Important Updates
AP English Language and Composition Updates and New Resources for 2019-20
To help more students prepare for—and succeed on—the AP English Language and Composition Exam, we’ve clarified the course’s focus starting with the 2019-20 school year and are introducing new resources for your classroom. We’ve also moved exam registration to the fall, a best practice that improves students’ chances of earning college credit and placement.
Download the new course and exam description
New AP Resources
This August, we’re introducing AP Classroom, with a suite of new resources designed in collaboration with AP educators that will help give students personalized feedback throughout the year. These include in-depth unit guides, personal progress checks and a dashboard to measure student progress, and a question bank of real AP questions.
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AP English Language and Composition Course and Exam Description—Fall 2019
This is the core document for this course and is updated for the 2019-20 school year. New unit guides clearly lay out the course content and skills and recommend sequencing and pacing for them throughout the year. The CED also more clearly outlines how material will be assessed on the exam, provides instructional strategies, and gives information on the AP Program in general.
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Sources for Synthesis Free-Response Question 1 from the Sample Exam in the Course and Exam Description
Course Overview
AP English Language and Composition is an introductory college-level composition course. Students cultivate their understanding of writing and rhetorical arguments through reading, analyzing, and writing texts as they explore topics like rhetorical situation, claims and evidence, reasoning and organization, and style.
Your new course and exam description (CED) for the 2019-20 school year more clearly outlines all required course content and skills and defines how they will be assessed on the exam.
Course Content
The course skills are organized within nine units that scaffold student development of the analysis and composition skills required for college credit. For each unit, the teacher selects a theme or topic and then chooses texts, typically short nonfiction pieces, that enable students to practice and develop the reading and writing skills for that unit. This course framework provides a description of what students should know and be able to do to qualify for college credit or placement.
The AP English Language and Composition framework is made up of nine units. As always, you have the flexibility to organize the course content as you like.
Unit |
| Unit 1: Rhetorical Analysis I |
| Unit 2: Argument I |
| Unit 3: Synthesis I |
| Unit 4: Rhetorical Analysis II |
| Unit 5: Argument II |
| Unit 6: Synthesis II |
| Unit 7: Rhetorical Analysis III |
| Unit 8: Argument III |
| Unit 9: Synthesis III |
Course Skills
The updated AP English Language and Composition framework included in the course and exam description outlines distinct skills that students should practice throughout the year—skills that will help them learn to think and act like writers.
Skill Categories |
Description |
Exam Weighting (Multiple-Choice Section) |
| 1. Rhetorical Situation: Reading | Explain how writers’ choices reflect the components of the rhetorical situation. | 11%–14% |
| 2. Rhetorical Situation: Writing | Make strategic choices in a text to address a rhetorical situation. | 11%–14% |
| 3. Claims and Evidence: Reading | Identify and describe the claims and evidence of an argument. | 13%–16% |
| 4. Claims and Evidence: Writing | Analyze and select evidence to develop and refine a claim. | 11%–14% |
| 5. Reasoning and Organization: Reading | Describe the reasoning, organization, and development of an argument. | 13%–16% |
| 6. Reasoning and Organization: Writing | Use organization and commentary to illuminate the line of reasoning in an argument. | 11%–14% |
| 7. Style: Reading | Explain how writers’ stylistic choices contribute to the purpose of an argument. | 11–14% |
| 8. Style: Writing | Select words and use elements of composition to advance an argument. | 11–14% |
AP and Higher Education
Higher education professionals play a key role developing AP courses and exams, setting credit and placement policies, and scoring student work. The AP Higher Education site features information on recruitment and admission, advising and placement, and more.
This chart shows recommended scores for granting credit, and how much credit should be awarded, for each AP course. Your students can look up credit and placement policies for colleges and universities on the AP Credit Policy Search.
Meet the current Development Committee for AP English Language and Composition.