Summer Assignment for the Academic Year AP English Literature and Composition June 2012

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1 Summer Assignment for the Academic Year AP English Literature and Composition June 2012 Dear AP English Literature & Composition Students, While reading in general is the expectation of any student, successful AP students are those who read outside and beyond class assignments. We believe that life-long learners are also life-long readers and thinkers. Additionally, there are certain realities we all must accept. In registering for AP Literature and Composition, you are committing to a college level course during your high school career. In order for you to compete with your peers across the nation not only on the AP test but in the college classroom, you need constant exposure to works of literary merit. We think you will find your reading both enjoyable and academically worth your time and energy. In preparation for our work next year, you have the following to complete: 1) the Introductory Writing Assignment due June 22! (so do this soon!) 2) three novels to read this summer (be ready to discuss on day two of school!) 3) an Analysis Journal with entries for each novel due the first day of school! I. Introductory Writing Assignment In order for your teachers to get to sense of you before beginning this yearlong journey together, we d like you to answer the following questions in essay form. Incorporate the answers to these questions into a paper as you see fit. 1. What hobbies and after school activities do you participate in? 2. What are your career and or college goals? 3. Why did you choose to take AP English literature? 4. What is it about literature and or writing that you enjoy most? 5. What do you see as your biggest challenge in this class for next year? DUE DATE: You can either turn this in to Mrs. Butler or Mr. Piotrowski (hard copy) before school ends, or you can it to Mrs. Butler by June 24 at babutle@spasd.k12.wi.us II. Summer Reading Selections Books and Supplemental Packets In addition to each novel, read, complete, and mark up a supplemental packet with background information, things to look for, items to complete, and critical reviews to read for each novel. Mark these packets up with your own highlighting, markings, and or notes; they will help you get more out of your reading AND prepare you for discussions when we come back to school in the fall. Feel free to place post-it notes on the pages of passages in the novel that strike you as remarkable, important to the novel s development, or even if they trouble you in particular. The three novels that must be read this summer are as follows: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe 1

2 III. Summer Reading Analysis Journal - Due on the first day of school As you read each of your three novels over the summer (Jane Eyre, Brave New World, and Things Fall Apart), you should keep an Analysis Journal nearby to write down notes, thoughts, and questions. This is a crucial part of being an active reader being aware of what you're thinking as you read, and making sense of each text while you move through it. Be sure to write down page numbers and locators ("top of the page") to help you locate an important selection later. (Placing post-its in the book is also a good way to mark key passages.) Remember that we will spend the first few weeks of the school year analyzing these texts, so be prepared! In addition to these informal entries, you will also write a series of polished Analysis Journal pieces. For each book, you will write four entries: One after you have completed 25% of the book; one when you are halfway through; one after you have read 75%, and one when you finish the novel. These entries should be two paragraphs in length each, a half-page (400 words) minimum. (Four half-page entries for each of three novels = six (6) pages of writing total.) These polished entries must be typed (double-spaced). These should not be simplistic stream-of-consciousness ramblings. Organize your thoughts and address literary elements like setting, character development, thematic exposition, symbolism, and narrative style. Write in a professional manner, and proofread your work before turning it in. Remember that with each assignment you are practicing the skills required for AP Exams. Some questions you might address in your polished Analysis Journal writing: 25% Entry How does the novel compare to your expectations? What are your first impressions of the author's style? Which character intrigues you most and why? How does the story's setting affect the lives of the characters? What do you expect from the main characters? 50% Entry What has surprised you so far in the story and why? How would you describe the narrative tone and diction? Which themes are coming to the forefront and how? Which minor character could be identified as a foil for the protagonist and why? What is a symbol that stands out, and how does it affect your understanding of the story? 75% Entry What do you expect from the coming climax of the novel? Which character has changed the most and how? How does a secondary setting compare to the story's main locale? How does the novel's point of view affect our understanding of events? Final Entry What is the ultimate impact of the novel and how is it achieved in the final section? Which example of foreshadowing can you identify from an earlier part of the story? How does this book compare to a similar text or historical event? How does your situated knowledge (age, background, worldview, etc) impact your reading of the text? Which theme is significantly developed in the final section and how? Are you more or less likely to read another book by this author? Why? 2

