Advanced Placement Spanish Literature is a high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 course and examination offered by the College Board's

College Board

The College Board is a membership association in the United States that was formed in 1900 as the College Entrance Examination Board . It is composed of more than 5,900 schools, colleges, universities and other educational organizations. It sells standardized tests used by academically oriented...

 Advanced Placement Program

Advanced Placement Program

The Advanced Placement program is a curriculum in the United States and Canada sponsored by the College Board which offers standardized courses to high school students that are generally recognized to be equivalent to undergraduate courses in college...

.

The course

This course is based on improving skills in writing Spanish, and critical reading of advanced Spanish

Spanish literature

Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain...

 and Latin American literature

Latin American literature

Latin American literature consists of the oral and written literature of Latin America in several languages, particularly in Spanish, Portuguese, and indigenous languages of the Americas. It rose to particular prominence globally during the second half of the 20th century, largely due to the...

  It is typically taught as a Spanish V or VI course. The AP Spanish Literature course is designed to be comparable to a third-year College/University introduction to Hispanic literature course. Students concentrate on developing proficiency in reading and writing in preparation for the AP Spanish Literature examination. In addition, this course will emphasize mastery of linguistic competencies at a very high level of proficiency.

The course has a required reading list which draws from a variety of sources including well known authors and poets as Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

, Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...

, Tirso de Molina

Tirso de Molina

Tirso de Molina was a Spanish Baroque dramatist, poet and a Roman Catholic monk.Originally Gabriel Téllez, he was born in Madrid. He studied at Alcalá de Henares, joined the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy on November 4, 1600, and entered the Monastery of San Antolín at Guadalajara,...

, Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel García Márquez

Gabriel José de la Concordia García Márquez is a Colombian novelist, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist, known affectionately as Gabo throughout Latin America. He is considered one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in...

, Alfonsina Storni

Alfonsina Storni

Alfonsina Storni was one of the most important Latin-American poets of the modernist period.-Life:Storni was born in Sala Capriasca, Switzerland to an Argentine beer industrialist living in Switzerland for a few years. There, Storni learned to speak Italian...

, Juan Rulfo

Juan Rulfo

Juan Rulfo was a Mexican author and photographer. One of Latin America's most esteemed authors, Rulfo's reputation rests on two slim books, the novel Pedro Páramo , and El Llano en llamas...

, Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende Llona is a Chilean writer with American citizenship. Allende, whose works sometimes contain aspects of the "magic realist" tradition, is famous for novels such as The House of the Spirits and City of the Beasts , which have been commercially successful...

 and Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.-Biography:...

, as well as a variety of lesser known short stories, poems, and novels.

The exam

The exam is divided into two sections with several parts. Section one is a section on reading analysis, and is completely multiple choice. 80 minutes are given for this section, and the grade received comprises 40% of the overall exam grade.

Section two is free-response, and requires three different essays to be written in Spanish on prescribed topics. Essay #1 requires students to analyze a poem. Essay #2 is on the subject thematic analysis, requiring students to analyze themes from works in the course's required reading list. In Essay #3, students must answer free-response questions about an excerpt from a required reading or write an essay analyzing critical commentary of a portion of the required reading. Each essay is worth 20% of the student's grade. Individual essays are graded based on both the accuracy and comprehensiveness of their content and their accuracy and fluency of language. Students are recommended to take 30 minutes given to complete the first essay, and 40 minutes given to complete the second and the third essays.

The test is approximately three hours in duration.

Grade distribution

In the 2007 administration 15,321 students took the exam from 1,491 schools. The mean score was a 2.84.

The grade distribution for 2007 was:

Score	Percent
5	11.5%
4	22.6%
3	27.5%
2	14.9%
1	23.6%

External links

• AP Spanish Literature at CollegeBoard.com