Get more with Achieve.
Achieve's online courseware includes an e-book, quizzes, videos, and more. It's your most economical choice, even if your instructor doesn't require it.
FIND YOUR ACHIEVE COURSEAchieve is only available for selected titles.
Literature & Composition
Third EditionRenee H. Shea; Robin Dissin Aufses; Lawrence Scanlon; Katherine E. Cordes; Carlos Escobar; Carol Jago
©2022ISBN:9781319404451
Accessible on multiple devices. Bookmark, search, and highlight in an interactive and downloadable e-book
Since its first edition, Literature & Composition was designed specifically for the AP® English Literature course. Its unique structure of skill-building opening chapters combined with an engaging thematic anthology provides the flexibility you need to plan your year and differentiate based on your students’ needs. In this edition, the book you know and love now fully aligns to the new AP® Course and Exam Description.
Get more with Achieve.
Achieve's online courseware includes an e-book, quizzes, videos, and more. It's your most economical choice, even if your instructor doesn't require it.
E-book
Our e-books are accessible on multiple devices. Read online (or offline), bookmark, search, and highlight in an interactive and downloadable e-book.
Learn MoreTable of Contents
1 | Analyzing Short Fiction
SECTION 1
Edward P. Jones, The First Day
Elements of Fiction
Character
Character Development
Activity: Analyzing Character
James Welch, from Fools Crow
Setting
Activity: Analyzing Setting
Khaled Hosseini, from The Kite Runner
Plot
Activity: Analyzing Plot
Narrative Perspective and Point of View
First-Person Point of View
Second-Person Point of View
Italo Calvino, from If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler
Third-Person Point of View
Katherine Mansfield, from Miss Brill
Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice
Activity: Analyzing Narrative Perspective and Point of View
Louise Erdrich, from The Round House
Putting It All Together: Interpreting Major Elements of Fiction
Culminating Activity | Section 1
Interpreting Short Fiction: Defending a Claim with Evidence
Lydia Davis, Blind Date
SECTION 2
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, from Americanah
Close Reading: Analyzing Literary Elements and Techniques
Willa Cather, from My Antonia
Diction
Activity: Analyzing Diction
F. Scott Fitzgerald, from The Great Gatsby
Figurative Language
Imagery
Activity: Analyzing Figurative Language
Lan Cao, from Monkey Bridge
Syntax
Activity: Analyzing Syntax
Tommy Orange, from There There
Tone and Mood
Charles Dickens, from Bleak House
Activity: Connecting Literary Elements and Techniques with Tone and Mood
Zora Neale Hurston, from Their Eyes Were Watching God
From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
Jamaica Kincaid, Girl
Preparing to Write: Annotating Short Fiction
Activity: Annotating Short Fiction
Developing a Thesis Statement
Supporting Your Thesis
Writing Topic Sentences
Developing Claims with Evidence from the Text
Activity: Writing a Body Paragraph
Revising an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
Analyzing a Sample AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
Selin Selcucker, “Girl”
Activity: Providing Peer Feedback for Revision
Culminating Activity | Section 2
Crafting an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
Edith Wharton, from The House of Mirth
SECTION 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis
Analyzing Complexities and Tensions within a Text
Qualifying Your Argument
Culminating Activity | Section 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Prose Fiction Analysis Essay
2 | Analyzing Poetry
SECTION 1
Reading for Literal Meaning
Seamus Heaney, Digging
Activity: Reading a Poem for Literal Meaning
Christina Rossetti, Promises like Pie Crust
Considering the Speaker: Analyzing Contrasts
Diction
Juxtaposition, Antithesis, and Paradox
Shifts
Activity: Analyzing Contrasts
Lucille Clifton, Poem to My Yellow Coat
Tone and Mood
Irony
Activity: Analyzing Tone and Mood
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, My Heart and I
Reading for Detail
A. E. Housman, To an Athlete Dying Young
Figurative Language
Symbol
Imagery
Activity: Connecting Figurative Language to Meaning
Peggy Robles-Alvarado, When I Became La Promesa
Structure
Poetic Syntax
Meter
Form
Activity: Connecting Form to Meaning
Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson, Sonnet
Sound
Rhyme
Activity: Connecting Sound to Meaning
Marilyn Nelson, The Century Quilt
Putting it All Together: Connecting Poetic Elements of Style to Meaning
Robert Herrick, Delight in Disorder
Culminating Activity | Section 1
Interpreting Major Elements of Poetry
