AP Literature and Composition
Summer Assignment 2017
Mrs. Lori Molodow
Email address = [email protected]
Join the Google Classroom Site for Summer 2017 Announcements using this code:
5jwzs8
OVERVIEW

Summer Reading. This summer you will read…
1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (and do a dialogue journal which you
will bring to the guidance office/deposit in the AP Lit. & Comp.
crates by July 27th. See below for writing details. You will have a
TEST on Frankenstein during the second block of AP English 12 in the
fall.)
2. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. There is no written assignment for this
novel I will be checking, but I encourage you to maintain some type of
reading journal, at the very least a character list. You will have a TEST
on this novel on or about September 15th.
3. In addition, by the end of the first nine weeks, you must read As I Lay
Dying, by William Faulkner. PLEASE REALIZE THIS – Though the Faulkner novel is
not due until the end of the first nine weeks, I STRONGLY suggest you read it over the
summer. At the end of the first nine weeks, we will be completing your college essay
final drafts, reading a different existential novel, plus doing poetry journals. Hence, it
would be in your best interest to read ahead.
You will need to get copies of all the books yourself.

Summer Writing. You will prepare several written responses, some of which will be due in
hard copy to the AP Lit. & Comp. crates in the guidance office by July 27th.
1.
2.
3.

You will maintain a reading journal for Frankenstein. This is a dialectic journal in which
you will use two-column note taking, writing significant quotes/pages /chapters in the left
column and your interpretation in the right. Make at least one comment per chapter.
Length is up to you. Please use a marbleized composition book for this work and write
your full name clearly on the cover.
You will read and provide responses to 3 poems, all of which I provide for you here.
These responses should be set up in the TP-CASTT manner I prescribe.
Finally, you will do some preliminary college admission research and prepare one 2 - 4
page rough draft of a college admission essay. You are not allowed to submit the college
essay draft written junior year. This must be a completely new essay.
THE POETRY READING ASSIGNMENT due July 27th in AP Lit. & Comp.
crates in the guidance office.
The following is a breakdown of the familiar TP-CASTT method for reading and analyzing
poetry. Use this method to prepare responses to the three poems that follow. There is not a required
length for each entry, but your writing will be checked, and you will be evaluated on the quality of
your entries. Put all poetry work in the marbleized notebook labeled clearly by poem. You may type
your poetry work on separate paper or write your work in the marbleized notebook. Just be certain to
label each poem. Set up your responses to include the following.
1
AP Literature and Composition
Summer Assignment 2017
Mrs. Lori Molodow
Email address = [email protected]
Join the Google Classroom Site for Summer 2017 Announcements using this code:
5jwzs8
1. Title:
Look at the title and attempt to predict what the poem will be about.
2. Paraphrase:
Translate the poem into your own words. Paraphrase the literal meaning or
“plot” of the poem. A true understanding of the poem must evolve from
comprehension of “what’s going on in the poem.”
3. Connotation:
Contemplate the poem for meaning beyond the literal level Connotation
indicates that students should examine any and all poetic devices, focusing on
how such devices contribute to the meaning, the effect, or both, of a poem.
Students may consider imagery (especially simile, metaphor, personification),
symbolism, diction, point of view, and sound devices (alliteration,
onomatopoeia, rhythm, and rhyme). Find and explain examples of literary
devices used in the poem.
4. Attitude:
Observe both the speaker’s and the poet’s attitude (tone). Having examined the
poem’s devices and clues closely, you are ready to explore the multiple attitudes
that may be present in the poem. Discuss the tone of the poem and what literary
devices help to convey the tone.
5. Shifts:
Note shifts in speakers and attitudes. Rarely does a poet begin and end the
poetic experience in the same place. Discovery of a poet’s understanding of an
experience is critical to the understanding of a poem. Trace and explain the
feelings of the speaker from the beginning to the end, paying particular attention
to the conclusion.
Look for the following to find shifts:
1. Key words (but, yet, however, although)
2. Punctuation (dashes, periods, colons, ellipsis)
3. Stanza division
4. Changes in line or stanza length or both
5. Irony (sometimes irony hides shifts)
6. Effect of structure on meaning
7. Changes in sound (rhyme) may indicate changes in meaning
8. Changes in diction (slang to formal language)
6. Title:
Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level. Discuss how the
title’s significance is clearer once the poem has been more closely analyzed.
7. Theme:
Determine what the poet is saying. Identify the theme by recognizing the human
experience, motivation, or condition suggested by the poem. Look at the plot (in
step one); next, list the subject or subjects of the poem (moving from literal
subjects to abstract concepts such as war, death, discovery); then, determine
what the poet is saying about each subject and write a complete sentence or two
of explanation.
2
AP Literature and Composition
Summer Assignment 2017
Mrs. Lori Molodow
Email address = [email protected]
Join the Google Classroom Site for Summer 2017 Announcements using this code:
5jwzs8
To His Coy Mistress
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love's day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
and you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
-- Andrew Marvell
(1621-1678)
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry:
For having lost but once your prime
You may for ever tarry.
-- Robert Herrick (1591-1674)
Robert Herrick
3
AP Literature and Composition
Summer Assignment 2017
Mrs. Lori Molodow
Email address = [email protected]
Join the Google Classroom Site for Summer 2017 Announcements using this code:
5jwzs8
A Valediction Forbidding Mourning (be sure to look up the “twin compasses” before reading the last
stanzas)
As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
"Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.
5
10
15
John Donne
20
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
--- John Donne (1572-1631)
25
30
35
4
AP Literature and Composition
Summer Assignment 2017
Mrs. Lori Molodow
Email address = [email protected]
Join the Google Classroom Site for Summer 2017 Announcements using this code:
5jwzs8

