Thoughts From an Experienced Teacher On The AP Lit CED

I first taught AP Lit in 2006, immediately after graduating college. Admittedly, mine is a unique (and rather foolish) situation. Many teachers work for years, even decades, before applying their expertise to this advanced course. However, I was at a private school that found themselves in a desperate situation. I took the course as a student just five years earlier, so the principal thought that was good enough. In my first few years, I attended a first-year APSI and generally followed the previous teacher’s plans. But I didn’t know what the CED (Course and Exam Description) was and certainly never studied it.

Fast forward to 2017, I began this blog in an attempt to supplement my TpT resources and guide AP Lit teachers specifically. The more I talked about AP Lit, the more I studied the CED. When they overhauled the course in 2019, the new CED became an obsession and tried to follow it as closely as possible.

Now that we are several years removed from the newest course update, I have a slightly different relationship with the AP English Literature CED. When I have a question, it’s still one of the first places I look. However, I no longer feel compelled to follow it to a T.

In this post I’ll share areas of the course where I follow the CED and where I feel confident to move away from it. Please understand that I do not represent College Board or APSI and the views expressed in this post are mine alone. They are simply intended to take some of the pressure off new AP Lit teachers, who often feel like they’re moving too slowly through the course.

When I follow the CED

Course Skills & Essential Knowledge

These details are often overlooked in the AP Lit CED, as they trickle down from Enduring Understandings and Course Skills. However, the Essential Knowledge statements break down the broad skills into small chunks.

Take a look at this Course Skill versus Essential Knowledge statement from Unit 1:

STR 3.A – Identify and describe how plot orders events in a narrative.

STR-1.B – The dramatic situation of a narrative includes the setting and action of the plot and how that narrative develops to place characters in conflict(s), and often involves the rising or falling fortunes of a main character or set of characters.

These Essential Knowledge statements are also put into question form in the CED (pages 124-137). These questions are perfect for pairing with any text to cut straight to skill-based analysis. They are the questions that make up my AP Lit Task Cards (available on TpT).

The Rubrics

Of all the things the CED tells teachers, the rubrics are probably the most important. Not only does it tell us how to score our students’ writing, but it breaks down the writing skills by category (thesis, evidence and commentary, and sophistication). I also like that the rubrics includes two lines for teachers’ assessments. The top line provides descriptors of the students’ work while the bottom line explains what typical scores look like.

Exam Overview Percentages

Pages 140-142 explain how the sections of the exam are weighted. In my first few years teaching the course I ignored multiple choice preparation. I felt that if my students were strong writers, it didn’t matter how they did on multiple choice. However, I didn’t fully comprehend that their multiple-choice score accounted for 45% of their total grade. High scores on all three essays can’t undo low multiple-choice scores, so even my best students were earning 3s and 4s on the exam. Now that we practice multiple choice strategies in class, my students’ composite scores are much higher.

These pages also include a breakdown of how the units show up on the exam, which I feel is often ignored. Many teachers emphasize long fiction, but since there are no full texts on the exam and no required work, those units only comprise 15-18% of the final exam. However, the analysis of excerpted short prose (called short fiction) makes up almost 50% of the exam. For this reason, I make my students study excerpts and stories out of context far more than novels or plays.  

Stable Prompt Wording

Pages 143-144 of the AP Lit CED explain how each writing prompt is formed. This explanation is helpful, but what is more important is the Stable Prompt Wording underneath each sample question. This wording allows teachers to write their own writing prompt based on texts they use in class. I recommend following this structure as closely as possible so students can get used to these prompts and even find analytical patterns in how they are worded.

When I don’t always follow the CED

Unit Overviews

When creating a unit, I look at the skills included in the unit overview. These are helpful guides to make sure I hit every course skill and spread them evenly over the course of the year. However, I don’t feel confined to these skills. I will also incorporate other skills and lessons that naturally arise based on the text I’m using. In short, the unit overviews are helpful for planning, but shouldn’t be looked at as limits in your planning.

Sample Instructional Activities

The sample instructional activities pages include a disclaimer. It says, “Any texts referenced are not required but are used here simply to provide a context for activities.” However, many new AP Lit teachers feel that if it makes it into the CED, it is a sacred text that must be taught.

Employees at College Board will encourage AP Lit teachers to choose texts that they want for instruction. “A Rose for Emily” is mentioned in the CED, but you certainly aren’t required to teach it. The same goes for the activities mentioned in the Sample Activities pages. These pages illustrate how a skill can be taught, but definitely not how it should be taught.

Another thing to consider is that the sample activities rarely combine skills in instruction, because they’re focusing on skills individually. Teachers are free to blend skill lessons and expand them across texts. You can also, dare I say it, have fun and incorporate movement, games, and media in your instruction!

Suggested class periods

Did you know that this wavy symbol in front of the number is called a tilde? I didn’t know this until I wrote this blog post. While you may not know its name, I’m sure you know that it means “approximately” or “around.” And yet, one of the most recurring questions on the AP Lit Facebook page has to do with keeping to these suggested class periods.

These suggested class periods are only included to show how you can fit it all into a 180-day calendar (with time to spare). However, this doesn’t include time lost to school events such as Homecoming, lost instructional periods due to testing and field trips, and the multiple other things that get in the way of planned instruction. I teach slow in the first three units, then try to speed up the rest of them if I’m able. And if I don’t get to all nine units, then that’s how it is. Bottom line: these dates are just a suggestion and ignore them as you wish.

Conclusion

I want to reiterate that the opinions expressed in this post are only mine and you are welcome to disagree with them. The people at College Board have put together a fantastic resource in the form of the AP Lit CED. This document, as well as the training from APSIs and other AP trainings are invaluable to all new AP teachers. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed by the sheer scope of the course, especially the CED, I hope this shows you that you can find success and veer from the course guide in several areas. Many teachers ignore the CED entirely and still put out college-ready students with fantastic AP scores!

For additional help in teaching AP Lit, please check out the following resources:

In this blog post, I interviewed several dozen teachers coming off their first year of AP Lit. They gave us the advice they wish someone had told them as they approached the course, and their wisdom is far more valuable than my own!

AP Lit Skill Spotlights

Each of these skill-based lesson focuses on an AP Lit skill. Each includes a warm-up activity, a central text with skill-based analysis questions, and a list of additional texts that are good for this skill. Enjoy all the free lessons!

AP English Literature full Course Year Long Curriculum

This, quite honestly, is my life’s work. I poured all of my collective experience in teaching AP Lit into these resources, which you can purchase for more than two years of instructional material. Almost everything is editable and it will save you countless hours of planning. It also follows the CED! Read the reviews, they speak for themselves!

My TpT store

If you don’t need material for a full year but just want some help with poetry, writing, or teaching a text, check out my store on Teachers Pay Teachers. I have almost 400 resources, nearly all of them editable, and most of them are aligned to AP English Lit.