Summer Assignments for Rising Seniors of AP Literature
Saint John Paul the Great Catholic High School
Your summer assignments come in several different forms: reading and reader response
sheets (AP sheets), literary terms and memorization (literary terms), and a college
application essay.

SUMMER READING AND AP SHEETS
o When you have finished reading each of the required texts (listed below), I would like you to
complete an AP-Sheet for each. Each AP-Sheet is worth 50 points. These AP-Sheets will be
collected for grading on the first day of class. Late sheets will receive a zero.
o Please do not use Spark Notes or other aids for the AP-Sheets (including your peers). The
reason you are reading writing these assignments is to teach you to think for yourself.
o You will need to make additional copies of the AP sheet on your own.
o NOTE: When completed the AP sheet should still be two pages (no longer). You need to learn
how to be effectively concise – keep the most relevant information, cut the rest.

LITERARY TERMS
o You need to memorize the definitions for the attached literary terms. You should already know
most of these terms, so this is not as onerous a task as it may seem. If you don’t already know
most of these, it’s about time that you did.
o You will have a test, requiring you to match the term and definition, on the first day of class.
Throughout the year, you will be expected to identify, define, and use these terms
appropriately.

COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ESSAY
o Each AP Literature student must write a college application essay. You must write an essay no
matter whether the colleges you are applying to require such an essay.
o While general information on the importance of these essays is attached, there is no set prompt
or length.
o BEST APPROACH: Find and use a prompt from one of the schools to which you plan to apply –
this way you’ll get feedback on an essay you plan to use.
 During the first month of school, you will write 3-4 college admission essays. It’s always
best to apply this method and make your class work useful to the college admissions
process. So, look up those prompts!
o ALTERNATIVE APPROACH: If you’re really stuck, choose one of the Common App prompts
from below.
 Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they
believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then
please share your story.

The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an
incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you
learn from the experience?

Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act?
Would you make the same decision again?

Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an
intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal
importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took
or could be taken to identify a solution.

Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition
from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.
All the work you do this summer will directly benefit you in your senior English class. The more
diligent you are in your summer work, the greater the benefit.
ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS I WILL COLLECT THE FOLLOWING:
AP-SHEET RESPONSES ON THE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ AND
YOUR COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY.
I WILL THEN TEST YOU ON THE LITERARY DEFINITIONS.
SUMMER READING AND AP SHEETS
Here are the books you are required to read for this summer, as well as the assignment to cultivate
your understanding of the books. You may photocopy, type the AP SHEETS, or write them by hand.
Note: This work should be completed independently. You may be able to find the books in the library
or borrow them from friends. Please find the full text of the novels, not the children’s version.
All students will read
 Edmund Campion: A Life by Evelyn Waugh

