The AP English Language and Composition course is designed to help students become skilled readers of prose written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts and to become skilled writers who can compose for a variety of purposes. By their writing and reading in this course, students should become aware of the interactions among a writer's purposes, audience expectations, and subjects, as well as the way generic conventions and the resources of language contribute to effective writing.

This course is for those who have demonstrated an adequate degree of competence in the Placement Test or to those who have satisfied the requirements of LAC 010. It introduces students to writing as a conscious and developmental activity, in which students are encouraged to think, read, and write across a variety of genres, while maintaining and refining their own voices. Collaborative work, peer criticism, and multiple drafts may be incorporated in any given class, as students are urged to take more responsibility for their writing. The final aim of this course is to refine students' skills further, help bring forth their voices, and instill in them the readiness to use writing in other classes.