The visual guide to
AP® English Literature and Composition
18 units, 196 topics. Each topic is explained in writing, drawn as a lesson you can watch, and checked with practice questions.
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Each unit is as wide as its share of the exam's multiple-choice section. Striped units aren't weighted on the exam.Filled: topics you've opened.
Unit 1Character (CHR) — Skill Category 1, Prose Fiction
- 1.A Description, Dialogue, and Behavior (CHR-1.A)
- 1.A Who Is Doing the Describing (CHR-1.B, CHR-1.H)
- 1.A Perspective and What Shapes It (CHR-1.C, CHR-1.D)
- 1.A Inferring Motive from Action and Inaction (CHR-1.K)
- 1.A Expectations a Description Creates (CHR-1.F, CHR-1.G)
- 1.A Choices in Speech, Action, and Inaction (CHR-1.O, CHR-1.P)
- 1.A Comparing a Character to Something Else (CHR-1.J)
- 1.C Protagonist and Antagonist (CHR-1.Q, CHR-1.R)
- 1.C Foil Characters (CHR-1.U)
- 1.B Major and Minor, Round and Flat Characters (CHR-1.AE)
- 1.B Dynamic and Static Characters (CHR-1.L, CHR-1.M, CHR-1.N)
- 1.B Epiphany and Sudden Change (CHR-1.Z, CHR-1.AA)
- 1.B Change Driven by a Conflict of Values (CHR-1.X, CHR-1.Y)
- 1.D Nuances in Characters' Relationships (CHR-1.S)
- 1.D A Group or Force Functioning as a Character (CHR-1.AB, AC, AD)
- 1.E Inconsistency Between Thought and Behavior (CHR-1.V, CHR-1.W)
- 1.E A Character's Response to the Resolution (CHR-1.AG, CHR-1.AH)
- 1.A Different Perspectives Reveal Different Information (CHR-1.T)
Unit 2Setting (SET) — Skill Category 2, Prose Fiction
- 2.A Time and Place, Built from Details (SET-1.A)
- 2.A The Social, Cultural, and Historical Situation (SET-1.B)
- 2.B Setting as a Force Acting on Character (SET-1.D, SET-1.G)
- 2.B Mood and Atmosphere (SET-1.C)
- 2.C The Environment a Character Inhabits (SET-1.D, SET-1.H)
- 2.B What a Change of Setting Signals (SET-1.E)
- 2.B Contrasted Settings as a Conflict of Values (SET-1.F)
- 5.C Setting That Becomes a Symbol (FIG-1.AB, FIG-1.AC)
Unit 3Structure (STR) — Skill Category 3, Prose Fiction
- 3.A Plot as a Chain of Cause and Effect (STR-1.A)
- 3.A The Dramatic Situation (STR-1.B)
- 3.B Exposition and Where a Writer Points You (STR-1.C)
- 3.A Exposition, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution
- 3.F Internal and External Conflict (STR-1.N)
- 3.F Multiple Conflicts That Intersect (STR-1.O, STR-1.P)
- 3.E Significant Events and What Makes Them Count (STR-1.K, L, M)
- 3.E Significant Events as Competing Value Systems (STR-1.AI, STR-1.AJ)
- 3.A Flashback, Foreshadowing, and In Medias Res (STR-1.X, STR-1.Y)
- 3.A Frame Narratives and Nested Stories
- 3.A Pacing and the Manipulation of Time (STR-1.AA, STR-1.AB)
- 3.D Contrast, Juxtaposition, and Shifts (STR-1.G, H, I, J)
- 3.D What a Contrast Actually Emphasizes (STR-1.S, STR-1.T, STR-1.Z)
- 3.B Order of Revelation, Suspense, and Dramatic Irony
- 3.A Archetypal Dramatic Situations (STR-1.R)
- 3.F Offstage Forces and Inconsistencies as Conflict (STR-1.AL, STR-1.Q)
- 3.F Resolution, Catharsis, and Unresolved Endings (STR-1.AK, STR-1.AM)
Unit 4Narration (NAR) — Skill Category 4, Prose Fiction
- 4.A The Narrator as a Position, Not a Person (NAR-1.A, NAR-1.J)
- 4.B Perspective Versus Point of View (NAR-1.B)
- 4.B First-Person Narration (NAR-1.E, NAR-1.F)
- 4.B Third-Person Limited (NAR-1.G, NAR-1.H)
