AP Literature and Composition Summer Reading 2015/2016
Centennial High School (951) 736-5670 ______STUDENT NAME (PRINTED)
THE SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENTYour annotations, work, and writing should reflect your own analysis and ideas. DO NOT borrow words or statements from other people, print sources, or online sources.
Work that has been plagiarized will receive NO CREDIT!
Task 1: How to Read Literature Like a Professor – Thomas C. Foster
Available at bookstores or amazon.com
Any edition is fine. There is a new revised 2104 edition, but if you have an older one, that will do just as well. You should read this guide before you read the works of fiction, as it will aid you in your reading of the other works and enable you to read…like a professor J
Assignment: For this work, you are to write a 2-3 page reaction paper to the ideas Foster presents. You may wish to discuss what you found valuable, useful, or interesting about his approach to reading literature. You may also write about your own experiences in reading literature as they pertain to Foster’s ideas.
Task 2: Read 1984 by George Orwell (available from the library). You may handwrite notes on paper or post-it and insert them in the book. You should provide at least one annotation per page on at least 75% of the pages. These annotations are NOT LANG, so don’t write rhetorical terms. These annotations need to be analytical in nature. There will be a test on 1984 within the first week or two of the 2015/2016 school year.
Tips for Annotating
Mark Up That Text with Your Observations and Thoughts!
As you thoughtfully read and focus on key passages of the novel, identify important or striking features, notice patterns, predict meanings, and annotate, or “mark up”, the text to show your observations and thoughts
You may use any sort of notations, but here are some suggestions for annotation:
! or for important events, decisions, or thoughts expressed by the author or a character
? to highlight confusing or puzzling ideas or events
Underline or circle to identify a literary technique used by the author. Notice …
important, striking, or enchanting words, phrases, and sentences ; sensory images;
figurative language; repetition; sounds; and unusual punctuation AND WHAT DOES IT DO WITHIN THE TEXT.
In the margins, write brief comments. If the margins are narrow, you may want to use post-it notes. When writing comments, you might …
Information provided by: http://www.dsisd.txed.net/DocumentCenter/Home/View/14072 and http://www.gpisd.org/cms/lib01/TX01001872/Centricity/Domain/1042/Annotating%20Hints%20and%20Examples.pdf
· Interpret author’s purpose
· Observe what is being said or done
· Define unfamiliar words
· Identify a theme being developed
· Paraphrase or summarize a difficult phrase, sentence or passage
· Describe the effect of an image, sound, or word
· Identify a literary /stylistic technique
· Infer a character quality
· Ask a thought question
· Predict an outcome
Information provided by: http://www.dsisd.txed.net/DocumentCenter/Home/View/14072 and http://www.gpisd.org/cms/lib01/TX01001872/Centricity/Domain/1042/Annotating%20Hints%20and%20Examples.pdf
Task 3:
For 1984, write a well-developed essay that answers the following AP released prompt:
Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or play in which character plays a significant role and show how that character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions or moral values.
Your essay must be typed and in MLA format.
Task 4:
You must also read the first five books of “The Old Testament” and the Gospels of John, and Matthew of “the New Testament” in the King James Version of the Bible. I am not trying to proselytize; you may read this as literature. I am specifying the King James Version because it surpasses only Shakespeare in importance and influence on the English language and most major English literature from the time of its publication to the present.
a. You must type up an explanation of each of the Biblical quotes below. These explanations will be due the second day of school and may not be plagiarized from the web. I am assigning these because knowing these expressions will be quite helpful in understanding the western literary canon, especially poetry:
CEHS AP Literature and Composition syllabus
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1. Adam’s rib
2. Am I my brother’s keeper?
3. Babel
4. Render unto Caesar
5. East of Eden
6. Bowels of compassion
7. Golden Calf
8. Cast money changers out of the temple
9. Cast the first stone
10. Divide the sheep from the goats
11. Doubting Thomas
12. Dust and ashes
13. Absolom
14. False Prophets
15. Good shepherd
16. Go and sin no more
17. He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her
18. Greater love hath no man
19. If thy right eye offend thee
20. Know them my their fruits
21. The last shall be first and the first last
22. Lazarus
23. Lilies of the field
24. Manna from heaven
25. New wine into old bottles
26. My God, why has thou forsaken me?
27. Not by bread alone
28. Pearls before swine
29. Plagues of Egypt
CEHS AP Literature and Composition syllabus
Page 2 of 2
CEHS AP Literature and Composition syllabus
Page 2 of 2
CEHS AP Literature and Composition syllabus
Page 2 of 2