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
If you have any questions you may email the AP Literature teacher, Miss Everett, at [email protected].
Happy reading!
AP SHEET (50 POINTS)
1. TITLE (1 Point) __________________________________________________________________________________
2. AUTHOR (Full name, spelled correctly) (1 Point) _______________________________________________________
3. THEMES: What are the ideas the author presents? This is not the same as the “message” or “moral” but it is related to
the message. NOTE: There may be more than one theme; themes will be more than one word. (5 points) For example, one
theme from Finding Nemo is “Parents should not tell their children all the things they can’t do or protect them too much, or else they
will cripple the child.”
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. CHARACTERS: Who are the five most important characters (full name, spelled correctly)? Provide a brief but wellwritten—not dull—phrase about each). NOTE: It is possible to have less than five significant characters listed. (5 points)
1._______________________________________________________________________________________________
2._______________________________________________________________________________________________
3._______________________________________________________________________________________________
4._______________________________________________________________________________________________
5._______________________________________________________________________________________________
5. QUOTES: Provide three important quotes - one from the beginning, one from the climax, and one from the ending that
you will have memorized for future use. You must include the chapter and page number. (6 points) If a long quote, you
need only write enough that the quote is recognizable and can be looked up.
1. .________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
2._________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
3._________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
6. CHRONOLOGICAL PLOT: List the ten most important incidents from the text in order. (10 points)
1._________________________________________________________________________________________________
2._________________________________________________________________________________________________
3._________________________________________________________________________________________________
4._________________________________________________________________________________________________
5._________________________________________________________________________________________________
6._________________________________________________________________________________________________
7._________________________________________________________________________________________________
8._________________________________________________________________________________________________
9._________________________________________________________________________________________________
10.________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. DEEPER PLOT: From the list above, select three plot incidents (example: #2, #6, and 9). Provide (break down into a
list) five details for each of the three incidents. (15 points)
#______________ DETAILS:
1. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
#______________ DETAILS:
1. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
#______________ DETAILS:
1. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________________________________
8. AUTHOR’S MESSAGE/PHILOSOPHY/MORAL: What is the primary message the author is conveying through the
various themes present in the work. You must write a clear thesis, in sentence form, as you would on an essay. (7 points)
A formula for writing a thesis sentence is: “(Author’s last name) believes that (noun ) can (verb) because (give the proof). An example
using the formula is: “Dickens believes that death leads to resurrection because several of his characters are ‘recalled to life’ and even
the deaths during the French Revolution will lead to the new life of the French nation.”
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
LITERARY TERMS
Alliteration—repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.
Allusion—a reference to an historical event, a person, or something else outside of the work of literature.
Ambiguity—the expression of an idea in such a way that more than one meaning is suggested.
Analogy—a comparison of two things usually made by an author to show how something unfamiliar is like
something widely known.
Anaphora—repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of lines or sentences.
Antithesis—contrasting ideas presented in parallel structure. “To err is human, to forgive divine.”
Apostrophe—direct address of an inanimate object or someone who is absent.
Archetype—original model for persons appearing later in history or characters appearing later in literature.
Assonance—repetition of vowel sounds.
Ballad—narrative poem originally meant to be sung. Repetition and refrain characterize the ballad.
Blank verse—unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Cacophony—harsh, rough, or unmusical language.
Caesura—a pause or stop within a line of poetry, usually indicated by a punctuation mark.
Carpe Diem Poetry—poetry that stresses the brevity of life and living life to its fullest.
Common Meter—quatrain with first and third lines iambic tetrameter, second and fourth lines iambic trimester.
Usually rhyming abcb or abab.
Conceit—an elaborate metaphor often strained and far-fetched.
Connotation—the suggestion of a meaning by a word beyond what it explicitly denotes or describes. The word
“home,” for example, suggests comfort and security though it doesn’t denote either of those.
Consonance—repetition of consonant sounds other than at the beginning of words.
Continuous Form—poetry that is not broken up into stanzas.
Couplet—two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.
Denotation—the dictionary definition of a word.
Diction—word choice.
Dramatic Irony—failure of a character to see or understand what is obvious to the audience.
Elegy—a poem lamenting the dead.
End-Stopped Line—a line of poetry that has a pause or stop at the end indicated by a punctuation mark.
Enjambment—a line of poetry with no stop or pause at the end.
Epiphany—a moment of enlightenment or heightened awareness when an ordinary object or scene is suddenly
transformed into something that possesses significance.
Euphony—language that is smooth, pleasant, and musical to the ear.
Explication—close analysis, examination, and exposition of a text.
Free verse—poetry that has no pattern of rhyme or meter.
Horatian Satire—named after the poet Horace, this form of satire is gentle, good humored and sympathetic.
Hyperbole—exaggeration for effect.
Imagery—language that evokes mental images involving the five physical senses as well as the emotions.
Irony—saying the opposite of what is meant (verbal irony); a result or ending that is the opposite of what is
expected (situational irony).
Juvenalian Satire—named after the poet Juvenal, this form of satire is harsher, more intolerant, and often uses
invective to attack particular people.
Metaphor—a comparison that doesn’t use “like”or “as.”
