AP English Language and Composition is an enriched, college-level course that introduces highly motivated students to the elements of argument, rhetoric, and style, and which takes its content from various sources, sometimes controversial texts. 

According to the CollegeBoard course description: students will engage in civil discourse about issues that might, from particular social, historical or cultural viewpoints, be considered controversial including references to ethnicities, nationalities, religions, races, dialects, gender, or class, may be addressed in texts that are appropriate for the AP English Language and Composition course. Fair representation of issues and peoples may occasionally include controversial material. Since AP students have chosen a program that directly involves them in college level work, participation in this course depends on a level of maturity consistent with the age of high school students who have engaged in thoughtful analyses of a variety of texts. 

Students are expected to be very good readers and serious, developing writers. There is considerably more work, both in class and homework, than in other English classes; thus, all students in the course are expected to take the AP English Language and Composition Exam in May. Students are expected to commit time outside of class to personally study course content. Often, work in this class involves assignments that have extended deadlines, so it is expected that students have-or prepare to quickly develop- effective, appropriate time management skills. 

Like other English classes at the high school level, AP English Language and Composition is skill-driven. That is, students learn, practice, and develop language arts skills in reading, writing, literary analysis, vocabulary, research, and oral presentation. However, the reading material is rigorous; writing assignments are challenging; vocabulary is increasingly sophisticated. Research is expected to proceed by depth and breadth; oral presentations are expected to reveal confidence and poise. 

The key concept of the course is the improvement of the student’s ability to communicate through reading, writing and speaking in public. Coursework is based on the North Dakota Reading/Language Arts Standards. The reading will include short stories, poetry, novels, plays and non-fiction selections. The writing will progress from construction of the paragraph to autobiography, responses to literature, persuasion, descriptive writing and a short story, poems and a research paper. Students will practice using computers and the Internet as aids in group presentations and research.