Creating Academic, Social, and Ethical Leaders

Creating Academic, Social, and Ethical Leaders

May 2017

Dear Incoming Seniors,

Congratulations – you’re almost there! Whether you’re enrolled in Senior Composition or AP Literature for next year, however, there’s still a summer reading project that we expect you to do. Think of it as mental hygiene – it’ll keep your mind sharp.

Especially in your AP classes, you’ll be reading a wide variety of challenging novels, plays, poems, short stories, and essays next year, and you’re expected to make your responses and analyses increasingly sophisticated. Some of the texts presented will be stylistically innovative and fairly challenging, and they will come from all over the world. In preparation for such, you will all be reading the wonderful new novelby Tea Obreht, The Tiger’s Wife, over the summer and completing the following assignment.

We’re sorry we haven’t yet announced your teacher for next year, but rest assured that we have a number of strong candidates in the final stages of the process, and they’re excited to hit the ground running with a book you’ve mutually read. So please – make the effort to complete the summer reading and come to your first English class ready to go.

Have a fantastic summer. And great job on finishing up this challenging (but rewarding!) junior year.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Preusser, Mr. Thomas, and Mr. Finkelstein

The PRA English Department

AP Literature: Summer Reading Guide – The Tiger’s Wife

If you are entering AP Literature next fall, you have two summer reading tasks related to Tea Obreht’s The Tiger’s Wife. Be prepared to turn in the second task on the first day of school (and have the teacher check your book for the first).

1. Actively Read The Text.This means you are reading with a pencil and/or highlighter in hand, underlining crucial passages, writing questions in the margins, and defining words that you don’t know. ANNOTATE. This process will make going back to the text (which you will be doing as part of our first unit) much easier.

1. Five Key Passages. As you are reading the book, choose five key passages that stand out to you as important. Make sure they cover the following criteria:

1. Characterization – Two passages that you think capture Natalia and her grandfather (one for each) as individuals: how they act, how they feel, the way they thinks, what motivates them, who they are at heart.

1. Theme – One passage that illustrates an essential theme of this book.

1. Style – One passage that you feel demonstrates the particularly unique style – and point of view – of the author, Tea Obreht. This might be a place in the text where you feel that the author’s personal passion comes across in a strong way, or it might simply be an intriguing literary device.

1. Story – One Balkanfolktaleor fable that you found fascinating simply because of its content. The book is full of them. This should be an excerpt from a folktale, or short tale, that you would be excited to share with friends, family, classmates, or your new teacher. 

On a separate sheet of paper that you will turn in (hard copy!), write down the page numbers andpassages that you choose (for long ones, provide the first and last sentence), as well as a brief explanation (1-3 sentences) of why you picked that passage.

Summer Reading Part II: AP Choice Novel

In addition to completing The Tiger’s Wife, you are to pick a CHOICE NOVEL from the AP Literature Reading List below and complete the related assignment.

The texts reflect a wide range of reading levels and authors (gender, race, era, etc.). The text’s difficulty is noted on a scale of 3-5 after the title, 3 being more accessible and 5 being extremely dense. Book length, style, vocabulary, and thematic sophistication all play into these ratings, though they are of course inherently subjective. If available, the “lexile” (language) level of the book is also listed.

You will receive a 5% bonus for reading and annotating a 4-level book and a 10% bonus for reading and annotating a 5-level book, not to exceed a grade of 100%.

Students are responsible for bringing a copy of his or her book (they can purchase it, check it out of their local library, or download it onto their device) to class the first week of school. To receive a bonus score for difficulty, the teacher must check your annotation of the book to ensure you’ve actively read it.

The Assignment:

1. Actively Read The Text. This means you are reading with a pencil and/or highlighter in hand, underlining crucial passages, writing questions in the margins, and defining words that you don’t know. You should get into the habit of doing this in general.

1. For your choice novel, you are to create an INFOGRAPHIC detailing themes, major symbols, main characters, and anything else that you feel is key to understanding your book. You may do this digitally or by hand, but the idea is to give a viewer a summative understanding of the novel just by looking at your infographic.

Numerous examples can be viewed here, at CourseHero, but please, be wary of plagiarism. Your creation must be entirely your own. Have fun with it!

• You will be graded with the following rubric:

• Overall Creativity – 40 points
• Visual Effects / Images / Aesthetic – 20 points
• Characters and Characterization – 20 points
• Major Themes – 10
• Major Symbols – 10

READING LIST – AP LITERATURE

1800-1899

Title Difficulty / Author / Genre / Date
Pride and Prejudice – 4 L: 1100 / Jane Austen / novel / 1813
Jane Eyre – 4 L: 1040 / Charlotte Bronte / novel / 1847
A Tale of Two Cities – 4 L: 1490 / Charles Dickens / novel / 1859
Madame Bovary – 4 L: 1030 / Gustave Flaubert / novel / 1856
Crime and Punishment – 5 L: 990 / Fyodor Dostoyevsky / novel / 1866

1900-1939

Title Difficulty / Author / Genre / Date
Heart of Darkness – 4 L: 1050 / Joseph Conrad / novel / 1902
This Side of Paradise – 3 L: 1070 / F. Scott Fitzgerald / novel / 1920
Their Eyes Were Watching God – 4 L: 1080 / Zora Neale Hurston / novel / 1937
Brave New World– 3 L: 870 / Aldous Huxley / novel / 1931
The Grapes of Wrath – 5 L: 680 / John Steinbeck / novel / 1939

1940-1969

Title / Author / Genre / Date
Things Fall Apart – 3 L: 890 / Chinua Achebe / novel / 1958
For Whom The Bell Tolls – 5 L: 840 / Ernest Hemingway / novel / 1940
Catch-22 – 5 L: 1140 / Joseph Heller / novel / 1961
Cat’s Cradle – 3 L: 790 / Kurt Vonnegut / novel / 1963
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter – 4 L: 760 / Carson McCullers / novel / 1940

1970-1999

Title / Author / Genre / Date
All the Pretty Horses – 4 L: 940 / Cormac McCarthy / novel / 1996
One Hundred Years of Solitude – 5 L: 1410 / Gabriel Garcia Marquez / novel / 1970
Beloved – 4 L: 870 / Toni Morrison / novel / 1987
Interpreter of Maladies – 3 L: 1050 / Jhumpa Lahiri / novel / 1999
Going After Cacciato – 4 L: 620 / Tim O’Brien / novel / 1978

2555 Preble creek ParkwayBroomfield, CO 80023

(p) 720.399.0300 (f) 720.545.2163