If you’ve ever opened the AP English Language and Composition Course and Exam Description looking for a simple answer to “how much writing should my students be doing,” you know the problem. The CED is the official starting point, and every AP Lang teacher should read it. It’s also enormous. When I’m just trying to build my course, that’s not what I want to be squinting at.
That’s the gap my AP Lang Curriculum Map is built to fill.
What the Map Actually Shows You
This isn’t a day-by-day pacing guide. The lessons themselves live inside each unit. The map is the 10,000-foot view: what this course looks like across the whole year, at a glance.
Specifically, it answers the questions I get asked most: how much writing are students doing, and where? Where am I quizzing versus assigning full essays? What are we reading? What skills belong to which unit, and in what order?
You Don’t Have to Build Any of This Yourself
One thing I hope you take from the map: you don’t have to make everything it describes. Click the picture next to any item and it links to a ready-to-teach resource for that piece; already built, so you’re not starting from a blank page.
The FAQ Page
The last page of the map is a running FAQ, built from years of actual teacher emails; the questions I get asked most often about how to organize this course.
What’s Coming Next
I’m adding a unit-by-unit video playlist to the first page; short videos where I walk through how I organize each unit, like a teacher across the hall talking you through it. If you’ve got questions the map doesn’t answer, that playlist is where to look next.
Still have a question the map and FAQ don’t cover? Email me any time at heather@englishdepartmentresources.com.