English 12H/AP – Summer Reading Assignments
Welcome to English 12 AP!
In preparation for Advanced Placement course in Literature, I am requiring students to do three
things over summer for preparation. Confirmation of these things will be assessed the first week
of classes.
1.
Devise a list of all of the core novels and plays read in prior years.
Keep/locate all papers and notes on these works (as many as you have).
Place them in a binder for safekeeping. (See list of core lit at end of this
handout to refresh your memory). Do not delete from your files or
throw away any work on these novels and plays. VERY IMPORTANT.
Bring first day.
2.
Read Chapters I-L (1-50, about 300 pages) of Herman Melville’s Moby
Dick. Take chapter notes and make a character list. Make sure you buy
an unabridged version with annotations/notes. This is the only work
you will have to buy for the year. You can annotate your text.
Barnes & Noble has a great edition as part of their “Classics” series.
3.
Research the following Biblical allusions in reference to Moby Dick.
This is just a start for the year.
Ishmael
Hagar & Abraham
Ahab
Jonah (& the Leviathan)
Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18-19)
Cain & Abel
Job
Many times knowing the all details of the complete story is less significant than knowing what
that character comes to represent. For example, the mythological allusion to Niobe in Antigone is
really an analogy to relate and enhance imagery about the depth and “flood” of Antigone’s grief.
Niobe’s grief/ tears create a river…(“Cry me a River”!). The above list of names will help with
the reading of Moby Dick.
***
You have already read many works (not all) from the “classic” canon of literature that could be
used for AP. Here is a list:
Ninth:
Homer The Odyssey (Epic Poem)
Dickens A Tale of Two Cities/Great Expectations
Steinbeck Of Mice and Men
Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet
Lee To Kill a Mockingbird
Wilder Our Town
Williams The Glass Menagerie
Hemingway Old Man and the Sea
Tenth:
Sophocles Antigone
Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream/Much Ado About Nothing/Julius Caesar/Macbeth
Chaucer Canterbury Tales (Epic Poem)
Milton Paradise Lost (Epic Poem)
Swift Gulliver’s Travels
Pope The Rape of the Lock (Poem)
Austen Pride and Prejudice
Bronte Jane Eyre
Coleridge The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Epic Poem)
Shelley Frankenstein
Hardy The Return of the Native
Golding Lord of the Flies
Knowles A Separate Peace
Conrad Heart of Darkness
Orwell 1984
Huxley Brave New World
Achebe Things Fall Apart
Anaya Bless Me Ultima
Eleventh:
Euripides Medea
Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter
Ibsen’s A Doll’s House/ The Wild Duck
Miller The Crucible
Chopin The Awakening
Twain The Adventures of Huck Finn
Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby
Hemingway A Farewell to Arms
Steinbeck The Grapes of Wrath
Miller Death of a Salesman
Faulkner The Sound and the Fury
Morrison The Bluest Eye
Wright Black Boy
Ellison Invisible Man
Salinger The Catcher in the Rye
Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Poem)
Enjoy Moby Dick and annotate your text (sit by the sea and read with glee…and look for
the tail (tale) of the whale). Bring novel first day!!
You are welcome to read anything else from the above lists that you haven’t read or see the
longer English (Literature) AP list online (www.collegeboard.com) or in my room, B6.
(Morrison’s Song of Solomon is great). I will also post this on the English Dept. Website next
week. Don’t get carried away yet. There is enough to do here.
Have fun … Mrs. Rayl