Meter—a recurring pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Iamb—unstressed stressed
Trochee—stressed unstressed
Anapest—unstressed unstressed stressed
Dactyl—stressed unstressed unstressed
Spondee—stressed stressed
Monometer—a line with one metric foot.
Dimeter—a line with two metric feet.
Trimeter—a line with three metric feet.
Tetrameter—a line with four metric feet.
Pentameter—a line with five metric feet.
Hexameter—a line with six metric feet.
Metonymy—substitution of one word to stand for a word that it is closely related to. “The crown is anti-catholic.”
“The White House opposed the plan.”
Motif—a recurring theme or pattern.
Octave—an eight line stanza, an octet.
Ode—lyric poem, usually long, on a serious subject and written in dignified language.
Onomatopoeia—word mimics a sound; an arrangement of words that suggest a sound.
Oxymoron—a form of paradox that places opposing words side by side. “Sweet sorrow.” “Living death.”
Paradox—contradictory statement that contains some element of truth.
Parallelism—repetition of grammatical form and function.
Paraphrase—restatement of a text giving the meaning in another form for clearness. Rewording.
Parody—a work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of
the original.
Persona—the voice or figure of the author, which may or may not share the values of the actual author.
Personification—giving human qualities to an abstraction or non-human object.
Quatrain—four line stanza or poem.
Refrain—group of words presented at key intervals in a poem.
Rhyme—the repetition of the same or similar sounds, most often at the
ends of lines.
Masculine rhyme—rhyme of one syllable.
Feminine rhyme—rhyme of two or more syllables.
Internal rhyme—rhyme within a line of poetry.
End rhyme—rhyme at the end of a line of poetry.
Approximate rhyme—two words have similar sounds but not exact.
Sarcasm—form of verbal irony that insults a person with insincere praise.
Sonnet—a fourteen line poem with a specific rhyme scheme.
Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet—An octave and a sestet. Octave must rhyme abba abba; the rhyme scheme of the
sestet can vary.
Shakespearean (English) Sonnet—three quatrains and a couplet. abab cdcd efef gg.
Simile—comparison using “like” or “as.”
Symbol—a physical person, place, or thing that represents something else.
Synecdoche—substitution of a part to stand for the whole. “All hands on deck.”
Synesthesia—the juxtaposition of one sensory image with another image that appeals to an unrelated sense. e.g.
the blue screamed at me from across the room.
Syntax—the order of words in a sentence, sentence structure.
Terza rima—three line stanza where first and third lines rhyme and second line becomes the first and third lines of
next stanza. aba bcb cdc …
Theme—main idea of a literary work.
Tone—the attitude created by the author’s manipulation of language.
Understatement—a statement that says less than what it means. Often used to make an ironic point.
COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ESSAY
Writing the College Application Essay –Why it’s important (and other tips).
While intimidating and frustration to write, the college essay is the most important part of the application. Why?
Why? Because the essay requires you to examine who you are, where you came from, and what you want to be. The
school is doing you a favor by requiring you to write an essay. They are giving you an opportunity you don’t get anywhere
else in this whole application process—the opportunity to present yourself in your words, in your own voice, on your
own terms, on your own turf. You are in complete control of the essay. You choose what to write about; you choose how
to write it; you choose how to present yourself. So, even if it’s optional – write the essay!
The college application process includes a whole series of portraits of you as a young person ready to graduate from high
school. The information you provide on the application is one portrait—names, addresses, years of birth, extracurricular
activities. These facts represent a partial portrait of you. But there’s a lot more to you than just facts.
Your high school transcript offers yet another partial portrait, this time painted with numbers and letters. These give the
admissions officer another snap shot of you. As do your scores on whatever standardized tests you have taken: PSAT, SAT,
ACT. These scores are yet another picture taken from another angle. Letters of recommendation let somebody else paint
a picture of who you are.
When college admissions officers look at your file, they see all these different pictures of you, and they try to figure out
exactly who you are and how you might fit into their community. But something crucial is missing—your voice and your
thought process. What’s missing is the closest thing to the real you that you can offer. Your application essay gives the
admissions office the chance to hear you speak, to see your mind at work, to engage in a dialogue with you.
For the first time, you are totally in control of the message, of the way you look and of the way you sound. You may not
have had much choice in choosing your high school courses; your grades were determined in great measure by the kinds
of tests and measurements your teachers chose to use; somebody else wrote your letters of recommendation. THE
COLLEGE ESSAY, HOWEVER, IS YOU. ALL YOU. IT’S YOUR ONE AND ONLY CHANCE TO SHOW THE COLLEGE EXACTLY
WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT THEY WILL BE MISSING OUT ON IF THEY DON’T SELECT YOU.
Before you begin writing, of course, you will have to figure out what to write about. This is the heart of the matter. If you
choose the right subject, you’re more than halfway home. Write about what you are passionate about. What are the
things that you truly care about? What are you truly interested in? Don’t try to guess what admissions officers want to
hear. They want to hear you. And you are your passions.
Spend a lot of time here. The subject has to be the right one.
When it comes to actually writing, spend a lot of time on your introduction. This is the most important part of the essay.
You have approximately two minutes of their attention. You need to capture them right away.
Be interesting. Make your writing lively and interesting to read. Nobody wants to sit next to a bore. And nobody wants
boring students at their school. Have friends and family and honest readers take a look at your essay. Get their input.
Don’t be afraid to swallow your pride and take their advice.
Finally. PROOFREAD. Your essay should be pristine. No typos, no spelling errors, no grammatical glitches. Remember,
this is a picture of you. Proofreading mistakes are like spinach stuck in your teeth when you smile. Who wants to buy that
picture?
YOUR ESSAY IS DUE THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS. This will give us plenty of time to work on revisions in order to make it the
best essay you have ever written. You have complete control over the topic choice for this essay. You may choose a
prompt for a college to which you plan to apply or just write a general personal statement. If really stuck, remember I
included the Common App prompts on the first page.
Try to avoid “last-minute panic” and get these assignments done sooner rather than later. 