THE COLLEGE ADMISSION WRITING ASSIGNMENT due by July
27th in the AP Lit. & Comp. crates in the guidance office.
A. First, locate 3 college admission topics for your college/s of choice and type all 3 on the
same sheet along with the name/s of the school/s. Bring these with you on the first day of
class.
A bit of advice...
Choose essay topics for colleges to which you plan to apply OR topics noted on the
Common Application if your school/s require this method of application. The Common
Application 2017-2018 essay topics have already been released. In other words, you may
access these topics now.
If your colleges require the Common Application, I strongly suggest that you create your
account and begin to fill this application out over the summer when you have some spare
time. You will hit the ground running come September, and anything you can do ahead of
time for college application will be beneficial.
Here is the link to the Common Application website. Visit it and create your account soon.
http://www.commonapp.org
B. Next, select one essay topic and prepare a response of 2 - 4 typed pages. Again, please
double-space and use 12-point font. You must adhere to this length even if your topic
indicates, for example, that the response should be 250-words, half of a page, etc.
C. REMEMBER: This may NOT be a reshaping of any college essay you wrote junior
year. This essay must be BRAND NEW.
D. Put a typed copy of the college essay in the marbleized notebook. Do NOT write this
essay in the notebook; rather, it should be typed on separate paper.
CLASS SUPPLIES
I am giving you this list in advance so you’ll be able to take advantage
of summer sales.








A. a 2 inch (at least), D ring binder with dividers
B. a marbleized composition book to be used as a journal
C. paper/writing implement (pencil, blue or black ink pens – NO RED OR PINK)
D. appropriate text or novel
E. daily planner
F. a thumb drive (may be one you already are using for school-related assignments)
G. 5 highlighters, each a different color
H. a large box of tissues (Tissues are not mandatory; please bring in a box if you are able.
We’ll put these on the front table for all to share.)
5
AP Literature and Composition
Summer Assignment 2017
Mrs. Lori Molodow
Email address = [email protected]
Join the Google Classroom Site for Summer 2017 Announcements using this code:
5jwzs8

I. two packages of SMALL sticky notes to use for book flags (You will be writing notes on these
as you read, so be certain they are large enough to accommodate some writing.)
The Frankenstein dialogue journal, the poetry work, and the rough draft
college essay are ALL due in the AP Lit & Comp crates/guidance office by July
27th, 2016.
NO LATE WORK WILL BE ACCEPTED.
ANY QUESTIONS, EMAIL ME AT [email protected].
6