Advanced Placement English 12

Advanced Placement English 12 Ms. Caruso ([email protected]) 2017-2018 Summer Reading Assignment

In preparation for next year’s college level coursework, students enrolled in AP English 12 at Parkville High School will read two books during the summer. This course is designed to prepare students for the AP Literature & Composition exam and for college level work. That preparation begins now.

 You will first read How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. For each of the 27 chapters, type a 1-2 paragraph summary describing key concepts and terms. You may purchase the 2014 version of this book or download a free older version online (http://ziveuniverzity.sk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Foster-How-to-Read- Literature-Like-a-Professor.pdf).  Secondly, you will read a novel of your choosing from the list below. Prompted by the many ideas Foster espouses, compose 20 dialectical journal entries in response to the novel. Each dialectical journal entry must clearly establish a meaningful connection between an excerpt from the novel and the thrust of one of Foster’s chapters. Your dialectical journal must be typed in 12 pt. Times New Roman font and formatted appropriately (see the back of this sheet for a model journal entry.)

Do not be a passive reader. As always, you should be interacting with the texts at a scholarly level by highlighting/underlining and annotating the pages. If you cannot write in your book, use post-it notes to mark your pages and record your thoughts. You will be expected to have a strong familiarity with both texts at the start of the course. Because this assignment requires that each student enrolled in the course read a different novel, it is your responsibility to email me ([email protected]) promptly in order to “claim” the novel of your choosing. In your email, please list your top three choices; thus, if your first choice has already been claimed, I can easily inform you of what is still available. This assignment is due on the first day of class. Late work will not be accepted. If you have questions about the assignment during the summer, do not hesitate to email me for assistance.

Novel Options (* indicates that I have one free copy of the book that I can give you to keep):

Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima * Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen, Emma James Baldwin, Go Tell it on the Mountain Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights (x2) * Albert Camus, The Plague Willa Cather, O Pioneers! Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote Daniel Defoe, Moll Flanders Charles Dickens, Great Expectations Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities * Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man * William Faulkner, Light in August Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary * E.M. Forster, A Passage to India * Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 100 Years of Solitude Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy, The Major of Casterbridge * Aldous Huxley, Brave New World * Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day * Henry James, Portrait of a Lady * Henry James, The Turn of the Screw James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man * Franz Kafka, The Trial * Joy Kogawa, Obasan * EXAMPLE: Nectar in a Sieve: Dialectical Journal

Quote from novel Connection to Foster “The fruit is ripening, I thought, the birds I see connections to two of Foster’s chapters. The are already here. Or perhaps mice. Leaving the beans character’s encounter with the snake in a garden full I went to look, stooping to part the leaves with my of fruit brings to mind Foster’s discussion of biblical hand. references in Chapter Six. Even though the character Why did the snake not strike at once? does not seem to experience a fall from innocence, Was the cobra surprised into stillness that a the snake is still significant because of its symbolic human should dare to touch it? My hands recoiled value (Chapter 12); serpents are often thought to from the coldness of serpent flesh, my nails clawed at represent the Devil. Perhaps this Devil figure serves my palms, the leaves I hard parted moved back to as a bad omen for what is to come, because on the cover it. For a moment my legs remained stiffly very next page, the character becomes disappointed planted beside the pumpkins, then the blood came when giving birth to a female (rather than a male) racing to my limbs again, and I ran from the spot child. Snakes are also thought to represent fertility, screeching with fear and not looking behind me. which is a major theme in this novel. Thus, the fact that the character encounters a snake prior to giving Nathan came rushing to me, almost knocking birth is probably not a simple coincidence. me over, caught and shook me. ‘What is it, what is it?’ he shouted roughly. ‘A snake,’ I whispered, bereft of voice and breath. ‘A cobra. I touched it.’ He looked at me as if I were mad. ‘Go on and stay there,’ he said. I wanted only to fall at his feet in my terror, to beg him not to leave me alone, but he was staring at me unrelenting. At last I went, cowed, but with the waters of panic receding” (14).