3 Evaluation of Assignment In addition to obvious elements like spelling, punctuation, grammar, and length, your polished Analysis Journal entries will be evaluated according to the following criteria: Responses address a variety of narrative techniques such as characterization, setting, plot, style, and theme. (In other words, don't address only characterization write about a variety of topics.) Responses effectively communicate your understanding of key ideas and concepts present in the work. Responses provide depth of analysis, not surface-level reflection. Responses connect ideas and concepts to your life and understandings about humanity. IV. Other Items to Review or Explore 1. Another book to read, not required, but highly recommended is How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. It s an entertaining guide to how to read between the lines. It will take your reading to a whole other level. 2. Read another title from the summer reading list (attached to this letter). 3. Research common biblical, mythological, and literary allusions referred to throughout literature and life. Read through the attached handouts. V. Information/Conclusion: If you have questions or want to discuss the books during the summer, Mrs. Butler can be reached at or s: babutle@spasd.k12.wi.us OR Mr. Piotrowski can be reached at espiotr@spasd.k12.wi.us Enjoy your summer reading and writing. We look forward to meeting you in the fall and working with you throughout the year. Sincerely, Mrs. Butler & Mr. Piotrowski 3

4 AP Reading List 1984 George Orwell The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton The Alchemist Paulo Coelho All The Pretty Horses Cormac McCarthy An American Tragedy Theodore Dreiser Angela s Ashes Frank McCourt Animal Farm George Orwell Anna Karenina Leo Tolstov As I Lay Dying William Faulkner The Awakening Kate Chopin The Bean Trees Barbara Kingsolver The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath Beloved Toni Morrison The Bible King James Version Billy Budd Herman Melville The Bonesetter s Daughter Amy Tan The Boys of Summer Roger Kahn Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Dee Alexander Brown Candide Voltaire Catch-22 Joseph Heller The Catcher in the Rye J. D. Salinger Ceremony Leslie Marmon Silko Charms For The Easy Life Kaye Gibbons The Chosen Chaim Potok Cold Mountain Charles Frazier The Color of Water James McBride The Color Purple Alice Walker The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas Crime and Punishment Feodor Dostoevski Cry, the Beloved Country Alan Paton Cyrano de Bergerac Edmond Rostand Daisy Miller Henry James David Copperfield Death of a Salesman Arthur Miller Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Rebecca Wells Dubliners James Joyce 4

5 The Education of Little Tree Ellen Foster Emma An Enemy of the People The English Patient Essays of E.B. White Ethan Frome Fahrenheit 451 A Farewell to Arms Frankenstein The Girl With the Pearl Earring The Glass Menagerie The Grapes of Wrath Great Expectations The Great Gatsby Gulliver s Travels The Handmaid s Tale Hard Times Heart of Darkness Hedda Gabler The House of Mirth The House on Mango Street The Illiad I Am the Cheese The Importance of Being Ernest Inherit the Wind Invisible Man The Joy Luck Club Jude the Obscure Julius Caesar The Jungle King Lear Lady Oracle Light in August Lord Jim Lord of the Flies The Loved One Lysistrata Madame Bovary The Martian Chronicles A Man for All Seasons Mansfield Park Medea The Merchant of Venice Metamorphosis A Midsummer Night s Dream The Mists of Avalon Moby Dick Moll Flanders The Moviegoer Forrest Carter Kaye Gibbons Henrik Ibsen Michael Ondaatie E. B. White Edith Wharton Ray Bradbury Ernest Hemingway Mary Shelley Tracy Chevalier Tennessee Williams John Steinbeck F. Scott Fitzgerald Jonathan Swift Margaret Atwood Joseph Conrad Henrik Ibsen Edith Wharton Sandra Cisneros Homer Robert Cormier Oscar Wilde J. Lawrence and R.E. Lee Ralph Ellison Amy Tan Thomas Hardy Upton Sinclair Margaret Atwood William Faulkner Joseph Conrad William Golding Evelyn Waugh Aristophanes Gustave Flaubert Ray Bradbury Robert Bolt Euripides Franz Kafka Marian Zimmer Bradley Herman Melville Daniel Defoe Walker Percy 5

