Advanced Placement Literature & Composition Summer Reading Assignments 2015-16
Reading assignments: Any edition of 1984 and Brave New World will suffice; Canterbury Tales should be the edition
translated by Nevill Coghill (available on Amazon).
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Assignment due 26 August 2015
Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales Assignment due 3 September 2015
George Orwell, 1984 Assignment due 15 September 2015
INSTRUCTIONS:
Read the book once for entertainment. Read the book a second time for analysis. If you can purchase a copy of each,
annotate the text as you read. Ask your own questions, cite your own observations, and note your own connections to the
text. Active engagement generates interest. You should ask yourself as you read these texts whether or not you are
annotating, engaging and connecting with the texts. If you are unable to read and annotate these texts in a self-initiated
manner, Honors 12 may be a more suitable option for you.
Consider the following essential questions as you read:
How can the values of the author influence the theme?
How can intolerance lead to conflict?
How do persons create a sense of self?
What essential human freedoms should be accorded to all persons?
How can seemingly benign technological advances pose threats to these basic freedoms?
Complete the assignment for each text. NOTE THE DUE DATES. Do NOT procrastinate. If you attempt these
projects/papers without careful reading of the complete text, recognize that in-class essays, tests, and quizzes
will reveal whether or not you thoroughly read each work. These assessments will begin day two of school.
Enjoy your summer. We look forward to working with you in the fall.
Ms. Monica Wilkerson ([email protected]) and Ms. Heather Dinkenor ([email protected])
Brave New World: Due 26 August 2015
Choose one of the following tasks to complete:
1. Identify each of the following characters and describe his/her dominant personality traits. Buttress your IDs with
citations and specifics from the text. (Cite page numbers using MLA format). Do not simply put a page number as your
entire response. Provide the response with quotes appropriately cited within your words.
a. Bernard Marx
d. Henry Foster
f. Linda
b. Lenina Crowne
e. John, the Savage
g. Helmholtz Watson
c. Mustapha Mond
OR
2. True/False test: Answer each statement as true or false, provide persuasive evidence from the text to support your
claim, and then cite the evidence with page number(s) from the text. Again, do not simply put a page number as your
entire response. Provide the response with quotes appropriately cited within your words.
a. Solitude is a desirable condition.
b. Ignorance of passion is a greatly valued trait.
c. In the lower castes, work is spent in mindless repetitive tasks.
d. Social conditioning is achieved primarily through a system of awards and status jobs.
e. The words mother, father, and birth are obscene and embarrassing.
f. Leisure time is best spent in study and intellectual engagement
g. Feelies are used to educate the masses.
h. Soma is the escapist happiness drug supplied by the state to preserve order.
Canterbury Tales: Due 3 September 2015
To complete the assignment listed below, only read the following five parts of Canterbury Tales. You do NOT need to read
the prologues to the individual tales.
“the Prologue” of Canterbury Tales
“The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”
“The Pardoner’s Tale”
“The Miller’s Tale”
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale”
Chaucer uses many different genres of tales, e.g. fable, exemplum, and parable to show the values and opinions for
individual pilgrims. Write your own short story that exemplifies a moral. Your story must accomplish the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Develop at least two characters with distinct personalities that contribute to the moral of the story. Remember
physical traits and clothing as well as actions and words help to illustrate the personality of a character.
Establish a clear setting.
Exhibit all the stages of plot development: exposition, conflict, complication, climax and resolution.
Extend two to three pages but not more than five pages. Follow MLA format.
1984
Due 15 September 2015
Choose a historical event which changed the course of the world. Now, change the incident as Winston would have in
1984 at the Ministry of Truth. Write a section of a history book detailing the event and explaining its long-term
consequences/results because of this event in history. Your account and results should be realistic and plausible. Your
“history section” should be 1-2 pages long in MLA format. Include a picture and a short blurb at the bottom citing a
reason for this rewriting of history.
Remember that you are to choose a real event from history that occurred. You must then transform the event as
Winston’s job required him to do. Consider what Winston did, how he did it, and why he did it as you compose your
“historical” passage.
Additional clarification: Once you’ve read the books, we do NOT object to the use of additional, creditable critical
sources (cite those sources on your assignments in proper MLA format). However, remember that there is NO substitute
for reading. As Mr. Vonnegut says, “Reading exercises the imagination—tempts it to go from strength to strength!”