An AP course in English Language and Composition engages students in becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts and in becoming skilled writers who com-pose for a variety of purposes. Both their writing and their reading should make students aware of the interactions among a writer's purposes, audience expectations, and subjects as well as the way generic conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing.

The college composition course for which the AP Language and Composition course substitutes is one of the most varied in the curriculum. The course often allows students to write in a variety of forms - narrative, exploratory, expository, argumentative-and on a variety of subjects from personal experiences to public policies, from imaginative literature to popular culture. But the overarching purpose in most first-year writing courses is to enable students to write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum and in their professional and personal lives. Therefore, most composition courses emphasize the expository, analytical, and argumentative writing that forms the basis of academic and professional communication as well as the personal and reflective writing that fosters the development of writing facility in any context. The AP Language and Composition course follows this emphasis. As in the college course, its purpose is to enable students to read complex texts with understanding and to write prose of sufficient richness and complexity to communicate effectively with mature readers.

College writing programs recognize that skill in writing proceeds from students' awareness of their own composing processes: the way they explore ideas, reconsider strategies, and revise their work. This experience of the process of composing is the essence of the first-year writing course, and AP Language and Composition should emphasize this process, asking students to write essays that proceed through several stages or drafts, with revision aided by teacher and peers. Although these extended, revised essays cannot be part of the AP Examination, the experience of writing them will help make students more self-aware and flexible writers and thus may help their performance on the exam itself.

Whatever form the course takes, students should write in informal as well as formal contexts to gain authority and learn to take risks in writing. Imitation exercises, journal keeping, collaborative writing, and in-class responses are all good ways of helping students become increasingly aware of themselves as writers and of the techniques employed by the writers they read. As well as engaging in varied writing tasks, students should read a wide variety of prose styles from many disciplines and historical periods to gain understanding of the connections between interpretive skill in reading and writing

The AP Language and Composition course assumes that students already understand and use standard English grammar. The intense concentration on language use in this course should enhance their ability to use grammatical conventions both appropriately and with sophistication as well as to develop stylistic maturity in their prose. Stylistic development is nurtured by emphasizing the following:

• A wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively;
• A variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination;
• A logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis;
• A balance of generalization and specific illustrative detail; and
• An effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure.

When students read, they should become aware of how stylistic effects are achieved by writers' linguistic choices. Since imaginative literature often highlights such stylistic decisions, fiction and poetry clearly have a place in the AP Language and Composition course. The main purpose of including such literature is to aid students in understanding rhetorical and linguistic choices, rather than to study literary conventions.

Because the AP course depends on the development of interpretive skills as students learn to write and read with increasing complexity and sophistication, the AP Language and Composition course is intended to be a full-year course. Teachers at schools that offer only a single semester block for AP are encouraged to advise their AP Language and Composition students to take an additional semester of advanced English in which they continue to practice the kind of writing and reading emphasized in the AP class.

Upon completing the Language and Composition course, then, students should be able to:

• Analyze and interpret samples of good writing, identifying and explaining an author's use of rhetorical strategies and techniques;
• Apply effective strategies and techniques in their own writing;
• Create and sustain arguments based on readings, research, and/or personal experience;
• Demonstrate understanding and mastery of standard written English as well as stylistic maturity in their own writings;
• Write in a variety of genres and contexts, both formal and informal, employing appropriate conventions; and
• Move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to inquiry and research, drafting, revising, editing, and review.

Last Revised: July 18, 2005