In Malden High School, it is common to see students around mid-March begin to decide what classes to enroll in for next year. Whether a student decides to take another elective or an extra year of a language, one of the biggest decisions a student will have to make is deciding whether or not to bump up to Advanced Placement course work. AP classes were designed to offer high achieving students a chance to further their learning by challenging them with college-level material. In particular, the AP English and history courses are also intended to offer students a chance to learn more about the world through historical occurrences and multifaceted literature. The AP Literature and Composition exam should then, in theory, test students on literature from writers of different backgrounds and different life experiences. However, in reality, this is far from the truth.
The AP exams have existed since 1952 when the Ford Foundation wanted to create a study about high schools and college level work. Since 1955, College Board has taken control of running the AP exam and managing the courses. Therefore, it is essentially up to College Board to decide what writers and poets to feature in the prose and poetry essays on the AP exam. As such, it becomes a question of the College Board’s ethics on why it does not feature more racially and ethnically diverse writers on its exam. It is not hard to see that the choice of writers on the exam is surprisingly homogenous. Since 1970 there have been 43 AP Literature exams (including the make-up exams for those who miss the test date) meaning that there has been 43 poets and 43 prose writers featured on the AP Literature exam. Of those 86 writers, 89% are white, 67% are male, 46% are American, and 36% are English.
It is understandable why College Board chose the writers featured on the exam, since they are all renowned writers. Ignoring writers like Joseph Conrad and poets like Edgar Allen Poe would be turning a blind eye to men who have had a huge impact on the literary world. However, it has become a little bit unreasonable to continue to ignore the work and impact of female writers and poets. Yes, Emily Dickenson and Jane Austen were rightfully featured on the exam, but looking at the numbers it is clear to see that male writers dominate the majority of the exam. Having the exam feature primarily male writers is not only ignoring the work of incredible female writers but also denying those taking the exam a female perspective. It goes without saying that women lead a different life than men and have to deal with a wholly different set of problems each day. Reading literature by women offers a new and possibly fresh outlook on overused and perhaps clichéd topics such as love, death, and the human condition.
The same applies to the other classifications such as race and country of origin. There are several writers of literary merit that are not white and European. In my AP Literature class, we have gone over both prose and poetry from several different writers. We have read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake alongside the classics of William Shakespeare and Joseph Conrad. I was even introduced to the fascinating work of feminist poets such as Alice Notley and Hoa Nguyen in my literature class. All of these writers are able to create work with significant literary and poetic meaning, once again offering that different perspective and take on the world.
The Massachusetts Math + Science Initiative is a program that MHS is a part of that aims at increasing “participation and performance in Advanced Placement courses… to prepare students for college and career success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics”, as stated on the program’s website. In an email interview, the English Content Director for MMSI, Laura Cronin, expressed her beliefs about the AP exam. “It is incredibly important that we continue to read and study literature from a variety of cultures and time periods. I am not sure why most of the literature on the AP examination comes from only a few sources, but it is something that I have noticed and about which I have been concerned.”
Cronin continues in the interview to stress the importance of a syllabus throughout the year that offers the diversity the exam seems to lack. However, to a student who has experienced a year filled with a variety of writers and poets, the exam’s homogeneity feels like a letdown. What is the point of studying work from international and female writers if it is not at all tested or featured on the exam? I understand that the class is supposed to not only prepare me for the exam but for college and life as well. The novels read in class are supposed to enlighten students and give them the material to do some critical thinking. I am all for this and have actually enjoyed my year in AP Literature. However, when College Board only presents European male writers, it does lessen the feeling of importance of the other writers. It is an insult to not only the students who prepared for the exam who expect to be tested on all that they have learned, but to the exceptional writers that the College Board ignores.
Cronin is just as befuddled by the situation as anyone else. “Unfortunately, I cannot give Malden High School an answer as to why the examination is so one-sided,” she wrote. Neither can I since when I attempted to contact the College Board via email, it chose not to respond. However, as the English Content Director for MMSI, she has a lot more clout in this area than I do and has promised to bring this up with the College Board soon. “I will be attending the College Board Conference this summer,” she wrote, “and I promise to discuss this issue on behalf of you, the students of Malden High School.”