1. Good advice from dead white men and women... and a few living ones too T EN [ OR SO ] Q UOTES TO I NSPIRE YOU T O T AKE AP E NGLISH L ITERATURE

2. T HE S ENIOR T RANSCRIPT : A VOID S ENIORITIS Having another AP course on your transcript looks good, and it even looks better when it is during your senior year. Taking AP Lit as a senior will help you to develop strong study habits that will help you in college. 1010 “If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” --Antoine de Saint- Exupery

3. D ON ’ T INTERRUPT PROGRESS. K EEP MOVING FORWARD.  Any other course that you take as a senior will prepare you to take AP English Language, which YOU ARE CURRENTLY TAKING!!!  AP English Literature is the next step! 9 “He who moves not forward goes backward.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

4. Start thinking like a college student. Why simply take a high school class when you can earn college credit at the same time? Taking AP courses can save you time and credits and your parents some serious bucks. One more AP course will increase this savings. E ARN C OLLEGE C REDIT ! “Kill two birds with one stone, feed the homeless to the hungry.” Ray Bradbury “Money doesn’t talk. It swears.” Bob Dylan 8

5. H ERE ’ S S OME M ORE ABOUT C OLLEGE C REDIT  By passing the Advanced Placement Exam in May, you will have the potential to earn college credit. Many colleges award between 3-6 hours of English credit depending on the college you attend and the score you earn.  By enrolling in the CU Succeed Program through the University of Colorado at Denver, you will earn 3 credits of English. The cost for tuition is $75 per credit hour ($225 for the course). This credit can be transferred to most universities, but you should consult the specific university you plan to attend.  AP Literature and AP Language are the only two senior English classes at Bear Creek that include the option to earn college credit. You have two options to earn credit in both classes :

6. AP E XAM E QUIVALENCY S CORES FOR CSU AND CU B OULDER If you plan to attend either CSU or CU Boulder, you could potentially earn up to 9 English credits by taking both AP Language and AP Literature. With all the offerings at Bear Creek, it is possible to start college as a second semester freshman, or even beyond that. ScoreAP LanguageAP Literature 4 CO 130 (3 credits) E 140 (3 credits) 5 CO 130 (3 credits) E 140 and E 150 (6 credits) Scor e AP LanguageAP Literature 4 WRTG 1150 (3 credits) ENGL 1500 (3 credits) 5 WRTG 1150 and 1250 (6 credits) ENGL 1500 (3 credits)

7. L OOK AT THE SAVINGS OF FORMER BCHS STUDENTS !!!!! StudentCredit at BCHS UniversityCost/CreditTuition Savings Alex Cullimore 55 UC Boulder $262$14,410 Dillon Le 34 Boston University $2,200$75,799 Karyssa Cox 28 UC Boulder $262$7,336 Kevin Dam 20 Cornell University $1,041$20,823 Peter Hodel 44 (quarter credits) University of Oregon $453$19,941

8.  AP Literature will allow you to improve your writing. Because the writing component is intense in AP English courses, you will continue to improve on a skill that will benefit you immensely in all of your coursework in college.  The instruction in AP Lit is designed to take your writing to the next level. Since you will be in a class with other students who have taken AP Lang, you will also get peer feedback at this level. T HE Q UEST FOR THE H OLY G RAIL 7 “Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.” Sylvia Plath

9. F OR A LL Y OU L OGOPHILES  Do you think about choosing the one right perfect word when ten others might at least work?  Do you love the sound of certain words and find yourself repeating them out loud to yourself?  Do you get excited over the power of words to inspire, influence, and incite?  Do you own a collection of magnetic poetry?  Do you play Words with Friends even when your “real friends” are trying to talk to you?  Do you own a copy of the Oxford Dictionary? 6 “I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of the hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” Richard Wright

10. I F Y OU C AN ’ T A FFORD T ALK T HERAPY... 5  Take AP Literature if you enjoy talking about literature with other students who also do.  Because AP classes are typically more challenging, class discussions can be more meaningful.  AP Literature is more discussion based than other English classes you may have taken in the past. “My idea of good company is the company of clever, well- informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.” Jane Austen

11. D IVERSE & T HOUGHT -P ROVOKING L ITERATURE  AP Literature includes some awesome literature that spans a wide range of genres, periods, and issues. This course includes something for everyone.  You will read challenging literature that makes you THINK!  Learn how to understand and appreciate literature that will make you more culturally literate.  Other English classes at Bear Creek focus on a specific genre of literature—such as Multicultural, Contemporary, or Unreal Literature.  AP English Literature covers it all! 4 “True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.” Yevgeny Zamyatin

12. T HE C LASSICS

13. M ODERN AND C ONTEMPORARY L ITERATURE

14. D YSTOPIAN L ITERATURE "The word dystopia is the commonly used antonym of utopia and denotes that class of hypothetical societies containing images of worlds worse than our own. Dystopian images are almost invariably images of future society, pointing fearfully at the way the world is supposedly going in order to provide urgent propaganda for a change in direction." (Grolier's )

15. I N THE D YSTOPIAN U NIT, Y OU WILL...  Become a member of the Bear State.  Constantly be watched by the Eyes.  Speak in Newspeak.  Follow the duties of the Bear State.  Be in danger of being vaporized.

16. M AGICAL R EALISM If you like to read about worlds where... A boy falls in love with a wave Portals open to alternate realities Cats can talk Women can fly or kill with their beauty Punishments repeat eternally Fish rain down from the sky Magic carpets and ghosts exist Paranormal experiences are normal Time is not linear Place is no longer distinct Identity is never clear Then you should take AP Literature!

17. H AMLET S HAKESPEARE : T HE B ARD “To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep, No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd.” 3 Reading Hamlet will make you a more self-aware, culturally literate, perplexed (in a good way) and deeper thinker. Half a Soliloquy: A Hamlet Parody

18. “Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own.” –Dylan Thomas P OETRY : “A P OEM S HOULD N OT M EAN, B UT B E ” -Archibald MacLeish 2 “Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility.” - William Wordsworth “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” –Emily Dickinson “Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” – Robert Frost “Yet, it is true, poetry is delicious; the best prose is that which is most full of poetry.” – Virginia Woolf “Well, write poetry, for God’s sake, it’s the only thing that matters.” – e e cummings “Poetry fettered fetters the human race.” –William Blake “There is a pleasure in poetic pains, which only poets know.” – William Cowper “A poet looks at the world the way a man looks at a woman.” -Wallace Stevens “I wanna hear a poem where ideas kiss similes so deeply that metaphors get jealous.” –Steve Colman “This poem comes from somewhere deep somewhere where the angels sleep where pixies dance and mermaids weep...” –Gina Loring

19. I T ’ S A LL A BOUT THE S TORIES “It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.” Haruki Murakami T HE L AW OF U NIVERSAL S PECIFICITY “The universality of great literature is its continual relevance throughout history, but the lasting impact is made through the uniqueness of a good story and memorable characters.” Thomas Foster 1