- 4.B Third-Person Omniscient (NAR-1.H, NAR-1.I)
- 4.B Third-Person Objective: the Camera on the Wall
- 4.B Second-Person Narration
- 4.B Narrative Distance (NAR-1.K)
- 4.B Stream of Consciousness (NAR-1.L)
- 4.C Free Indirect Discourse
- 4.C Diction, Detail, and Syntax as Evidence of Perspective (NAR-1.N, Q, R, S)
- 4.C Tone as the Narrator's Attitude (NAR-1.M, NAR-1.O, NAR-1.P)
- 4.D Omission and Inferring a Narrator's Bias (NAR-1.R, NAR-1.T)
- 4.D The Unreliable Narrator (NAR-1.U, NAR-1.V)
- 4.D Multiple Narrators and Contradictory Accounts (NAR-1.W, NAR-1.X)
- 4.C A Narrator Whose Perspective Changes (NAR-1.Y, NAR-1.Z)
Unit 5Prose Fiction on the Multiple-Choice Section
- Section I: 55 Questions, 60 Minutes, Five Passage Sets
- Skill Weighting: Where the Prose Fiction Points Sit
- Reading a Function Stem: What a Detail Does, Not What It Means
- Eliminating on a Point of View Question
- The Four Ways a Prose Fiction Answer Choice Fails
- Attack Order: Line References, Whole-Passage Questions, Hard Syntax
- Free-Response Question 2: the Prose Fiction Analysis Prompt
Unit 2Poetry I: The Speaker and the Shape of the Poem
- 4.A The Poetic Speaker: Who Speaks and to Whom
- 4.C Diction and Syntax That Reveal a Speaker's Perspective
- 3.C The Line and the Stanza as Units of Meaning (STR-1.D)
- 3.C Verse Paragraphs and the Arrangement of Parts (STR-1.E)
- 3.C End-Stopped Lines and Enjambment (STR-1.AC)
- 3.C Caesura: The Pause Inside the Line
- 3.D Shifts and How They Are Signalled (STR-1.I)
- 3.D The Volta: The Turn in the Argument (STR-1.J)
- 5.B Repetition, Refrain and Anaphora (FIG-1.C)
- 5.B Antecedents and Ambiguous Referents (FIG-1.B)
- 6.A Simile: Main Subject and Comparison Subject (FIG-1.E)
- 6.B Metaphor: Tenor, Vehicle and What Transfers (FIG-1.H)
- 7.A Claim and Evidence About a Poem (LAN-1.B)
Unit 7Poetry Craft: Meter, Rhythm and Scansion
Unit 9Fixed Forms: Closed, Open, and What the Form Itself Argues
- 3.C Closed and Open Forms, and What a Form Argues (STR-1.U)
- 3.C The Shakespearean Sonnet: Three Quatrains and a Couplet
- 3.C The Petrarchan and Spenserian Sonnets
- 3.C The Villanelle and the Sestina
- 3.C The Ode and the Elegy
- 3.C The Ballad and the Haiku
- 3.C The Dramatic Monologue
- 3.C The Pastoral and the Epigram
Unit 5Poetry II: Word Choice, Imagery and Comparison
- 5.A Literal Versus Figurative Meaning (FIG-1.L)
- 5.B Diction and Connotation (FIG-1.M)
- 5.B Syntax and Inverted Word Order
- 5.B Tone: The Speaker's Attitude
- 5.D Imagery, the Senses and Image Clusters (FIG-1.O)
- 6.B Extended Metaphor and Which Traits Transfer (FIG-1.T)
- 6.C Personification (FIG-1.V)
- 6.C Apostrophe: Speaking to the Absent
- 6.D Allusion: Biblical, Classical, Literary, Historical (FIG-1.W)
- 5.B Hyperbole and Understatement (FIG-1.N)
- 7.B Thesis and Line of Reasoning About a Poem (LAN-1.F)
Unit 8Poetry III: Ambiguity, Irony and the Conceit
- 3.C Punctuation as Structure (STR-1.AD)
- 3.C Interruption in a Pattern as Emphasis (STR-1.AE)
- 3.D Juxtaposition and Antithesis (STR-1.AF)
- 3.D Verbal Irony and Sarcasm (STR-1.AG)
- 3.D Situational and Dramatic Irony
- 3.D How Irony Is Signalled
- 3.D Paradox (STR-1.AH)
- 5.B Ambiguity, Tension and Multiple Defensible Readings (FIG-1.AG)
- 5.C Image, Motif and Symbol (FIG-1.AH)
- 6.B The Conceit: Extended Metaphor at Full Stretch (FIG-1.AI)
