the thematic chapters.
• AP® FRQ exam prompts accompany all thematic chapter readings in the thematic chapters. No matter what readings you choose to assign, students will always be able to practice writing for the AP® exam.
• AP® MCQ practice at the end of each thematic chapter provides opportunities for formative assessment, class discussion, group work, and other in-class activities.
• A practice AP® exam at the back of the book makes sure students have the chance to practice taking a full exam.

NEW! Even more support for developing literary argument skills.
• Talkbacks threaded throughout the book pair challenging pieces of literature with thought-provoking responses, inviting students to explore new and nuanced ways of interpreting a work.
• Extending Beyond the Text features provide ways to both challenge well-prepared students and engage reluctant readers by giving students the opportunity to explore how the ideas of a piece connect with real-world issues and other texts.
• Key Context notes accompanying most texts help young readers navigate unfamiliar contexts that come with literature from other time periods and cultural traditions, providing a sense of the bigger picture. This support is key for developing readers and English Language Learners.

NEW! Expanded question sets for all readings provide targeted practice for key AP® Literature skills.
The comprehensive, in-depth questions and writing prompts that follow each reading enable students to link reading with writing, guiding students from understanding what a text is about to analysis of how the content is presented and why—close literary analysis. Questions are tagged to the AP® Big Ideas to help you strategically choose what to assign based on student skill gaps and a given AP® Unit’s Essential Knowledge and Skills.
• Understanding and Interpreting questions lay the foundation for analysis. All tagged to specific AP® Big Ideas, these questions guide students to an understanding of the content and move them toward an interpretation.
• Analyzing Language, Style, and Structure questions ask students to look at craft—how the writer’s choices create meaning. Also tagged to specific AP® Big Ideas, these questions are excellent scaffolding for creating literary analysis to support an interpretation of a text.
• Topics for Composing questions provide extended essay and project ideas. These always begin with practice AP® exam prompts that use stable prompt wording and from there range from literary argumentation and analysis prompts to research and multimodal projects to creative writing and speaking and listening prompts for discussion.

Authors

Renee Shea

Renée H. Shea was professor of English and Modern Languages and director of freshman composition at Bowie State University in Maryland, where she taught graduate seminars in rhetoric. A College Board faculty consultant for more than thirty years in AP® Language and Literature, and Pre-AP® English, she has been a reader and question leader for both AP® English exams. Renée served as a member on many committees for the College Board, including the AP® Language and Composition Development Committee, the English Academic Advisory Committee, and the SAT Critical Reading Test Development Committee. She is co-author of Literature & Composition, American Literature & Rhetoric, Conversations in American Literature, Advanced Language & Literature, and Foundations of Language & Literature, as well as volumes on Amy Tan and Zora Neale Hurston for the NCTE High School Literature Series. Renée continues to write about contemporary authors for publications such as World Literature Today, Poets & Writers, and Kenyon Review. Her recent publications focused on Celeste Ng, Imbolo Mbue, Namwali Serpell, Manuel Muñoz, and Ohio’s 2020–2025 poet laureate, Kari Gunter-Seymour.

Robin Aufses

Robin Dissin Aufses is director of English Studies at Lycée Français de New York, where she teaches AP® English Language and Composition. Previous to this position, Robin was the English department chair and a teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Bellmore, New York, and prior to that she taught English at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, New York. She taught AP® English Literature and AP® English Language at both schools. She is co-author of Literature & Composition, American Literature & Rhetoric, and Conversations in American Literature and has published articles for the College Board on novelist Chang-rae Lee and the novel All the King’s Men.

Lawrence Scanlon

Lawrence Scanlon taught at Brewster High School for more than thirty years and then for another ten years at Iona College in New York. For twenty-five years, he was a Reader and Question Leader for the AP® Language and Composition Exam. As a College Board consultant over that same period of time, he has conducted AP® workshops in both AP® English Language and AP® English Literature throughout the United States and in South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He has also provided professional development as a private consultant for many school districts. He served on the PSAT Review Committee and the AP® English Language Test Development Committee. Larry is co-author of Literature & Composition, American Literature & Rhetoric, and Conversations in American Literature and has published articles on curriculum and method for the College Board and elsewhere.

Katherine Cordes

Katherine E. Cordes is a National Board Certified English teacher with a BA in English, psychology, and medieval studies; an MEd in curriculum and instruction; and an MFA in poetry. She has more than twenty years of experience in the secondary English Language Arts classroom and currently teaches AP Seminar®/Honors English 10 and AP® English Literature at Skyview High School in Billings, Montana, where she has also taught dual enrollment college writing and AP® English Language. As part of the College Board’s Instructional Design Team, Katherine contributed to the development, review, and dissemination of the 2019 AP® English Literature Course and Exam Description, and she has been an AP® Reader for the AP® English Literature and AP® Seminar Exams. She is a co-author of Literature & Composition and The Language of Composition.

Carlos Escobar

Carlos Escobar teaches tenth-grade English and AP® English Literature and Composition at Felix Varela Senior High School in Miami, Florida, where he is also the AP® Program Director. Carlos has been the College Board Advisor for AP® English Literature, an AP® Reader, a presenter at local and national AP® workshops and conferences, and a member of the AP® English Literature and AP® African American Studies Test Development Committees. As part of the College Board’s Instructional Design Team, he contributed to the development, review, and dissemination of the 2019 AP® English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description. Carlos designed and delivered daily live YouTube lessons streamed globally by the College Board and was the Lead Instructor for AP® Daily, the College Board’s skill-based, on-demand video series accessed through AP® Classroom. He is also a co-author of Bedford, Freeman & Worth’s The Language of Composition and Literature & Composition.

Carol Jago

Carol Jago has taught English in middle and high school for thirty-two years and directs the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA. She is a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English. Jago served as AP Literature content advisor for the College Board and now serves on their English Academic Advisory committee. She has published six books with Heinemann, including With Rigor for All and Papers, Papers, Papers. She has also published four books on contemporary multicultural authors for NCTE’s High School Literature series. Carol was an education columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and her essays have appeared in English Journal, Language Arts, NEA Today, as well as in other newspapers across the nation. She edits the journal of the California Association of Teachers of English, California English, and served on the planning committee for the 2009 NAEP Reading Framework and the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework.

Product Updates

The flexibility you want, the alignment you need.

Let us focus on alignment so you can focus on creating an engaging and memorable course.

Since its first edition, Literature & Composition was designed specifically for the AP® English Literature course. Its unique structure of skill-building opening chapters combined with an engaging thematic anthology provides the flexibility you need to plan your year and differentiate based on your students’ needs. In this edition, the book you know and love now fully aligns to the new AP® Course and Exam Description.

Chapters 1-3 cover the reading and writing skills key to success in the course and on the AP® Exam. Chapters 4-9 are anthology chapters arranged by the timeless themes, such as Identity and Culture, that help bring our readings to life. Each of these thematic chapters offers a wide variety of classic and contemporary writing – including fiction, poetry, drama, nonfiction, visual texts, and several full-length works – with guidance and support to help students think critically and write insightfully about great literature.