Dear AP Students, Parents and Guardians:

Welcome and I am glad that you have chosen to undertake the challenge of AP ENG IV, LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION. This is a very demanding course. Successful passing of this course and the national AP exam will result in up to three hours of collegiate English credit. Students taking the AP ENG IV exam will have to pay for the exam. Cost of the exam is approximately ninety dollars. The number of credit hours awarded is determined by the student’s individual college or university with three credit hours being pretty standard in NC State Supported Schools.

The curriculum for this course offers a challenging and collegiate level of learning. AP curriculum is created by the individual instructor and approved by the National AP Institute. One of the requirements for approval of an AP English Curriculum is a mandatory summer reading assignment. I submitted my AP syllabus in 2013/14 for use in the upcoming school year of 2014/15. The only major change I was required to do was to create and add an independent summer literature/novel study. In accordance with those curriculum guidelines for AP ENG IV, I have selected the texts listed below as eligible for summer reading. AP candidates must pick one of these, read it and have it completed by the first day of class of the 2014/15 school year.Students only have to pick one of these works and be prepared to be assessed on this work within the first five days of classes. All of these texts are available in kindle/nook versions, audio versions or through used book companies such as 2nd and Charles or Amazon. I recommend that students begin reading ASAP. Students who fail to do their summer reading or who fail the text assessment on the first days may be sent to a non AP ENG and their schedule may be changed. Consideration may be given to students who do not read the summer reading based upon an individual basis. The only excusable reasons are as follows: Illness that is verifiable with a physician’s note, family/personal issues discussed with administration and instructor, or students who have newly transferred to DHS. Course syllabi and guidelines will be distributed on the first day of class for the 2014/15 year. Throughout the year long course students will be expected to self-select and read independently a work from a preselected list. This literary study will be conducted concurrently with ongoing instruction in the class. Personal initiative is a must for this class.

Students will have a multiple choice test of no less than fifty questions and an essay quiz of at least three pages in length within the first days of class. Students may choose from the following works for their summer reading:

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien** The Entire Trilogy Must be Read, Hint, don’t try and watch the movies and attempt to pass this assessment, the books and movies are quite different

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Wasteland and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot **** NOTE: DO NOT LET THE SIZE OF THIS TEXT FOOL YOU. IT IS VERY COMPLEX!!!

The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Angela’s Ashes/Tis/ Teacher Man by Frank McCourt ** This is a series of three autobiographical books all three must be read. The books are short and read very fast.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

Watership Down by Richard Adams

Kim by Rudyard Kipling

The Face of Battle by John Keegan

Dune by Frank Herbert

The Little Prince or Wind,Sand, and Stars by Antoine de Saint Euxpery. These are two different books by the author, again do not let size of text fool you. The Little Prince is complex, as is Wind, Sand, and Stars

Jeff Lovingood

AP ENGLISH IV TEACHER/LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION