MEMO
To:
College Literature/Intro to Fiction Students, 2013-2014
From: Mr. Baskin
RE: Summer Reading Assignment
One of the goals for the College Literature program is fostering a habit of reading for enjoyment—
learning that reading can, indeed, be fun. At the same time, we must learn to read and enjoy literature
of various genres, periods, cultures, and themes because we will be expected to analyze a variety of
challenging texts on the AP examination (The test by which you may receive three hours of college
credit for the course if you choose not to dual enroll).
The College Board, who designs and writes the AP examination, publishes no recommended,
standardized reading list. Rather, they expect students to have read a variety of titles, studying some in
depth. Instead of focusing on objective questions about specific works of literature, the AP examination
asks students to demonstrate their mastery of skills and abilities in order to analyze the ways language,
characters, actions, and themes work together to give literature its meaning.
Throughout the course at Perryville High School, we will read a large number of short stories and
poems, along with drama and longer works of fiction. The attached list shows those novels from which
you may choose to read during the summer; in addition, the list contains a variety of other works
recognized as having literary merit. In recent years, many of the works appeared as part of the freeresponse essay question on the AP examination.
Obviously, the more you read, the better prepared you will be for both the College Literature course,
the AP examination, and the work that will be expected of you at the collegiate level. Your first
assignment is to complete some independent reading this summer. Pace yourself and set a goal to read
the amount specified.
This packet includes the parameters for your summer reading as well as miscellaneous information
about the course itself. Please read through it carefully.
Please note: You may not be able to locate all of the titles you wish to read at our school or public
library. You may need to purchase a few of the titles.
Enjoy your summer and happy reading!
College Literature Reading Assignment
Select and read four novels, one from each of the four categories (see “Categories” pages). Titles
should reflect NEW reading, not books previously read. You will complete two assignments for two of
the novels: (1) a Bookshare, to be given on roughly the third day of school (see “Book Share
Guidelines”) and (2) an essay, due three weeks into school. (Note: You may choose to do both your
Bookshare and Essay on the same novel, or you may choose to use one novel for your Bookshare and
one novel for your Essay.) Write your essay on one of the five topics listed below.
Select one of the following questions from former AP Literature and Composition Exams on which to
write an essay of 2-3 double-spaced pages (Times New Roman font). Be sure to notice that each
essay question has two parts: (1) an aspect of the book to discuss and (2) an explanation of how this
aspect influences the meaning, focus, or value of the work as a whole. To earn a good grade on your
essay, you will need to effectively address both parts of the question.
1. In his essay “Walking,” Henry David Thoreau offers the following assessment of literature: “In
literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another name for tameness. It is the
uncivilized free and wild thinking in Hamlet and The Iliad, in all scriptures and mythologies,
not learned in schools, that delights us.” Choose a novel that you may initially have thought was
conventional and tame but that you now value for its “uncivilized free and wild thinking.” Write
an essay in which you explain what constitutes its “uncivilized free and wild thinking” and how
that thinking is central to the value of the work as a whole. Support your ideas with specific
references to the work you choose. (1998 Exam)
2. The eighteenth-century novelist Laurence Sterne wrote, “No body, but he who has felt it, can
conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind torn asunder by two projects of equal
strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at the same time.” From a novel choose
a character (not necessarily the protagonists) whose mind is pulled in conflicting directions by
two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Then, in a well-organized essay,
identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this conflict within one character
illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole. (1999 Exam)
3. Morally ambiguous characters—characters whose behavior discourages readers from
identifying them as purely evil or purely good—are at the heart of many works of literature.
Choose a novel or play in which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write
an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why
his or her moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.
(2002 Exam)
4. In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or does not appear at all, is a
significant presence. Choose a novel and write an essay in which you show how such a
character functions in the work. You may discuss how the character affects action, theme, or the
development of the other characters, but be sure to explain the character's significance in the
work as a whole. Avoid plot summary. (1994 Exam)
5. One definition of madness is “mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it.” But
Emily Dickinson wrote: “Much madness is divinest Sense— / To a discerning Eye—.”
