AP Literature is a discussion-based class that explores the psychological side of characters’ actions in texts, especially in conjunction with sociology, cultural analysis, philosophy and lenses. Students write two papers per semester, and avoid topics and assignments regarding literary devices, rhetorical analysis, graded discussion, non-fiction, argumentation and speeches.
According to senior Alice Cheng, students are assigned reading for homework due on block period, which they spend having a class discussion. On regular periods, the teacher discusses the story’s significant events and answers students’ questions.
Besides the main text, students also read supplemental short stories also written by the author of the main text. Cheng dislikes reading quizzes and open essays, which are only 30 minutes.
For the first semester, students cover short stories, Jane Eyre and Crime and Punishment; for the second semester, students read 20th and 21st century novels such as Metamorphosis, Beloved and Stranger. In addition, the course has a drama unit in the second semester, in which students read plays in class and discuss them. They also have a separate play they read outside of class and have to act out in February for 8-10 minutes.
“It's not like the fishbowl in HAmLit where you're graded and stuff, it's more of just an open classroom sort of thing where anyone can say anything or you don't have to say anything you don't want to,” Cheng said.
Cheng had a hard time getting used to the procedure in the class, which was different from previous classes she had taken. For example, in AP Lit, students gather evidence and then write a thesis, instead of the other way around.
“It's very different from HAmLit, where you're analyzing symbols and a lot of that kind of stuff,” Cheng said. “But in AP Lit it's more about finding the motivations of characters like why they're doing certain things.”
Cheng believes that students who think the class has a high difficulty level are referencing the unpredictable grade fluctuations due to difficulty in understanding what is expected of their work.
Much of the time dedicated to the class is split between reading texts, preparing for tests and writing papers. Cheng estimates reading 100 pages a week during the first semester, when the texts are longer. She recommends allocating time each week to avoid piling up reading and improve performance on tests.
“So for me, every day I would read 10 pages or something so that I wouldn't have to do all of them at once,” Cheng said. “I'm not a super fast reader. So I would probably spend about one to one and a half hours per night reading and trying to understand everything.”
Cheng emphasizes the importance of reading in AP Literature.
“I think if you want to take AP Lit, you actually have to be willing to put in a lot of effort into it because it's not something that you can sort of BS your way through,” Cheng said. “And also don't get stressed—it's really easy to get discouraged because pretty much no one gets very good grades in the beginning, but it gets better as the semester goes on.”