AP Literature and Composition Summer Reading Assignment 2017
This is a course designed for students to deeply study representative works, from multiple genres and time periods. To build upon your reading, writing, and analysis skills, preparing for this intense course includes a summer reading and written assignment, which is specified below.
Reading Assignments
? How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster
§ If possible, this book should be purchased as we will refer to it throughout this course.
§ Read the book and develop an understanding of literary analysis and how the repetition of patterns and symbols provide a deeper level of meaning in most texts.
? Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
§ Again, purchasing this book would be ideal, but it is not necessary. This book is available free online in pdf form.
§ Read the novel and focus on basic literary elements, such as symbolism, allusions, etc.
§ Also, pay careful attention to the idea of personal vs. societal expectations, especially as relating to disability, race, or gender.
? Choose One of the Following:
§ The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
§ Against Medical Advice by James Patterson and Hal Friedman
§ Laughing at my Nightmare by Shane Burcaw
§ Again, purchasing this book would be ideal, but it is not necessary.
§ Read the novel, focusing on the idea of personal vs. societal expectations, especially as relating to disability, race, or gender, in this novel.
OPTIONAL SUMMER READ
? Elements of Style by Strunk & White
§ Read the book and develop an understanding of the various elements of grammar that are addressed. There will be a grammar test shortly after returning to school.
§ This book is required, but does not have to be read over the summer.
Things to make note of in your text:
? Mark anything that you think is confusing, interesting, surprising, or important.
? Note passages that generate a strong positive or negative response.
? How does the writer present the argument and prove it?
? Analyze the diction (word choice) and syntax (sentence structure) used to express point of view.
? Consider the writer’s purpose: to explain, to persuade, to describe, to entertain, to editorialize.
? Also, consider any logical fallacies in the author’s arguments.
? Write connections between this text and other texts.
Writing Assignments
There are four assignments to accompany your reading. Each is due the first day of school. All assignments must be bound in a three-ring binder, compiled in the order they appear below.
? Choose FIVE chapters from How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Foster and apply what you have learned in those chapters to Invisible Man and your choice novel.
§ Create a Power Point slide show that explains the main points made in the Foster chapters and how those points apply to the books.
§ You need to have the following information in your slide show:
¨ Begin with a slide that has the titles and authors of the books.
¨ Include a brief summary of the book.
¨ A slide that explains the main points of each chapter from How to Read Literature Like a Professor that you have chosen to explain.
¨ A slide that provides at least two examples (quotes please) from the books (one quote from Invisible Man and one quote from your choice novel) for each chapter in Foster’s book that you chose. Please include page numbers for each example.
¨ Make your slides visually appealing – color, pictures, etc.
¨ Print out the slides in black and white to include in your binder. Also, save your completed Power Point show, titled Last Name First Initial PP to Google Docs or Microsoft 365 and share it with me.
? Vocabulary compiled from How to Read Literature Like a Professor, The Invisible Man, and your Choice Novel: As you read, compile a list of unfamiliar vocabulary and define each word. Note the work and page number where you find each word, and include the sentence in which the word was used. Submit one list all together that identifies the source text for each. Please number each entry in your list and identify the text in which you found your words.
? Choose one of the following prompts to which to respond in a 2 to 4 page essay.
§ A. In a novel by William Styron, a father tells his son that life “is a search for justice.” In what ways is the life of the narrator of Invisible Man an example of that search? Your well-developed essay should analyze the narrator’s understanding of justice, the degree to which his search is successful, and the significance of this search for the work as a whole.
§ B. According to critic Northrop Frye, “Tragic heroes are so much the highest points in their human landscape that they seem the inevitable conductors of the power about them, great trees more likely to be struck by lightning than a clump of grass. Conductors may of course be instruments as well as victims of the divisive lightning.” The narrator of Invisible Man functions as an instrument of both his own suffering and the suffering of others. Your well-developed essay should explain how the suffering brought upon others by the narrator contributes to the tragic vision of the work as a whole.
§ C. In many works of literature, disabilities, real or perceived, can affect, positively or negatively, the activities, attitudes, or values of a character. How does the unnamed narrator of Invisible Man contend with some disability, either his personal disability or society’s perception? Your essay should include how the narrator’s disability contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
POETRY: You are responsible for all literary devices listed below.
? TPCASTT: Literary Analysis Made Easy
§ T Title: Ponder the title
§ P Paraphrase: Translate the poem into your own words – paraphrase line by line for short poems OR summarize stanza by stanza for long poems.
