Summer Assignments 2013-2014 AP Literature 12
Purpose
According to the College Board, AP English Literature requires "careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through close reading of selected texts, students should deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. As they read, students should consider a work's structure, style, and themes as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone."
The works you read during the summer will provide you with confidence, background and propel you ahead of schedule. There is no substitute for being well read. A naiveté is present in a student’s writing and speaking when reading hasn’t been done even if you don't understand everything! You absorb more than you realize while reading and then rereading.
Assignment
Read and annotate Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, our supplemental textbook. It's a relaxing and thoroughly entertaining read. This books will be due early in the school year for everyone, but for extra credit the annotated books are due the first day of school. Annotate for patterns, symbols, motifs, and any literary device that you think leads to our thematic study of ‘the passions that guide one's life.’ Look for connections between any works of imaginative literature you have encountered thus far and Foster's book. This will be due during the first weeks of school but only YOU will get extra credit for early reading.
I also encourage you to read and annotate Huxley's Brave New World for the same ideas as above. We are not doing an isolated study of this book during the year, but it will influence your thinking and writing during the course.
Keep a list of the reading you do for your own pleasure: title, author, and genre and present to me typed the first day of school.
Be Smart & Prepared
The following may be studied later in the year. It is highly recommended that you begin reading them over the summer:
Daisy Miller
Heart of Darkness
A Thousand Acres
Gulliver’s Travels
A Doll House
The Sound and the Fury
Crime and Punishment
The Bluest Eye
Slaughterhouse 5
Macbeth or King Lear
The Taming of the Shrew
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Return of the Native
The Kite Runner
The Handmaid's Tale
You would feel prepared for deeper study if you had already read and annotated these works. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t understand everything—that’s why we study these complex works! During the year, I assign extra credit for thoroughly annotated novels or plays, so you will be ahead on that as well. We also read some novels independently, so your self selected reading over the summer is critically important as well. Maintain a list of independent books read to prepare for your Reader’s Chair book talk: title, author and genre.
Enjoy your summer and play an enormous amount, but here and there read & write a bit! For maximum enjoyment, keep it low stress and mostly for pleasure.
According to the College Board, AP English Literature requires "careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature. Through close reading of selected texts, students should deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure for their readers. As they read, students should consider a work's structure, style, and themes as well as such smaller-scale elements as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone."
The works you read during the summer will provide you with confidence, background and propel you ahead of schedule. There is no substitute for being well read. A naiveté is present in a student’s writing and speaking when reading hasn’t been done even if you don't understand everything! You absorb more than you realize while reading and then rereading.
Assignment
Read and annotate Thomas Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, our supplemental textbook. It's a relaxing and thoroughly entertaining read. This books will be due early in the school year for everyone, but for extra credit the annotated books are due the first day of school. Annotate for patterns, symbols, motifs, and any literary device that you think leads to our thematic study of ‘the passions that guide one's life.’ Look for connections between any works of imaginative literature you have encountered thus far and Foster's book. This will be due during the first weeks of school but only YOU will get extra credit for early reading.
I also encourage you to read and annotate Huxley's Brave New World for the same ideas as above. We are not doing an isolated study of this book during the year, but it will influence your thinking and writing during the course.
Keep a list of the reading you do for your own pleasure: title, author, and genre and present to me typed the first day of school.
Be Smart & Prepared
The following may be studied later in the year. It is highly recommended that you begin reading them over the summer:
Daisy Miller
Heart of Darkness
A Thousand Acres
Gulliver’s Travels
A Doll House
The Sound and the Fury
Crime and Punishment
The Bluest Eye
Slaughterhouse 5
Macbeth or King Lear
The Taming of the Shrew
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Return of the Native
The Kite Runner
The Handmaid's Tale
You would feel prepared for deeper study if you had already read and annotated these works. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t understand everything—that’s why we study these complex works! During the year, I assign extra credit for thoroughly annotated novels or plays, so you will be ahead on that as well. We also read some novels independently, so your self selected reading over the summer is critically important as well. Maintain a list of independent books read to prepare for your Reader’s Chair book talk: title, author and genre.
Enjoy your summer and play an enormous amount, but here and there read & write a bit! For maximum enjoyment, keep it low stress and mostly for pleasure.