The foundation of every other unit. Character, perspective, setting, plot, dramatic situation, and narration — plus the basic skill of building a claim and supporting it with textual evidence. Master this and the rest of AP Lit gets a lot easier.
Seven course skills from the College Board CED (updated Fall 2024).
Skill 1.A
Character & Perspective
Identify and describe what specific textual details — description, dialogue, and behavior — reveal about a character, their perspective, and their motives.
Skill 2.A
Setting
Identify and describe the specific textual details that convey or reveal a setting — the time and place of a narrative's events.
Skill 3.A
Plot & Dramatic Situation
Identify and describe how plot orders events, and how setting, action, and conflict combine to form the dramatic situation.
Skill 3.B
Sequence & Exposition
Explain the function of a particular sequence of events, and how exposition focuses readers' attention on what matters most.
Skill 4.A
Narrator & Speaker
Identify and describe the narrator or speaker of a text — a voice that is never the same as the author, even when they sound similar.
Skill 4.B
Point of View
Explain the function of point of view — first-person narrators inside the events, and third-person narrators ranging from observational to omniscient.
Skill 7.A
Claims & Textual Evidence
Develop a paragraph-level argument: a defensible claim, supported by specific evidence from the text.
About Unit 1
Unit 1 is the foundation for the rest of AP English Literature. You'll learn to identify the basic elements of fiction — character, setting, and plot — and, just as importantly, to distinguish the narrator or speaker from the author. Every story is told from somewhere, by someone, and that point of view shapes everything a reader experiences.
This unit also introduces the foundational writing skill of the course: making a claim and defending it with specific textual evidence. That single skill — claim plus evidence — is the seed that grows into the full literary argument essay you'll write on the exam.
The College Board ties Unit 1 to five of the six Big Ideas:
Big Idea: CHR
Character — values, beliefs, and biases revealed through description, dialogue, and behavior
Big Idea: SET
Setting — the time and place of a text's events, and the values associated with them
Big Idea: STR
Structure — how plot orders events and the dramatic situation places characters in conflict
Big Idea: NAR
Narration — the narrator or speaker controls what readers experience
Big Idea: LAN
Literary Argumentation — readers communicate interpretations through evidence-based arguments