AP Literature Prose Essay Prompts (1970–2016)

Overview

Compiled by: Cheryl DeLacretaz, Dripping Springs High School, Dripping Springs, TX
Context: For AP English exams, prompts are derived from a variety of literary texts, including novels, essays, short stories, and nonfiction.
Historical Note: 1979 marked a significant division where the AP English exam transitioned to separate Language and Literature exams beginning in 1980.

1970s Prompts

1970: Meredith’s “Ferdinand and Miranda” from The Ordeal of Richard Feveral
- Prompt: Show how the young woman and the young man in the passage are made to seem naturally suited for one another.
1971: Orwell’s “Some Thoughts on the Common Toad”
- Prompt: Demonstrate how the speaker establishes his attitude toward the coming of spring.
1972: Joyce’s “Eveline” from Dubliners
- Prompt: Explain how the author prepares his reader for Eveline’s final inability or unwillingness to sail to South America with Frank. Consider at least two elements of fiction such as theme, symbol, setting, image, characterization, etc.
1973: Dickens’ Hard Times
- Prompt: Explain how the author’s presentation of details shapes the reader’s attitudes toward Coketown and the caves using word choice, imagery, phrasing, and sentence structure.
1974: Henry James’s What Maisie Knew
- Prompt: Write a descriptive or narrative piece presenting a person undergoing a confounding new experience.
1975: Lagerkvist’s The Marriage Feast
- Prompt: Define and discuss the subject of the story, focusing on the significance of the described events.
1976: Work/author unknown
- Prompt: Characterize the world and lifestyle in the passage, discuss its overall effect, and analyze elements achieving that effect.
1977: No prose selection
- Prompt: Discuss a character’s attempt to recapture or reject the past in a work depicting feelings of reverence, bitterness, or longing, demonstrating how this view develops a theme.
1978: Johnson’s “Review of ‘A Free Enquiry Into The Nature and Origin of Evil’”
- Prompt: Analyze Johnson’s attitude toward Soame Jenyns and his treatment of Jenyns’ argument.
1979: Quentin Bell on the Woolf family
- Prompt: Show how style reveals feelings about family.

1980s Prompts

1980: Two funerals
- Prompt: Compare authors’ attitudes through diction and choice of detail; discuss their effects on the reader.
1981: George Bernard Shaw on his mother’s cremation
- Prompt: Analyze how diction and detail convey attitude.
1982: Stevenson’s “Cat Bill”
- Prompt: Analyze strategies that make the argument effective for the audience.
1983: Thomas Carlyle’s “Work”
- Prompt: Examine how language convinces readers of the rightness of Carlyle's position.
1984: Austen’s Emma
- Prompt: Explain how the passage characterizes Emma more than Harriet.
1984: Mailer’s “Death of Benny Paret”
- Prompt: Analyze the effect on the reader and how diction, syntax, imagery, and tone produce that effect.
1985: Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms
- Prompt: Compare two drafts of a passage and analyze the effect of revisions.
1986: Dickens’ Dombey and Son
- Prompt: Define narrator’s attitude through imagery, diction, and narrative structure.
1987: George Eliot’s “Leisure” from Adam Bede
- Prompt: Describe two views of leisure and discuss stylistic devices used to convey them.
1988: Updike’s “Reunion”
- Prompt: Analyze the blend of humor, pathos, and grotesque in the story.
1989: Conrad’s “Captain MacWhirr” from Typhoon
- Prompt: Define the speaker’s attitude and analyze characterization techniques.
1990: Didion’s “Self-deception - Self-respect”
- Prompt: Show how style and tone convey attitude.
1991: Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson
- Prompt: Discuss how Boswell differentiates between Addison's and Johnson's writing.
1992: Beginning and ending of Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing”
- Prompt: Analyze narrative techniques used to characterize the mother and her attitude.
1993: Lytton Strachey’s conception of Florence Nightingale
- Prompt: Define Strachey’s view and analyze its conveyance.
1994: Sarah Jewett’s “A White Heron”
- Prompt: Show how the author dramatizes the heroine’s adventure using diction, imagery, narrative pace, and point of view.
1995: Sandra Cisneros’ “Eleven”
- Prompt: Show how literary techniques characterize Rachel.
1996: Hawthorne’s “Judge Pyncheon” from House of the Seven Gables
- Prompt: Analyze how the narrator reveals Judge Pyncheon’s character through tone, detail, syntax, and point of view.
1997: Joy Kogawa’s Obasan
- Prompt: Analyze how changes in perspective and style reflect the narrator’s complex attitude toward the past.
1998: George Eliot’s Middlemarch
- Prompt: Characterize the narrator’s attitude toward Dorothea Brooke and analyze the literary techniques used.
1999: Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing
- Prompt: Show how techniques convey the impact of experiences on the main character.

