<p>Although I'm currently taking English Language as a junior at my high school, I'm still unsure as to whether or not I should take the AP Literature course next year. Last quarter I received a 95.5% (96 on the out of class essay) while my current grade for this quarter is a 96.1% (98 on the latest essay, although my teacher has yet to grade the second one for that quarter). I'm good friends with my English teacher and I will definitely ask him for a recommendation. I'm concerned however that colleges will see the shift from an AP English course to an Honors English course as a lack of 'motivation', or a desire to avoid an academically rigorous schedule. They might even view it as a lethargic decision, given the fact that I asked my English teacher for a recommendation, and ask why I did not continue taking AP English courses. My current schedule for junior year is: </p>
<p>AP Econ
AP World
AP Statistics
AP Calculus BC
AP Physics C
AP English Language
Advanced topics in computer science</p>
<p>For senior year I'm planning on taking</p>
<p>AP Art history
AP European History
AP Chemistry
MVC
AP Psychology
English (Honors or AP)</p>
<p>As you can see, the courses listed under senior year require a fair amount of memorization, which takes precious time. If English Literature is as time-consuming and arduous as national AP Scores and college confidential forums reflect, I don't think I will have enough time to commit to it (essays do after all take an enormous amount of time). The exam itself seems impenetrable opaque compared to the English Language test. Most of the sample essays seem far more in-depth and insightful than anything I've encountered on the English language exam. So my question is this: Is taking AP literature irrelevant when you do well in English Language, or is it required for the exact same reason? What do Brown/MIT/LSE/Cambridge/Princeton think?</p>
<p>The kids at my school hate AP Lit, because the teacher is very pedantic (makes them knoiw every literary/rhetorical device in existence) but they are taught well. It comes down to: DO you care about your grades or your education as a scholar and a person? Most people on this site would go with the grade. I would only care more about the grades for science/math AP’s.</p>
<p>At my school, we do AP Lit first, then AP Lang, for some unknown reason. So, from experience, I can say that AP Lit is essentially AP Lang applied to literature. You talk about the author’s message, ideas, etc. using their rhetorical strategies (diction, imagery, tone, etc.). AP Lit really isn’t that bad; the reason why the sample essays look so insightful is because they’re coming from kids who have experience with the essays. </p>
<p>At my school, it didn’t require any memorization at all, save a few lit terms and vocab words, and it wasn’t “arduous” (oh that word brings back memories, though…) in the slightest. If you’re doing so well in AP Lang, you’ll be more than fine in AP Lit.</p>
<p>AP Lit is really easy. You need to remember maybe ten vocab words, which are the same ones you’ve been using since eighth grade, and the criticism most people do is pretty shallow. You’re not expected to be particularly insightful. If you can write sentences that flow, then it doesn’t matter too much how shallow you are.</p>
<p>There was some book a friend read though that improved her grades by something like two points (from 5s to 7s). I think it was called How to Read Literature Like a Professor. So I’d advise anyone who wasn’t too sure of their lit skills to read that before taking the class.</p>
I do not enjoy “talk[ing] about the author’s message, ideas, etc. using their rhetorical strategies”.</p>
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<li><p>Lots of busy work and lots of pointless essays.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t think I’ve actually learned anything all year. My written communication skills haven’t been improved by the course. Nor has my mind been broadened by the material we read. Actually, high school English is pretty much a waste of time all around.</p></li>
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<p>If you are applying to schools like Brown and MIT you should take the hardest courses possible, which would entail taking AP Lit. I’m taking AP Lit right now as a senior and it’s not hard at all. We just read books and write mostly BS analyses of them. Then again, it depends on who teaches AP Lit at your school; the course material is not particularly difficult, but some teachers do assign more work than others. You should ask current seniors at your school about the class.</p>
<p>Since you’re aiming for such high-tier schools, it would most likely be in your best interest to take AP lit, along with whatever makes your courseload the most rigorous possible.</p>
<p>@noimagination, I was more talking about the AP French thing. If you don’t like literary analysis, I can understand why. I personally find it incredibly fun, though :)</p>
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<p>Not always true; It depends on the teachers you get. For instance, my sophomore teacher changed my life because it was through her class that I was introduced big ideas of literature. Without her class, I wouldn’t know how to write a good analytical paper, how to root out the ideas of a text and then support those findings with direct textual citation, and I don’t think I would be interested in literature at all if it weren’t for her.</p>
<p>Junior year I took 5 APs and 1 honors class, including AP Lang. Senior year I still took 5 APs but opted out of AP Lit. I didn’t take an English at all because I already had 4 credits, and I ended up fine, college-wise. (EA acceptance into MIT)</p>
<p>As long as you don’t intend on majoring in English (and I guess history), and you are confident in your English skills, I don’t think it’ll be a huge deal.</p>
