The sophistication point on the AP Lit rubric (Row C) is the hardest to train students to achieve. One of the tools available to teachers to help students find it is in the standard phrasing of the AP Lit prompts themselves. Look, for example, at the prompt from 2019’s poetry essay on P.K. Page’s “The Landlady”: Carefully read P.K. Page’s 1943 poem “The Landlady.” Then, in a well-organized essay, analyze the speaker’s complex portrayal of the landlady. You may wish to consider such elements as imagery, selection of detail, and tone. Within the prompt, the phrase complex portrayal works to help students notice that the landlady will not be merely a one-dimensional character. The fact that the landlady is “nosy”, or “curious”, or a “stalker” is not, in itself, complex. A student’s essay will be better, and will begin to nudge closer to sophistication, if they can identify what, exactly, is COMPLEX about the landlady. ... KEEP READING
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