AP English Literature and Composition
2017 Summer Reading
Ms. Kopcha – [email protected]
Part I:
What I wish most for you this summer is that you will find a book that you “become,” as
expressed so eloquently in the following poem.
“The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm”
by Wallace Stevens
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night
Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,
Wanted to lean, wanted much most to be
The scholar to whom the book is true, to whom
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.
The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.
And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself
Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.
Indeed, I hope that at least one night this summer will be “like the conscious being of the
book.” If you can experience this transcendence, you will gain true wisdom in our frenzied
world that abounds with endless information. Harold Bloom, a leading modern literary
critic, asserts:
We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough
people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require
knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are. Yet the strongest,
most authentic motive for deep reading of the now much-abused traditional canon is
the search for a difficult pleasure. […] I urge you to find what truly comes near to you
that can be used for weighing and considering. Read deeply, not to believe, not to
accept, not to contradict, but to learn to share in that one nature that writes and
reads” (How to Read and Why, 2829).
Like a nutritious, well-balanced diet, we need to include a variety of genres, complexity,
fiction and nonfiction in our reading diets. In AP English Literature you will be challenged
to read a variety of authors and text spanning a wide-range of time periods, cultures and
themes. Use the time this summer to read. Read for fun. Read for expansion of your current
literary tastes. Read to practice and improve comprehension and fluency. Read for
inspiration. But, read.
Part II:
“The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently”
by Thomas Lux
is not silent, it is a speakingout-loud voice in your head; it is
*spoken*,
a voice is *saying* it
as you read. It's the writer's words,
of course, in a literary sense
his or her "voice" but the sound
of that voice is the sound of *your* voice.
Not the sound your friends know
or the sound of a tape played back
but your voice
caught in the dark cathedral
of your skull, your voice heard
by an internal ear informed by internal
abstracts
and what you know by feeling,
having felt. It is your voice
saying, for example, the word "barn"
that the writer wrote
but the "barn" you say
is a barn you know or knew. The voice
in your head, speaking as you read,
never says anything neutrally- some
people
hated the barn they knew,
some people love the barn they know
so you hear the word loaded
and a sensory constellation
is lit: horse-gnawed stalls,
hayloft, black heat tape wrapping
a water pipe, a slippery
spilled *chirr* of oats from a split sack,
the bony, filthy haunches of cows...
And "barn" is only a noun- no verb
or subject has entered into the sentence
yet!
The voice you hear when you read to
yourself
is the clearest voice: you speak it
speaking to you.
“You can’t write without reading. So read everything you can find by writers whose work you love.
Don’t be afraid to imitate them if you want to. Eventually you will come to sound not like them
anymore, but like yourself.” I wish that I’d collaboratively coined that bit of wisdom, but the prolific
poet, professor, and editor X. J. Kennedy did. Nonetheless, the concept resonates with truth for us.
I want you to find your own voice when you are reading, the voice in your head that appears to be
“in a literary sense the sound of [the author’s] voice” but that is really “the sound of your voice.”
Writing while reading (or in response to reading) is a way to try to hear the voice in the “dark
cathedral of your skull.” Consequently, you’ll become a better reader AND a better writer—I hope.
So, your assignment is:
● Select a writer whose work you love and write a response to a book you’ve read this summer
in his or her voice and style. Regardless of the writer and form you choose, reveal a dual
understanding of that person’s style and the content of the book you’ve chosen.
For example, if you love Ernest Hemingway, craft a simple narrative with short declarative
sentences that follow the “iceberg theory.” If you love Rachel Carson, compose a poetic narrative
with humanistic accounts of a complex science and strong opinions. If you love Emily Dickinson,
disregard the rules of grammar and sentence structure and compress your language into a few poems
with striking first lines. If you love Matsuo Basho, create a cycle of haiku showcasing elegant
simplicity, sympathy for nature and humanity, understatement, and spiritual profundity—in 17
syllables each. If you select a relatively famous writer, you may assume that I are familiar with the
elements of his or her particular style. If you select someone fairly obscure, please bring a sample of
his or her work with you on the first day of class.
Once I’ve confirmed you are in this class, I will set you up in the AP Google classroom. Included in
there will be a list of popular literary works that show up on the AP tests. In addition, at some point,
you will be challenged to conduct an author study where you immerse yourself in the works of a
notable, literary-esque author. Summer is an appropriate time to begin the immersion process.
Because students in AP English Lit & Comp are expected to meet deadlines throughout the year,
no credit will be given for late summer assessments. Incoming AP Literature students are required
to read several books over the summer in preparation for the course and subsequent AP exam. One
portion of the AP exam, the Free Response essay, demands that students have a wide range of
challenging literary works on which they can draw when writing that essay. The goal of this
summer’s reading, however, is not only to prepare you for the exam, but also to initiate you into
the conversation about ideas through books by both contemporary and classic authors. AP
Literature is college; it is not a preparation for college. If you are looking for ways around this
reading assignment, you should not enroll in this class.
Part III:
**Upload your Reading Response (1 page single space) to the Google classroom (class code hdp4ndu)
under the “Summer Reading Assignment”. This is due by Monday, August 14th by 11:59 p.m.
**Upload a list of the books that you read this summer. This will also be posted to the Google
classroom under “Books I’ve Read This Summer”. Include books that you abandoned and/or never
finished with the reason why. Sincerely, there is no judgement but rather a chance for me to get to
the reading personalities of my future students.
If you need to get a hold of me during the summer before we meet again in August, please don’t
hesitate to contact me via email at [email protected].
A word about SparkNotes:
Generally speaking, for those of you thinking: Well, is there a SparkNotes version
available? The answer is “yes.”
Here’s the problem with SparkNotes—If you want to find out why people die, read a
biology textbook or the SparkNotes version of Hamlet. If – however—you want to know
WHY DO PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE, AND HOW SHOULD WE LIVE UNTIL THEN? and
you anticipate experiencing the reality of death yourself someday, and you will… then
actually read Hamlet.