¨ Look for: Syntactical units (complete sentences rather than line by line) Enjambment vs. End-stopped lines
§ C Connotation: Contemplate the meaning beyond the literal. Examine any and all devices, focusing on how such devices contribute to the meaning, the effect, or both.
Alliteration repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the beginning of words
Allusions a direct or indirect reference to something which is presumable commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art
Ambiguity double meanings
Antithesis direct contrast of structurally parallel word groupings – sink-swim, best-worst
Apostrophe speaker addresses remarks to a dead person, an absent person or a non-human object
Assonance repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds - “A land laid waste with all its young men slain”
Consonance repetition of the same or similar final consonant sounds on accented syllables or in important words – tick tock, singsong,
Details facts included or omitted to create effects or evoke responses
Diction choice of words – denotative and connotative meanings
Hyperbole exaggerated statements -- Your eyes are as bright as the sun!
Imagery/Images sensory details: visual, auditory, smell, touch, taste
Internal rhyme repetition of sounds within the same line
Irony opposite of the expected: verbal, situational, dramatic
Metaphor direct comparison of principal term identified by secondary term - war is a razor
Metonymy object is used to represent something to which it is closely related: scepter & crown = royalty
Onomatopoeia use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning
Oxymoron contradiction of terms – jumbo shrimp, honest thief, sweet sorrow
Paradox appears contradictory or opposed to common sense, but contains a degree of truth or validity
Personification author presents or describes concepts, animals, or inanimate objects by endowing them with human attributes or emotions
Pun a play on words -- Eve was nigh Adam; Adam was naive
Rhyme repetition of vowel sounds in accented syllables and all succeeding syllables
Simile comparison using like or as
Symbols generally, anything that represents or stands for something else
Syntax arrangement of words within sentences OR of sentences within paragraph
Synecdoche a part represents the whole: hands = person, all hands on deck
Understatement ironic minimalizing of fact: understatement presents something as less significant than it is
§ A Attitude/Tone: Examine both the speaker’s and the poet’s attitudes.
¨ Look for: 1. Speaker’s attitude toward self, other characters, and the subject of the poem
¨ Attitudes of characters other than the poem’s speaker
¨ Poet’s attitude toward speaker, other characters, subject, and finally, toward the reader
§ S Shift: Rarely does a poet begin and end the poetic experience in the same place. As is true in most of us, the poet’s understanding of an experience is a gradual realization, and the poem is a reflection of that epiphany. One way to help arrive at an understanding of a poem is to trace the changing feelings of the speaker from the beginning to the end. The discovery of shift can be facilitated by watching for the following:
¨ Key words: but, yet, however, although
¨ Punctuation: dashes, periods, colons, ellipsis
¨ Changes in line or stanza length
¨ Irony
¨ Changes in sound that may indicate changes in meaning
¨ Changes in diction: slang to formal
¨ Occasion of poem (time and place)
¨ Stanza divisions
§ T Title: Examine the title again on an interpretive level.
§ T Theme: Recognize the human experience, motivation, or condition suggested by the poem. First list what the poem is about (subjects); then determine what the poet is saying about each of those subjects (theme). Remember, the theme must be expressed as a complete sentence.
Always show how poetic devices operate in conveying the effect and meaning of the passage or poem. In other words, you must always support your ASSERTIONS with specific detail, evidence and explanation!4
? Please analyze this poem line by line, and then fill out a chart using TPCASTT method of analysis.
Detail of the Woods
Richard Siken
I looked at all the trees and didn’t know what to do.
A box made out of leaves.
What else was in the woods? A heart, closing. Nevertheless.
Everyone needs a place. It shouldn’t be inside of someone else.
I kept my mind on the moon. Cold moon, long nights moon.
From the landscape: a sense of scale.
From the dead: a sense of scale.
I turned my back on the story. A sense of superiority.
Everything casts a shadow.
Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything.
If you have any questions throughout the summer, contact me, Mr. Wegley, at or at my home, 241-2039.
Assignments adapted from Dr. Melissa King Rogers
AP English Student and Parent Information Sheet
Please complete this sheet and return it to Mr. Wegley in room 2044 before you leave for the summer.
Student’s Name:
Student’s Email Address:
I’d like to know a little more about you as a student to get a sense of the interests and abilities of the class. Please take a moment to tell me about yourself. Feel free to include any additional information you’d like me to know about you.
Why have you chosen to take AP English Literature?
What do you think are your strengths as a student?
What would you like to work on most in AP English, and why?
Please have a parent complete the sections below.
Names of Parent(s):
Address:
Phone Number:
Parent’s Email Address:
I am aware of the commitment involved with the AP English course.
Student Signature:
Parent Signature: