AP Literature and Composition
Summer Assignment 2016/2017
Instructor: Vanessa Sells Room H-4
Email: [email protected]
Welcome to AP Lit!!!! I’m excited that you all have chosen to challenge yourself, and I hope that
we’ll all have a fantastic year together. The first key to a successful year is to ensure you guys all
keep practicing your critical reading skills over the summer. I would hate for your brains to
atrophy! +) It is vital that you complete all parts of the summer reading assignment as our first few
weeks of class (and therefore a large chunk of your first quarter grade) will be dealing with the
books you read this summer and the notes you take over them. You’ve all earned a well-deserved
break, and I sincerely hope you enjoy your summer. Just do yourself a favor and don’t wait until
the last minute to complete the requested assignments. You’ll kick yourself if you have to spend
the last few weeks of your break doing homework instead of enjoying your last summer hurrahs!
ASSIGNMENT #1
The key to success in AP Literature is being well read. You will be required to read a series of
novels over the summer break and complete the assigned work. Attached you will find a reading
list of Classic and contemporary novels taken from previous AP Lit and Comp exams. You are to
choose two texts from the list OR if you believe you have a novel of literary merit, email me to get
approval to use the piece ( [email protected] ). You have many titles and authors to choose
from, some of which may be familiar to you. Reading some reviews (Amazon is a great source) may
help you narrow down your options to something you’ll find interesting. The books on this list are
probably not the type of books you typically choose for light, vacation reading. However, they serve
a few important purposes:



They are a sampling of the type of texts we’ll be reading, discussing, and writing about in
class.
They provide you with enough depth and complexity to get you thinking about key themes
and the elements used to express them.
They begin/add to your literary storehouse of knowledge which you’ll need to pull from when
you take the AP exam next spring.
Take notes: In order to get the most out of your reading (and make your fall assignments much
easier), make sure you’re an active reader of these books. As you read, take notes over
character/character development, conflict, theme, rhetorical devices/word choice, setting,
and form/structure. (You’ll have two sets of notes—one for each work.) I would recommend setting
up a couple of pages for each category in a notebook or journal. Pose questions and do your best to
answer them. Remember to jot down page numbers so it is easy to find the passages you want.
These notes should be ample proof that you have carefully read the work. Do not just summarize
the plot!
Write a final response (250-300 words): Write a one-page response as soon as possible after you
finish each book. This is just an informal, first person reaction to the novel. Did you like it? Why or
why not? What did you find to be interesting n the text as a whole? There are really no rules for a
response; it’s just a chance for you to collect your thoughts on the entire piece and vent your
excitement, frustration, or questions. Your notes and responses will be due the first day of
class—make sure to bring them with you!
AP Book List
Wuthering Heights—Emily Bronte
King Lear—William Shakespeare
Catch 22—Joseph Heller
Invisible Man—Ralph Ellison
Moby Dick—Herman Melville
Great Expectations—Charles Dickens
Gulliver’s Travels—Jonathan Swift
Frankenstein—Mary Shelley
The Metamorphosis—Franz Kafka
Brave New World—Aldous Huxley
All the Pretty Horses—Cormac McCarthy
The Color Purple—Alice Walker
Crime and Punishment—Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Cry, the Beloved Country—Alan Paton
Emma—Jane Austen
Heart of Darkness—Joseph Conrad
The Piano Lesson—August Wilson
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—James Joyce
The Portrait of a Lady—Henry James
A Raisin in the Sun—Lorraine Hansberry
As I Lay Dying—William Faulkner
Jane Eyre—Charlotte Bronte
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead—Tom
Stoppard
The Turn of the Screw—Henry James
The Awakening—Kate Chopin
The Bluest Eye—Toni Morrison
The Grapes of Wrath—John Steinbeck
The Merchant of Venice—William Shakespeare
Moll Flanders—Daniel Defoe
A Midsummer Night’s Dream—William Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra—William Shakespeare
A Tale of Two Cities—Charles Dickens
Anna Karenina—Leo Tolstoy
Things Fall Apart—Chinua Achebe
A Streetcar Named Desire—Tennessee Williams
The Great Gatsby—F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Scarlett Letter—Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Age of Innocence—Edith Wharton
The Joy Luck Club—Amy Tan
Much Ado About Nothing—William Shakespeare
Our Town—Thornton Wilder
Pride and Prejudice—Jane Austen
The Scarlet Letter—Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Things They Carried—Tim O’Brien
Portrait of Dorian Gray-Oscar Wilde
Sample Notes Pages:
Page
The Scarlet
Letter
Page 2/3
Category
Setting
Question/Pertinent information
What is symbolical of the
rosebush outside the prison door
The Scarlet
Letter
Page 4/5
Characterization Why does Hawthorne mention
& Purpose
Ann Hutchinson and what effect
does this create?