Unit 13Poetry on the AP Exam: The Multiple-Choice Sets and Question 1
Unit 14Drama: Plot, Structure, and Conflict (CED Units 3, 6, 9)
- 3.A Dramatic Structure and Freytag's Pyramid
- 3.B The Five-Act Shape and What Each Act Does
- 3.B Acts, Scenes, and How a Play Divides Time
- 3.A Exposition and the Inciting Incident
- 3.E Significant Events and Turning Points (STR-1.M)
- 3.F Internal and External Conflict (STR-1.N)
- 3.F Multiple Conflicts That Intersect (STR-1.O, STR-1.P)
- 3.E Subplot and Parallel Plots
- 3.F Resolution, Catharsis, and Unresolved Endings (STR-1.AK, STR-1.AM)
Unit 15Drama: Speech, Irony, and the Tragic Shape
- 1.E Soliloquy: Thought Spoken Aloud
- 4.C Monologue, Aside, and Who Is Allowed to Hear
- 4.C The Chorus and a Play's Built-In Commentary
- Dramatic Irony: The Gap Between Audience and Character
- Verbal and Situational Irony on Stage
- 2.A Stage Directions and What They Carry
- Staging, Blocking, and the Play as Performance
- 4.A Character Speech in Drama vs a Narrator's Report in Fiction
- 1.E The Tragic Hero, Hamartia, and Hubris
- Peripeteia, Anagnorisis, and Catharsis
- 1.C Foil Characters (CHR-1.U)
- Comedy and Its Conventions
- 1.B Dynamic and Static Characters Across a Play (CHR-1.AE, CHR-1.AF)
Unit 16Literary Argumentation (Big Idea LAN, Skill Category 7)
- 7.A Claims That Require a Defense (LAN-1.B)
- 7.B The Defensible Interpretive Thesis (LAN-1.D)
- 7.C The Line of Reasoning (LAN-1.F)
- 7.C Commentary vs Summary (LAN-1.G)
- 7.D Selecting Relevant Evidence (LAN-1.H)
- 7.D Sufficient Evidence and How Much Is Enough (LAN-1.J)
- 7.D Embedding and Framing a Quotation
- 7.C Naming a Device vs Explaining Its Effect
- 7.A Building a Body Paragraph (LAN-1.C)
- 7.C Accounting for Alternative Interpretations (LAN-1.U)
- 7.B Interpreting the Work as a Whole
- 7.E Using Literary Terminology Precisely
- 7.E Control Over the Elements of Composition (LAN-1.R)
Unit 17The Exam: Section I, Multiple-Choice
- Section I: 55 Questions, Five Sets, 60 Minutes
- The Digital Exam: Reading and Annotating on Screen
- What Section I Weights: Skill Categories 1 Through 7
- Reading an Unseen Poem Under Time
- Reading an Unseen Prose Passage Under Time
- Function Questions: What a Line Is Doing
- 5.B Diction and Words-in-Context Questions
- 1.A Inference and Characterization Questions
- 4.C Tone and Speaker-Attitude Questions
- 3.C Structure, Shift, and Organization Questions
- 6.A-6.D Figurative Language and Comparison Questions
- EXCEPT, LEAST, and NOT Questions
- Distractor Anatomy: Why Wrong Answers Feel Right
- Drama Passages in the Multiple-Choice Section
Unit 18The Exam: Section II, Free-Response and the Rubrics
- Section II: Three Essays in Two Hours
- Free-Response Question 1: Poetry Analysis
- Free-Response Question 2: Prose Fiction Analysis
- Free-Response Question 3: Literary Argument
- The Stable Prompt Wording and How to Mine It
- Rubric Row A: The Thesis Point
- Rubric Row B: Evidence and Commentary, 0 to 4
- Rubric Row C: The Sophistication Point
- An Outline for the Poetry Analysis Essay
- An Outline for the Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
- An Outline for the Literary Argument Essay
- Choosing a Work for Question 3
- The 40-Minute Essay Clock
- How 55 Questions and Three Essays Become a 1 to 5