An award-winning author team that you know and trust. The authors of Literature & Composition (Carol Jago, Renée H. Shea, Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Dissin Aufses) know the AP* Literature course, and they know today’s students. They bring years of experience teaching AP Literature and college literature courses, as well as extensive background as AP workshop leaders and past members of the test development committee. Put their expertise to work in your classroom.
The opening chapters lay the foundation for success. The book begins with instructional chapters that walk students through the essential skills taught in an AP Literature class.
- Chapter 1 — "Thinking about Literature" introduces students to the study of literature and the questions and habits of mind that lead to insightful analysis.
- Chapter 2 — "Close Reading" helps students analyze fiction and poetry and then write a close analysis.
- Chapter 3 — "The Big Picture" teaches students to analyze the essential features of fiction and drama and write an interpretation.
- Chapter 4 — "Entering the Conversation" walks students through the process of working with and writing about multiple literary texts.
The thematic chapters feature the finest classic and contemporary literature. With 5 plays, 4 novellas, 41 short stories, 143 poems, 15 pieces of nonfiction, and 16 visual texts, Literature & Composition offers a perfect blend of time-tested classics and engaging contemporary works that are challenging, thought-provoking, and suitable for a high school audience. Each thematic chapter is anchored by one classic and one modern piece of literature to give students access to some of the most frequently taught works of literary merit. For example, the Identity and Culture chapter features Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Jhumpa Lahiri’s "Interpreter of Maladies." Each chapter also includes a collection of short fiction and poetry arranged chronologically, to help students see how the selected themes both endure and develop over time. The book includes eight pieces that students can write on for the open question, including Trifles, The Dead, Fences, Heart of Darkness, The Importance of Being Earnest, Hamlet, The Metamorphosis, Daisy Miller, and Antigone.
A wealth of special features reinforce key literary analysis skills.
- Paired Poems in each chapter give students an opportunity to practice comparing and contrasting poetry, a key skill in the AP Literature course.
- Conversation sections give students opportunities to connect multiple literary texts to a variety of historical and cultural issues. Topics of conversation include: courtship, the legacy of colonialism, and the lure and language of food.
- The Writer’s Craft: Close Reading sections break down the close reading process to explore the ways in which authors use the resources of language to create meaning.
- Writers on Writing interviews conducted exclusively for this text give students a glimpse of who the authors are and why they wrote what they wrote.
- Student Writing sections serve as guided peer-review sessions encouraging students to think critically about the writing and revision processes.