2000s Prompts

2000: Joseph Addison’s The Spectator (March 4, 1712)
- Prompt: Analyze how language characterizes the diarist and society, serving Addison’s satiric purpose through detail, repetition, and tone.
2001: Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749)
- Prompt: Analyze techniques used to characterize Mr. Allworthy and Mrs. Deborah Wilkins.
2002: Alain de Botton’s Kiss and Tell
- Prompt: Analyze how the author produces a comic effect.
2002B: Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News
- Prompt: Analyze the author’s use of diction, syntax, imagery, and figurative language in characterizing Quoyle.
2003: Mavis Gallant’s “The Other Paris”
- Prompt: Explain how narrative voice and characterization provide social commentary.
2003B: Joyce Carol Oates’s We Were the Mulvaneys (1996)
- Prompt: Analyze literary techniques used to characterize Judd Mulvaney, supporting with specific references.
2004: Henry James’s “The Pupil” (1891)
- Prompt: Analyze the depiction of three characters and their relationships, focusing on tone and point of view.
2004B: Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton (1848)
- Prompt: Analyze elements like point of view, detail, dialogue, and characterization to make a social commentary.
2005: Katharine Brush’s “Birthday Party” (1946)
- Prompt: Show how literary devices are used to achieve the author’s purpose.
2005B: Norris’ McTeague: A Story of San Francisco
- Prompt: Discuss how characterization reflects the narrator’s attitude toward McTeague using diction, tone, detail, and syntax.
2006: Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892)
- Prompt: Analyze how the playwright reveals character values and societal nature.
2006B: From “a nineteenth-century novel”
- Prompt: Discuss how the narrator’s style reveals attitudes toward described people.
2007: Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun
- Prompt: Analyze techniques used in characterizing the relationship between the young man and his father.
2007B: Seamus Deane reflecting on childhood experiences with books and writing
- Prompt: Analyze how experiences convey impact.
2008: Aran from Anita Desai’s Fasting, Feasting (1999)
- Prompt: Analyze literary devices used to characterize Aran’s experience.
2008B: Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (1818)
- Prompt: Analyze literary techniques used to characterize Catherine Morland.
2009: Ann Petry’s The Street (1946)
- Prompt: Analyze how literary devices establish Lutie Johnson’s relationship with the urban setting.
2009B: Zorah Neale Hurston’s Seraph on the Suwanee (1948)
- Prompt: Analyze literary techniques used to describe Sawley and characterize its residents.

2010s Prompts

2010: Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (1801)
- Prompt: Analyze Clarence Hervey’s complex character through techniques like tone, point of view, and language.
2010B: Maxine Clair’s “Cherry Bomb”
- Prompt: Analyze literary techniques characterizing the adult narrator’s memories of childhood.
2011: George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1874)
- Prompt: Analyze how Eliot portrays Rosamond and Lydgate’s complex relationship through narrative perspective and detail selection.
2011B: Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen (1998)
- Prompt: Analyze literary devices dramatizing Okimasis’ experience.
2012: Helena María Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus
- Prompt: Analyze the development of Estrella’s character through detail selection, figurative language, and tone.
2013: D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow (1915)
- Prompt: Analyze literary devices used to characterize a woman and capture her situation.
2014: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
- Prompt: Analyze how the author reveals Moses' character through point of view, detail selection, and imagery.
2015: The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich (1986)
- Prompt: Analyze how the environment impacts the two children through tone, imagery, detail selection, and point of view.
2016: Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
- Prompt: Analyze the complex relationship between Michael Henchard and Elizabeth-Jane, focusing on tone, word choice, and detail selection.

Common prompt topics from the AP Literature Prose Essay Prompts (1970–2016) include:

Characterization techniques, focusing on how authors depict characters or relationships through various elements such as tone, diction, imagery, and narrative perspective.
Thematic exploration, where students analyze how themes are developed through character actions, settings, and conflicts.
Literary devices, including the use of symbolism, imagery, and figurative language to convey deeper meanings or authorial intent.
Comparison of attitudes and perspectives, examining how different authors approach similar themes or subjects in their works.
Analysis of style and tone, particularly how the choice of language and structure influences the reader's understanding and emotional response to the text.