6 Mrs. Dalloway My Sister s Keeper Native Son Obasan Object Lessons The Odyssey Of Mice and Men The Old Man and the Sea The Once and Future King One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest One Hundred Years of Solitude The Oresteia Ordinary People Othello Our Town Paradise Lost A Passage to India The Perks of Being a Wallflower The Plague The Poisonwood Bible A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Possession A Prayer for Owen Meany Pride and Prejudice Pygmalion A Raisin in the Sun The Return of the Native Rosencrantz and Guilderstern Are Dead Saint Maybe The Scarlet Letter Sense and Sensibility Shabanu Shoeless Joe Siddhartha Silas Marner Sister Carrie Slaughterhouse Five Snow Falling On Cedars Sons and Lovers The Sound and the Fury Sounder The Stranger A Streetcar Named Desire A Tale of Two Cities A Thief of Time Their Eyes Were Watching God Tess of the D Ubervilles A Thousand Acres To The Lighthouse To Kill a Mockingbird Virginia Woolf Jodi Picoult Richard Wright Joy Kogawa Anna Quindlen Homer John Steinbeck Ernest Hemingway T.H. White Ken Kesey Gabriel Garcia Marquez Aeschylus Judith Guest Thornton Wilder Milton E.M. Foster Stephen Chbosky Albert Camus Barbara Kingsolver James Joyce A.S. Byatt John Irving George Bernard Shaw Lorraine Hansberry Thomas Hardy Tom Stoppard Anne Tyler Nathaniel Hawthorne Suzanne Fisher Staples W.P. Kinsella Herman Hesse George Elliot Theodore Dreiser Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. David Guterson D.H. Lawrence William Faulkner William H. Armstrong Albert Camus Tennessee Williams Tony Hillerman Zora Neale Hurston Thomas Hardy Jane Smiley Virginia Woolf Harper Lee 6

7 The Trial Tuck Everlasting The Turn of the Screw The Unbearable Lightness of Being Waiting for Godot White Noise The Wild Duck Wuthering Heights Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Franz Kafka Natalie Babbit Henry James Milan Kundera Samuel Beckett Don Delillo Henrik Ibsen Emily Bronte Robert Pirsig Anything by (the comedies are particularly fun for summer reading) If you haven t read a short story since you were required to in freshman English, you should rediscover them. Look at the collections on the shelves at your local library and bookstore for inspiration. Some writers whose short stories I have enjoyed are as follows: Sherwood Anderson, Sandra Cisneros, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Carson McCullers, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O Connor, Dorothy Parker, Edgar Allan Poe, John Steinbeck, and Eudora Welty. A few good books for those of you who really are writers include the following: Bird By Bird Anne Lamott On Writing Stephen King Writing Down the Bones Natalie Goldberg Continue to explore poetry. Some poets to read are as follows: Margaret Atwood W.H. Auden Elizabeth Bishop Gwendolyn Brooks e.e. Cummings Margaret Emily Dickinson Atwood W.H. John Auden Donne Elizabeth H.D. (Hilda Bishop Doolittle) Gwendolyn T.S. Elliot Brooks e.e. Robert Cummings Frost Emily Allen Dickinson Ginsberg John Seamus Donne Heaney H.D. Langston (Hilda Hughes Doolittle) T.S. Ben Elliot Johnson Robert Frost Edna St. Vincent Millay Sharon Olds Sylvia Plath Edgar Allen Poe Ezra Pound Adrienne Rich Theodore Roethke Anne Sexton Wallace Stevens Dylan Thomas Walt Whitman William Carlos Williams William Wordsworth W.B. Yeats 7