AP English Literature & Composition

College-level literary analysis covering short fiction, poetry, drama, and the novel. Aligned to the College Board AP English Literature & Composition Course and Exam Description. Develops sophisticated literary interpretation and analytical writing.

14 Units

Early Units (Foundation)

Building Skills

Advanced Concepts

Capstone/Synthesis

The Art of Reading Literature

Develop the close reading practices and interpretive habits essential to AP literary analysis.

3-4 days

Character, Narrator, and Voice

Examine how authors construct characters and narrators, and how point of view shapes everything a reader knows and believes.

3-4 days

Setting, Atmosphere, and Symbolic Landscape

Analyze how authors construct setting and atmosphere as vehicles of thematic meaning, not merely backdrop for action.

3-4 days

Structure, Form, and the Architecture of Narrative

Examine how authors shape stories through plot structure, pacing, chronological manipulation, and formal design — and why these choices matter for meaning.

3-4 days

Figurative Language: Metaphor, Symbol, Irony, and Image

Master the figurative devices that carry the deepest literary meaning — metaphor, simile, symbol, allegory, imagery, and irony — and learn to analyze their effects with precision.

3-4 days

The Short Story: Craft, Compression, and the Telling Detail

Develop a deep analytical vocabulary for the short story form, examining how compression, the single effect, and the architecture of revelation work in fiction's most demanding genre.

3-4 days

Poetry Foundations: Sound, Meter, and Form

Build a working knowledge of meter, rhyme, sound devices, and poetic forms — the technical foundations that support sophisticated poetry analysis.

3-4 days

Reading and Analyzing Poetry: Speaker, Tone, and Theme

Develop a systematic approach to close-reading poetry, focusing on speaker, occasion, tone, and thematic development as the interpretive architecture of a poem.

3-4 days

Drama: Staging, Soliloquy, and Dramatic Structure

Analyze drama as a distinct literary form — examining how dramatic structure, soliloquy, staging, and the tension between spoken and enacted meaning create theatrical significance.

3-4 days

The Novel: Extended Narrative, Theme, and Literary Movements

Examine the novel as a literary form with unique capacities for sustained thematic development, world-building, and cultural reflection across major literary movements.

4-5 days

Literary Criticism: Reading Through Critical Lenses

Explore the major critical frameworks — New Criticism, feminist, postcolonial, Marxist, and psychoanalytic — and practice using each as a productive analytical lens.

4-5 days

The Literary Analysis Essay: Structure, Thesis, and Evidence

Master the construction of a sophisticated literary analysis essay — from thesis formation through textual integration to revision — with direct reference to the AP exam rubric.

4-5 days

AP Prose Fiction Analysis FRQ: Strategies and Practice

Build mastery of the AP prose fiction FRQ through a systematic close reading method, annotated practice passages, and scored response models.

4-5 days

AP Poetry Analysis FRQ: Strategies, Practice, and Exam Review

Develop mastery of the AP poetry analysis FRQ through systematic reading strategies, analytical writing practice, and comprehensive course review.

4-5 days

Learning Progression

This course is designed to be taken sequentially. Earlier units establish foundational concepts that later units build upon. While you can explore units in any order, following the numbered sequence provides the most coherent learning experience.