Paisley Rekdal, Happiness
SECTION 2
From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay
Maxine Kumin, Woodchucks
Preparing to Write: Creating a Graphic Organizer
Activity: Preparing to Write about Poetry
Major Jackson, Mighty Pawns
Developing a Thesis Statement
Supporting Your Thesis
Writing Topic Sentences
Developing Claims with Evidence from the Text
Documenting Sources
Activity: Writing a Body Paragraph
Revising an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay
Analyzing a Sample AP® Poetry Analysis Essay
Alyssa Pierangeli, “A Fall from Grace”
Activity: Providing Peer Feedback for Revision
Culminating Activity | Section 2
Crafting an AP® Poetry Analysis Essay
Major Jackson, Mighty Pawns
SECTION 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Poetry Analysis
Situating Your Interpretation in a Broader Context
Qualifying Your Argument
Culminating Activity | Section 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Poetry Analysis
3 | Analyzing Longer Fiction and Drama
SECTION 1
Literary Elements of Longer Fiction and Drama
Character
George Bernard Shaw, from Pygmalion
William Shakespeare, from Richard III
Activity: Analyzing Character in Longer Fiction and Drama
Setting
Henrik Ibsen, from A Doll’s House
Historical Contexts
Jesmyn Ward, from Salvage the Bones
Social and Cultural Contexts
Zee Edgell, from Beka Lamb
Activity: Analyzing Setting in Longer Fiction and Drama
Plot
Activity: Analyzing Plot in Longer Fiction and Drama
Narrative Perspective and Point of View
Stream of Consciousness
James Joyce, from Ulysses
Layered Points of View
Suzanne Berne, from A Crime in the Neighborhood
Emily Bronte, from Wuthering Heights
Unreliable Narrators
Kazuo Ishiguro, from Never Let Me Go
Activity: Analyzing Narrative Perspective and Point of View in Full-Length Works
Symbol
Toni Morrison, from Song of Solomon
Symbol and Allegory
Stephen King, from The Gunslinger
Activity: Analyzing Symbol in Longer Fiction and Drama
Putting It All Together: Interpreting Theme in Longer Fiction and Drama
Culminating Activity | Section 1
Interpreting Longer Fiction and Drama
SECTION 2
From Reading to Writing: Crafting an AP® Literary Argument Essay
Susan Glaspell, Trifles
Preparing to Write an AP® Literary Argument: Analyzing Literary Elements
Activity: Preparing to Write an AP® Literary Argument
Developing a Thesis Statement
Moving from Summary to Interpretation
Connecting Literary Elements to Interpretation
Activity: Revising Thesis Statements
Supporting Your Thesis
Writing Topic Sentences
Supporting Your Interpretation
Activity: Writing a Body Paragraph
Revising an AP® Literary Argument Essay
Analyzing a Sample AP® Literary Argument Essay
Fabiana Martínez, “Susan Glaspell’s Trifles”
Activity: Providing Peer Feedback for Revision
Culminating Activity | Section 2
Crafting an AP® Literary Argument Essay
SECTION 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Literary Argument
Developing Alternative Interpretations through Critical Lenses
Psychological Perspective
Cultural Criticism
Gendered Perspectives
Incorporating Alternative Interpretations into an Argument
Culminating Activity | Section 3
Developing Sophistication in an AP® Literary Argument
4 | Identity & Culture
Chapter Introduction: AP® Unit 4 / Short Fiction II
Central Text Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies (short fiction)
Classic Text Ralph Ellison, Boy on a Train (short fiction)
Texts in Context: Ralph Ellison and the Influence of the Harlem Renaissance
1. Alain Locke, from The New Negro (nonfiction)
2. Countee Cullen, Heritage (poetry)
3. Zora Neale Hurston, Spunk (short fiction)
4. Langston Hughes, I look at the world (poetry)
5. Jacob Lawrence, Migration Series #3 (painting)
Short Fiction
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown
Joyce Carol Oates, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Nadine Gordimer, Homage
Chimamada Ngozi Adichie, Apollo
Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Belles Lettres
Weike Wang, The Trip
Sakinah Hofler, Erasure
Poetry
John Milton, When I consider how my light is Spent
TalkBack | Emma Lazarus, City Visions I
Emily Dickinson, I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool
Mahmoud Darwish, Identity Card
Kamau Brathwaite, Ogun
Natasha Trethewey, Southern History
Natalie Diaz, The Facts of Art
Molly Rose Quinn, Dolorosa
Gregory Pardlo, Written by Himself
Quan Barry, loose strife [Somebody says draw a map]
Jose Olivarez, (citizen) (illegal)
Alexis Aceves Garcia, AQUí HAY TODO MIJA
Chapter 4 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
Jhumpa Lahiri, from Interpreter of Maladies
Ralph Ellison, from Boy on a Train
Suggestions for Writing: Identity & Culture
5 | Love & Relationships
Chapter Introduction: AP® Unit 5 / Poetry II
Central Text Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box (poetry)
Classic Text William Shakespeare, My love is as a fever, longing still (Sonnet 147) (poetry)
Texts in Context: William Shakespeare and the Sonnet Form
1. Edward Hirsch, My Own Acquaintance (nonfiction)
2. William Shakespeare, My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun (poetry)
3. William Wordsworth, Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room (poetry)
4. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, The Face of All the World (Sonnet 7) (poetry)
5. Claude McKay, America (poetry)
6. Marilyn Nelson, How I Discovered Poetry (poetry)
7. Julian Talamantez Brolaski, What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends (poetry)
8. David Baker, Peril Sonnet (poetry)
9. Oliver de la Paz, Diaspora Sonnet 40 (poetry)
Short Fiction
James Joyce, Araby
William Faulkner, A Rose for Emily
Maxine Clair, The Creation
Kirsten Valdez Quade, Jubilee
Poetry
Sir Thomas Wyatt, They flee from me
Sir Philip Sidney, Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust
John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
TalkBack | Adrienne Rich, A Valediction Forbidding Mourning
The Flea
Robert Herrick, To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband
TalkBack | Rebecca Hazelton, My Husband
Andrew Marvell, Mower’s Song
Lord Byron, She Walks in Beauty
John Keats, Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Emily Dickinson, Wild Nights, Wild Nights
T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Rainer Maria Rilke, Untitled [Do you still remember: falling stars]
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Love is not all
Frank O’Hara, Having a Coke with You
Margaret Atwood, Siren Song
Elizabeth Bishop, One Art
Billy Collins, Weighing the Dog
Dana Gioia, Summer Storm
Major Jackson, Urban Renewal XVIII
Ross Gay, Say It
Warsan Shire, For Women Who Are Difficult to Love
Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Chess
Tracy K. Smith, Wade in the Water
Chen Chen, I invite My Parents to a Dinner Party
Amy Alvarez, How to Date a White Boy
Denice Frohman, Lady Jordan
Chapter 5 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
Terrance Hayes, Wind in a Box
William Shakespeare, My love is as a fever, longing still
Suggestions for Writing: Love & Relationships
6 | Conformity & Rebellion
Chapter Introduction: AP® Unit 6 / Longer Fiction and Drama II
Central Text Nella Larsen, Passing (novel)
Classic Text William Shakespeare, Hamlet (drama)
Texts in Context: Hamlet and the Evolution of Character
1. Marjorie Garber, from Hamlet: The Matter of Character (nonfiction)
2. William Hazlitt, from Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (nonfiction)
3. C. S. Lewis, from Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem? (nonfiction)
4. Zbigniew Herbert, Elegy of Fortinbras (poetry)
Short Fiction
Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street
Te-Ping Chen, Lulu
Poetry
Alexander Pope, Sound and Sense
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Song: To the Men of England
Emily Dickinson, Much Madness is divinest Sense
Constantine Cavafy, Waiting for the Barbarians
Wallace Stevens, Emperor of Ice Cream
Dylan Thomas, Do not go gentle into that good night
Anne Sexton, Her Kind
Allen Ginsberg, Is About
Carol Ann Duffy, Penelope
TalkBack | A. E. Stallings, The Wife of the Man of Many Wiles
Harryette Mullen, We Are Not Responsible
Robin Coste Lewis, Art & Craft
Jamila Woods, Ghazal for White Hen Pantry
Kristiana Rae Colon, a remix for remembrance
Laura Da’, Passive Voice
Nathalie Handal, Ways of Rebelling
Taylor Johnson, Trans Is Against Nostalgia
Jericho Brown, Crossing
Elisa Gonzalez, Failed Essay on Privilege
Danielle DeTiberius, The Artist Signs Her Masterpiece, Immodestly
TalkBack | Carravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes (painting) & Artemesia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes (painting)
Jason Reynolds, Match
Chapter 6 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
Nella Larsen, from Passing
William Shakespeare, from Hamlet
Suggestions for Writing: Conformity & Rebellion
7 | War & Peace
Chapter Introduction: AP® Unit 7 / Short Fiction III
Central Text Edwidge Danticat, The Book of the Dead (short fiction)
Classic Text Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried (short fiction)
Texts in Context: The Things They Carried and Voices of the Vietnam Conflict
1. Viet Thanh Nguyen, True War Stories (nonfiction)
2. Bao Ninh, Savage Winds (short fiction)
3. Quan Barry, Napalm (poetry)
4. Hai-Dang Phan, My Father’s “Norton Introduction to Literature,” Third Edition (1981) (poetry)
5. Paul Tran, East Mountain View (poetry)
6. Ann Le, Between Home and Here: Woman Soldier (collage)
Short Fiction
Leo Tolstoy, After the Dance
Cynthia Ozick, The Shawl
Louise Erdrich, The Red Convertible
Bharati Mukherjee, The Management of Grief
Scholastique Mukasonga, Grief
Jamil Jan Kochai, Playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Poetry
Richard Lovelace, To Lucasta, Going to the Wars
TalkBack | Robert Graves, To Lucasta on Going to the War—for the Fourth Time
Julia Ward Howe, Battle Hymn of the Republic
Thomas Hardy, A Wife in London (December, 1899)
TalkBack | Yusef Komunyakaa, Between Days
Siegfried Sassoon, Lamentations
Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est
TalkBack | Dunya Mikhail, The War Works Hard
Anna Akhmatova, The First Long-Range Artillery Shell in Leningrad
Henry Reed, Naming of Parts
Wislawa Syzmborska, The Terrorist, He Watches
Claribel Alegria, Not Yet
Naomi Shihab Nye, For Mohammed Zeid of Gaza, Age 15
Brian Turner, Sadiq
Jill McDonough, Twelve-Hour Shifts
Amit Majmudar, True Believer
Solmaz Sharif, Reaching Guantanamo
Amorak Huey, We Were All Odysseus in those Days
Nikky Finney, A New Day Dawns
Chapter 7 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
Edwidge Danticat, from The Book of the Dead
Tim O’Brien, from The Things They Carried
Suggestions for Writing: War & Peace
8 | Home & Family
Chapter introduction: AP® Unit 8 / Poetry III
Central Text Richard Blanco, Mother Country (poetr y)
Classic Text Marianne Moore, The Steeple-Jack (poetry)
Texts in Context: Marianne Moore and the Modernist Vision
1. T. S. Eliot, from Tradition and the Individual Talent (nonfiction)
2. Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose (poetry)
3. H. D., Sea Rose (poetry)
4. Amy Lowell, A London Thoroughfare. 2 A.M. & The Emperor’s Garden (poetry)
5. Fernand Leger, La Ville (“The City”) (painting)
6. Virginia Woolf, from Mrs. Dalloway (fiction)
Short Fiction
Tillie Olsen, I Stand Here Ironing
Helena María Viramontes, The Moths
Laura van den Berg, Lessons
Rivers Solomon, Prudent Girls
Poetry
Ben Jonson, On My First Son
Anne Bradstreet, Before the Birth of One of Her Children
William Wordsworth, We Are Seven
Langston Hughes, Mother to Son
Theodore Roethke, My Papa’s Waltz
Robert Hayden, Those Winter Sundays
TalkBack | Threa Almonstaser, A Mother’s Mouth Illuminated
Richard Wilbur, The Writer
Gladys Cardiff, Combing
Mary Oliver, The Black Walnut Tree
Ruth Stone, Pokeberries
Marilyn Chin, Turtle Soup
Li-Young Lee, The Hammock
Mohja Kahf, My Grandmother Washes Her Feet in the Sink of the Bathroom at Sears
Victoria Redel, Bedecked
Heid Erdrich, Intimate Detail
Rita Dove, Family Reunion
Adrienne Su, Peaches
Hafizah Geter, The Widower
Ada Limon, The Raincoat
Saeed Jones, A Stranger
Chapter 8 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
Richard Blanco, Mother Country
Marianne Moore, The Steeple-Jack
Suggestions for Writing: Home & Family
9 | Tradition & Progress
Chapter introduction: AP® Unit 9 / Longer Fiction and Drama III
Central Text August Wilson, Fences (drama)
Classic Text Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (novel)
Texts in Context: Frankenstein and the Ethics of Creation
1. Stephen Jay Gould, from The Monster’s Human Nature (nonfiction)
2. Brian Aldiss, Super-Toys Last All Summer Long (fiction)
3. Jon Turney, from Frankenstein’s Footsteps (nonfiction)
4. Janet Allinger, Frankenstein Drives a Tesla (illustration)
Short Fiction
Flannery O’Connor, A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Alice Walker, Everyday Use
Naguib Mahfouz, Half a Day
Hanif Kureishi, We’re Not Jews
Poetry
Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
William Blake, London
William Wordsworth, The World Is Too Much with Us
TalkBack | Joy Harjo, For Calling the Spirit Back
Walt Whitman, Mannahatta
TalkBack | Carl Sandburg, Chicago
Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach
Gerard Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur
Emily Dickinson, Crumbling is not an instant’s Act
Robert Frost, Mending Wall
William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
Czesław Miłosz, Dedication
TalkBack | Matthew Olzmann, Letter Beginning with Two Lines by Czesław Miłosz
Seamus Heaney, Bogland
Yehuda Amichai, The Eve of Rosh Hashanah
Frannie Choi, Gentrifier
Rajiv Mohabir, Why Whales Are Back in New York City
Terrance Hayes, Pseudacris Crucifer
Juan Felipe Herrera, i want to speak of unity
Chapter 9 AP® Multiple-Choice Practice
August Wilson, from Fences
Mary Shelley, from Frankenstein
Suggestions for Writing: Tradition & Progress
Practice AP® English Literature and Composition Exam
Glossary/Glosario
MLA Guide to a List of Works Cited
Index