Novelists have often seen madness with a “discerning Eye.” Select a novel or play in which a
character's apparent madness or irrational behavior plays an important role. Then write a wellorganized essay in which you explain what this delusion or eccentric behavior consists of and
how it might be judged reasonable. Explain the significance of the “madness” to the work as a
whole. Do not merely summarize the plot. (2001 Exam)
Points Possible and Due Dates
Both the bookshare and the essay will be worth 100 points. Your teacher will announce due dates
during the first week of class. Usually, the bookshares begin the second week of class. The essay is
normally due within the first two to three weeks of school. Be prepared!
Do I Belong in College Literature?
A Self-Quiz for Students
Perryville High School
YES
NO
1) Are you thinking of attending a college or university after graduation?
2) Can you devote as much as 90 minutes to homework each day?
3) Are you willing to work only a few hours per week at a part-time job (the
College Literature Program recommends no more than 10 hours)?
4) Are you willing to not get too deeply involved in more than two or three extracurricular activities at once?
5) Do you like to read without being told to do so?
6) Are you willing to make a firm commitment to the College Literature Program,
making it a priority to be in class and prepared each day?
7) Are you willing to commit yourself to completing assigned tasks on time?
8) Are you willing to commit extra time to improve your writing skills?
9) Are you willing to commit yourself as an active participant in class discussion?
10) Are you willing to spend extra time and effort to earn college credit in high
school?
To Score:
If you answered "yes" to nine of the above questions, we encourage you to study the material and
consider making the final application to enter the College Literature Program.
Category 1: Dead White Guys (mostly)
Charles Dickens
A Tale of Two Cities
Oliver Twist
Dave Eggers
A Heartbreaking Work of
Staggering Genius
William Faulkner
Absalom! Absalom!
As I Lay Dying
The Sound and the Fury
Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House of Seven Gables
The Scarlet Letter
Joseph Heller
Catch-22
Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Aldous Huxley (also Multicultural)
Brave New World
John Irving
A Prayer for Owen Meany
Henry James
The Turn of the Screw
James Joyce (also Multicultural)
A Portrait of the Artist
As a Young Man
George Orwell (also Multicultural)
1984
John Steinbeck
East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath
John Kennedy Toole
Confederacy of Dunces
Mark Twain
Puddn’head Wilson
Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five
Oscar Wilde (also Multicultural)
The Importance of Being Earnest
Category 2: Female Authors
Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
Emily Brontё
Wuthering Heights
Willa Cather
My Antonia
O Pioneers!
George Eliot
Silas Marner
Barbara Kingsolver
The Poisonwood Bible
Bobbie Ann Mason
In Country
Sylvia Plath
The Bell Jar
Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead
Mary Shelley (also Multicultural)
Frankenstein
Amy Tan (also Multicultural)
Joy Luck Club
Alice Walker (also Multicultural)
The Color Purple
Edith Wharton
The Age of Innocence
Ethan Frome
Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Dalloway
To the Lighthouse
Category 3: Multicultural Authors
Margaret Atwood (Canadian)
The Handmaid’s Tale
Oryx and Crake
Sandra Cisneros (Hispanic)
Caramelo
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian)
Crime and Punishment
Ralph Ellison (African American)
Invisible Man
Khaled Hosseini (Afghani)
The Kite Runner
Zora Neale Hurston (African American)
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Milan Kundera (Czechoslovakian)
The Unbearable Lightness of
Being
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Hispanic)
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Toni Morrison (African American)
Beloved
Song of Solomon
Vladimir Nabokov (Russian)
Lolita
Leo Tolstoy (Russian)
Anna Karenina
Sun Tzu (Chinese)
The Art of War
Voltaire (French)
Candide
Richard Wright (African American)
Black Boy
Category 4: Nonfiction
Maya Angelou
I Know Why the Caged Bird
Sings
Margaret Atwood
Negotiating With the Dead: A
Writer on Writing
Truman Capote
In Cold Blood
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nature
Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard's Almanac
John Howard Griffin
Black Like Me
John Hersey
Hiroshima
Zora Neale Hurston
Dust Tracks on a Road
Tim O’Brien
The Things They Carried
Tillie Olsen
Silences
Robert M. Pirsig
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance
Susan Sontag
On Photography
James Thurber
My Life and Hard Times
Mark Twain
My Life on the Mississippi
Tom Wolfe
The Purple Decades
Richard Wright
Black Boy
Malcolm X
The Autobiography of Malcolm
X