<p>AP Lit is such a waste of time. I’m not even going anywhere NEAR Lit/English as my major. Idk why I took the class >_> Doesn’t even help that it’s hard as hell…</p>
I’m terrible at foreign languages, and my inability to succeed is incredibly frustrating. My test average is a D uncurved and a C curved. I’m only okay grade-wise because there’s lots of busy work and my teacher hates giving bad grades.</p>
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<li><p>The AP exam is ridiculously difficult. Just look at the score distributions if you don’t believe me. Plus, I don’t need the credit.</p></li>
<li><p>I can’t see any reason whatsoever to care about the material, beyond possibly gaining a boost if I ever try to immigrate to Canada.</p></li>
<li><p>Our textbook is awful.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t really feel like the class has any structure or curriculum. A particular tense might be mentioned briefly once and then forgotten until another brief mention. I can’t learn things this way.</p></li>
<li><p>Memorizing vocabulary is the most tedious, boring, and unproductive endeavor imaginable.</p></li>
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<p>EDIT:
Well, obviously subjective. But I don’t know of many high school English teachers who focus on drilling the fundamentals and improving actual written communication skills.</p>
<p>I didn’t think it was that difficult; I got a 5 without studying.</p>
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<p>You do realize there are over 60 members of the Francophonie, right?</p>
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<p>Sucks</p>
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<p>That’s your class. Mine was great.</p>
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<p>So don’t just memorize it. Find ways to apply it: writing, reading, thinking, speaking. You can’t think of learning vocab as dry memorization; you have to think of it as adding to your repertoire of words. You’re cultivating a mental garden of vocabulary and grammar that only grows more beautiful as you add more to it.</p>
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<p>That’s not what she did, because that’d make an awfully boring English class. English class is about talking about literature and then expressing that discussion in an essay. You learn how to write an effective essay from looking at the criticisms on your paper, or having a one-on-one conference with your teacher. While you can “drill some fundamentals” (the word drill makes me cringe, though), it’s impossible to drastically improve writing this way. Rather, you improve, as I’ve said, through deeply stimulating classroom discussion that you then put to paper.</p>
<p>Eh, it depends on your teacher and how much work they assign. You should ask other students that are in the class how it is. If the usual homework is a couple hundred pages of reading a week (you need to read A LOT for Lit, in case it wasn’t implied by the name), then it could take a lot of time out of studying/doing homework for classes that you are more interested in. You seem to be good at English though… I would highly recommend it.</p>
I know a few people who naturally pick up languages. You may be one of them. It’s definitely a cool skill to have.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, most people do not have that talent. Among students who do not come from French-speaking homes and have never lived in a Francophone country for >1 month, only 5.9% get 5s. Just 12.7% get 4s. Over half do not pass.
Yes, and the only one I’d have any interest in living in is Canada. Even in that scenario, I’d probably prefer western Canada and as such the only value of French fluency would be a small point boost on an immigration application.
I don’t believe my comment implied that this is universally the case.
That doesn’t make the process any more interesting. It would if I were learning vocabulary I’d actually like to use, but much of our vocab is really not anything I’d say in daily conversation.
I don’t approve of the way high school courses are designed in general. I don’t think that requiring students to study material of no use whatsoever to themselves is especially productive. There are lots of ways to develop critical thinking skills. </p>
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<li><p>Drilling is not inherently bad or unproductive. I work on musical drills every day, and that does not reduce my ability to play with emotion and excitement. It just provides me with the technical skill necessary to do so.</p></li>
<li><p>The last English class where I learned much of anything was in 7th grade. The purpose of that course was learning to improve the clarity and meaning of our writing. The course was based on literary material with a heavy dose of technical grammar added into the mix. We would read a book, discuss it, and then write about it. However, the emphasis was always on the quality of our writing as a tool for transmitting our ideas and every essay involved an extensive revision process to improve clarity.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t receive comments on my essays, and if I request them I don’t receive anything tangible enough to use.</p></li>
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<p>I do agree that high school English courses focus too much on analysis of readings rather than technical writing skills. The most useful English class I’ve ever been in was in 9th grade, when we learned a lot of grammar rules. Other than that my English teachers haven’t focused on improving the quality of my (or any other students’) writing. Most kids at my school float along in AP Lit/lang by writing a lot (so it looks impressive on paper) but dismissing the quality of their writing as a secondary concern.</p>