Additional analysis
Juxtaposition or
dichotomy of ideas
between the beauty
of the rose and the
cold prison door
ASSIGNMENT #2
You are to read the novel We Were the Mulvaneys. I have these books and will happily check one
out to you if you come by my room prior to the end of the school year. If you are unable to stop by
and check out a book, you can get the book on your own. As you read your novel, take notes.
Take notes over character/character development. Choose one character of the six to focus on
for development for the note taking. As you read, pull quotes and passages that showcase the
development of the character and as the novel continues on the character’s shifts and changes.
Pull several quotes/passages per chapter.
Dialectical Journal
For each chapter you are to do the following:
 On the top line of your notebook paper, center the chapter number and page numbers.
 Underneath, on the first line of the paper write a one - sentence summary of the chapter.
 Then divide your paper into two halves, lengthwise.
 Label the left hand column QUOTE/PASSAGE.
 Label the right hand column CHARCTER ANALYSIS.
 Write the page number down, in parenthesis, after each quote or passage. For each chapter, find
several significant quotes or passages that exemplify shifts in tone or point of view, character
development, and symbolism that impacts the character development. The examples below are
taken from The Chosen and Night. The first two are examples of entries that focus on literary
elements, and the last two are student reactions to events in the novels.
Chapter 1 p. 7-40
Reuven describes how he and Danny first meet at a baseball game.
Content
Personal Response
“For the first fifteen years of our lives, Danny
This gives us the point of view for the novel,
and I lived within five blocks of each other
first person, through the eyes of Reuven
and neither of us knew of the other’s
Malter.
existence” (9).
“...like specters, with their black hats, long
These are descriptive details of the Hasidic
black coats, black beards, and earlocks” (25).
sect of Judaism. (There is also a simile).
{imagery}
“We had arrived at Buchenwald” (98)
A simple sentence that can encourage hope,
bring happiness, and bring sadness. It can
make someone happy knowing they will have
food and shelter. It can make someone sad to
“The sound of a violin, in this dark shed,
where the dead were heaped on the living.
What madman could be playing the violin
here, at the brink of his own death” (90)?
know that they will again become slaves, and
bring the thought that maybe it would have
been better to die in the train.
The violin was giving Juliek hope to survive,
and he played his soul in it, so it must have
been deeply moving music. When the violin
broke, he must have died.
Remember this is a sample. Your journal must focus on the character development of your
chosen character and the shifts that character takes throughout the novel. Focus on the
why behind the shifts and changes.
These notes are due the first week of class as we will be using them for our first full process
essay!!!
ASSIGNMENT #3
You must be familiar with specific terms for AP Literature. Below is a list of the terms we will be
using throughout the year on a regular basis. Create a flashcard for each term noting the definition
in your own words and including two literary examples of the term. You will be tested on these
terms within the first week of class and repeatedly throughout the school year.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Alliteration
Allusion
Antagonist
Assonance
Characterization (indirect. Direct, static character, dynamic character, flat character, round
character)
6. Conflict (external & internal)
7. Connotation
8. Dichotomy
9. Diction
10. Imagery
11. Irony
12. Juxtaposition
13. Metaphor
14. Mood
15. Motif
16. Onomatopoeia
17. Personification
18. Plot (exposition, rising action, climax, resolution)
19. Point of view
20. Protagonist
21. Quatrain
22. Refrain
23. Rhythm
24. Simile
25. Symbolism
26. Theme
27. Tone