<p>If you had to choose between one of the 2 AP Englishes (Language vs. Literature), which would you take and why? </p>
<p>For anyone who has taken both of these classes, what were the differences? Which one did you like better?</p>
<p>my school has both (:</p>
<p>from what i’ve heard, it really depends on your teachers. like our school’s ap lang teacher was the best teacher we had in our entire school, honestly, so I heard it outshined ap lit a lot.</p>
<p>I’ll be in Lit my senior year. All I can tell you is the reputation that the two classes have at my school. Lang is generally looked upon as the easier of the two courses, and it attracts intelligent kids who may not want that intense of an experience. Lit supposedly has a heavier workload and attracts those who have a sincere interest in English or the humanities in general. Really, I think it all depends on the teacher. The Lit teacher at my school went to University of Chicago and is known to be one of the most intelligent in my school’s English department.</p>
<p>To me Lit was more interesting. Lang dealt with Rhetoric and the devices in literature, but Lit studied more the themes and the implications of those devices. Obviously both student Of course, it could have just been the different focus of my teachers… To me it’s the difference between math and philosophy. Lang would be math - all the rules and devices - but Lit would be the meaning and implication. Both are important in their own right.</p>
<p>AP English Lang deals mostly with developing strong reading and writing skills. On the AP Exam, the first part you have to read passages, analyze them, and then answer multiple choice questions about them. Some of the passages are a bit hard to understand in my opinion since they are old world English. Then you have to write 3 free response essays which can be really tedious. In my class, we pretty much read books, and had to write different kinds of essays for each one. For example, we read Stephen King’s “Memoirs of a Craft” and then we had to write a memoir of a certain craft we processed.</p>
<p>I think AP English Lit mostly deals with literature and analyzing themes and genres within the piece of work you are reading. I haven’t taken it yet, so someone who has might want to tell you what you actually do during the year.</p>
<p>My school did AP English Lang first and then AP English Lit, but this year, they are switching it up (so all the 11th graders are in our class …). My old high school has had Lit first and then Lang second for a few years now.</p>
<p>I honestly think Literature is much easier than Language cause it doesn’t take a brainiac to know how to be insightful for a piece of literature compared to writing rhetoric.</p>
<p>In our school, AP Language is how to write and AP Lit is how to read. Generally you take AP Lang first and AP Lit second. Some students skip AP Lang because it’s tedious if you’re a strong writer already, but even if you are, if the class is well taught, it teaches valuable skills.</p>
<p>As mentioned before AP Language deals with prose and non-fiction works, while AP Literature deals with poetry and fiction. As for the difficulty level several teachers/guidance counselors have said AP Language is generally considered to be harder than AP Literature, however while one can take Lit without taking language, it would be insane to do so (sort of like Spanish III being a harder course than Spanish IV, but you would be insane to jump into Spanish IV without having taken III.)</p>
<p>I’m not really sure if this is true, but my teacher always said “The AP English Lang exam is as hard as the AP Calc BC and AP Physics Exams”</p>
<p>I didn’t think it was that bad.</p>
<p>my school does not offer both classes, but I can offer insight on AP Lit. The class was very literature&poetry-based, and I felt it was very helpful to be able to choose a piece of lit for one of the three essays on the actual AP test. (You can choose books that you actually like! so you’ll be far more interested. Everyone suggests Hamlet, by the way, but do what you like best, really.)</p>
<p>It deals mainly with themes, tone, and speech. if you do want to take the ap lit test, I highly suggest the Barron’s test prep.</p>
<p>but, of course, ask upperclassmen about which teacher is better, because that has a lot to do with how much you’ll learn.</p>
<p>I took both and they were two of my favorite classes in high school (I took Lang junior year and Lit senior year). Same teacher for both classes. AP Language was only offered for one year (the year that I took it) because my teacher felt that with our school’s English/reading background we weren’t ready or prepared enough for it. I didn’t notice anything wrong and I got a 5 on the exam. But I guess Lit was a little better. Basically if you like English and/or are an Englishy person, take both.</p>
<p>I liked Lang. more. I don’t know how other schools do it, but my schooling has ALWAYS focused on literature analysis and junk. It gets really annoying after studying the same literary terms and analyzing for 11 or so years. AP Lang was so refreshing, and I think it’s the more difficult of the two APs because I feel as if it’s more difficult to improve your writing than your reading. I recall the sentiment in my AP lang. class was, “you either got it, or you don’t.” because if you’re not a good writer by the 11th/12th grade, you really have to make an effort to use new strategies to convey a message, to create a rhetoric. I could just be biased because I’m a pretty good writer. :D</p>
<p>I did both, and found AP Lang to be way more beneficial.</p>
<p>At my school we do Lang in 11th grade and Lit in 12th, and my language and comp course improved my writing immensely. The concept of the exam seems a lot less daunting than lit–anyone taken the language course is very capable at reading and writing, obviously…so it’s harder to get to the next step of really grasping the multiple choice questions and really being able to analyze passages that are different from poems/stories, because on the surface they seem really simple. I found once I understood that and had prepared for the AP exam, all my writing (ie. for history, english, etc…) was much easier.</p>
<p>Our Lit class was kind of joke, we only read about 5 books all year, but we all did fine on the exam. I didn’t mind it I guess, but it didn’t improve my english skills at all. (This could have something to do with the teacher though, obviously this was just my experience). There is so much choice for the books on the exam though (and for the choose a novel question, I used the option of a book that wasn’t even on the list) that you don’t really need all that much literary knowledge. If you love to read (and hopefully you do, if you’re taking this exam), then it’s not likely to make any sort of difference for you.</p>
<p>I’m definitely very glad I did Language and Comp, it made a huge difference in my writing (and I would say prepared me well for Lit, since the exams have the same general types of questions–there is definitely a reason Lit usually comes second). Literature was okay, but really not beneficial–just something to do if you are interested in reading.</p>
<p>I’m a senior and have taken both AP English Language and AP Literature and Composition; Language is a little bit harder. It requires a deeper amount of analysis and better writing skills than Literature. If you like reading, Literature is a breeze. If you like writing, Language isn’t too bad. All in all, I think AP Language requires skills from AP Literature and I think AP Language is a little bit more difficult.</p>
<p>I know this is a re-bump of an old thread, but I can say the main difference between a Lang class and a Lit class is the teacher.</p>
<p>Allow me to shed some light as a current senior with an A- in AP Lit who took AP Lang last year, and got an A and a 5. The exams are designed to be equally difficult. The general consensus is that exam-wise, the AP Lang exam may be slightly more difficult because of the unpredictability of the essays and more difficult multiple choice questions. However, this difference is basically negligible and the exams are equally difficult. The classes however, depend on your specific school and teacher. At my school, AP Lit is known for being incredibly hard due to the teacher and AP Lang is relatively easy though certainly not a joke. AP Lit in my school has much heavier and denser reading, where the material for AP Lang is just more fun. However, this can totally vary school to school and I have talked to friends with opposite experiences. Both are great classes that you should take!</p>
<p>Is AP Lit helpful for the SAT?</p>
<p>Yes
10char</p>
<p>At my old IB school, it was mandatory for HL/SL juniors to take AP Lang (they somehow combined it with the IB English requirement and added EE’s, IOP’s, etc). After you were done with Lang, you moved on to Lit.
And since this school was a 4-year stint with pre-IB as well, sophomores took Euro to ease into the hectic pace.</p>
<p>AP language is more like English 101 in college than literature is. I thought AP lang. was more useful than literature too because I learned how to manipulate people with how I phrased and wrote things…</p>