AP Lit It: Whatever does it mean?

AP Lit It: A phrase hundreds of students heard me use over the course of five years.

I will use this term in my blog, so I thought I should share with you what it means to me, my AP students, and why I use it.

When I taught Advanced Placement Literature I reinvigorated all of my skills that made being a literature major so exciting.  There is so much more to great, creative literature than a storyline and characters.

First, let me distinguish between popular literature and artistic literature.  Popular literature is what we read for fun, as a distraction from our own lives, or just for pleasure.  It entertains us; we fall in love with characters and follow series; we imagine ourselves in a different world; we flock to movies that are made to bring it all to life, although the book is always better!

Artistic literature can also read for fun and pleasure, but the craft involved in creating such a story is much more involved.  I am in no way disparaging pop literature, nor am I claiming that pop literature cannot be artistic.  There are many current writers that I believe will have a claim to artistic fame in the future if they do not already. Also, there are many books that border the line between popular and artistic.  

When I read I “AP Lit it” because every author, those trying to break artistic norms and those just trying to entertain the masses, utilizes tools of the trade. First, I search for literary devices - you were taught those at some point in your education. There are thousands in a writer’s arsenal, but the most common are plot (the story line), theme (the message the author is projecting), setting, and characters. Characters become much more than major and minor characters; they become static or dynamic, archetypes, symbols, foils, anti heroes; their names symbolize great ideas, historic figures, personality traits...  Punctuation no longer just serves as the end of a sentence; it speeds or slows the pace; it mimics sound; it identifies patterns...  Settings are not just places; they are clues to emotions, events, characters, symbolic of our own world...  Words are carefully chosen.  Names matter.  Numbers count much more than they appear.  

The writer’s motives must be examined.  What lesson does the author want me to glean?  What creative experiment was employed? Am I receiving a warning? 

There are always those naysayers who don’t believe a writer works diligently on craft. In just about every English class I taught during my teaching career the question came up at least once if not several times during the year.  My answer:  “Some writers don’t - those are the popular fiction authors.  Some use some of the tools.  And many, generally the authors taught in schools, do.  To determine whether a piece is merely entertainment or a work of art, you must “AP Lit It”.

For a quick example, read my post on The Hunger Games.