Summer 2009 AP English

Dear Students,

Welcome to Advanced Placement English! Congratulations on taking the first step towards success in college by accepting the challenge of Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition. You are about to begin a great adventure that will broaden your horizons.

This letter contains your summer reading assignment, comprised of carefully chosen books sure to enrich your summer and your life! The AP English Literature and Composition course is a challenging, college-level course, but you are part of a talented group. Remember, this course offers rewards far beyond the ordinary class, so please don't be daunted by the work. Have fun completing the summer readings and assignments!

Reading assignments All students will read three books, two assigned and one personal choice. As you read the three books you will complete annotated notes on the books. You will be marking in your books, so you must have a personal copy. You will be required to bring books with you to class each day when school starts.

REQUIRED BOOKS – All AP students must read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – do annotated notes Frankenstein by Mary W. Shelley – do annotated notes PERSONAL CHOICE – Chose one of the books read in Honors English 11 and re-read. I suggest that you read The Great Gatsby as it has more potential to help you on the AP Exam, but you may chose any you read last year. You will complete a Dialectical/Response Journal for this book. Instructions are attached. ANNOTATED NOTES ASSIGNMENT While reading, you want to look for the following and mark them in your book or use post-it notes and place notes on them on the pages. HOW TO ANNOTATE (test grades will be based on your summer annotations!): 1. At the top of the page or on a post-it, mark the important plot events. Every page will NOT necessarily be marked. 2. Highlight and mark for yourself words and phrases that help describe the personality of characters. Note your ideas about the characters right in the text (personality, motivation, fears/dreams, etc.). 3. Highlight and mark for yourself any conflicts that occur with the main character (protagonist). Note your ideas about these conflicts in the text (who/what is involved, attempts to resolve conflicts, etc.). 5. Highlight and mark for yourself any symbolism and note your ideas in the text as to what abstract concepts these tangible objects may represent. 6. Don’t mark too much. If your mark everything, nothing will stand out! 7. Mark five important passages (throughout the books). Every time you encounter a particulary important, provocative, dramatic, surprising or seven disturbing passage, mark it. 7. Once you are completely finished reading the book and annotating, pick the two most important thematic statements from the list below that your book addresses. Write those themes on an inside cover or any blank pages of your book AND find supporting evidence from the text to support your ideas. Mark those supporting passages with post-its: a. A just individual has obligations toward society. b. A just society has obligations it owes to an individual. c. Individual freedom is limited by ______. d. An individual can develop methods for judging right from wrong. e. ______kind of government is effective. f. Society must contend with the dichotomies presented by freedom and equality. g. The ruthless pursuit of knowledge ______.

1. Look for examples of the following stylistic elements and address how these elements contribute to the effect of your various marked passages?

a. tone/attitude/mood—the attitude of the author toward his/her subject or audience; the emotion evoked in the reader by the text. b. diction—the author’s choice of words that impact meaning; e.g., formal vs. informal, ornate vs. plain/matter of fact, simple vs. complex, etc. With diction, discuss the connotation of the words and how each word adds to meaning. c. figurative language/figures of speech—language that describes one thing in terms of something else (e.g. metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism, metonymy, synecdoche, etc.). d. detail—concrete elements of the text relating to such matters as setting, plot, character. Items would be details that contribute significantly to such elements as revealing character, establishing tone, and communicating meaning. e. imagery—language that creates a mental picture of some sensory experience. f. point of view—the vantage point from which a story or poem is told g. organization—how an author groups and orders his/her ideas. h. irony—a discrepancy between what is said and what is meant (verbal), between what a character thinks and what we as an audience know (dramatic), or between what a character and we as an audience expect and what actually happens (situational). i. syntax/sentence structure/phrasing—the way a writer orders his/her words; patterns in grammar (including the use of repetition of words, images, phrases, and the use of parallel structure), ideas, punctuation, etc. j. motif—a recurrent allusion, image, symbol, or theme. k. symbol—a person, place, thing, or event that stands for itself, but has a broader meaning as well; that is, something that has both a literal and a figurative meaning. l. allusion—a reference to a past historical person, place, event, or literary work used for the purpose of both comparing and enhancing the idea discussed. m. theme—a life insight, issue, or lesson.

2. Look also for potentially symbolic objects and events, and how they add to the message(s) of the story.

3. Characterization is essential in understanding the motivations of the major and minor characters of the novel; make special note of the physical and psychological traits of these characters—try to understand why they say what they do, why they act the way that they do (understanding conflict is vital to understanding characterization, and conflicts are prevalent in this novel).

Dialectical/Response Journal Instructions A response log is an effective way to keep a record of your reading responses positive or negative, sure or unsure. It offers a chance to respond personally, to ask questions, wonder, predict, or reflect on the characters, people, events, literary elements, writing techniques, or language of a text. Do not summarize! Instead, record your textual observations. 1. Use notebook paper (one side only) or you may type it 2. Must have two columns (divide the page in 1/2) • Title the column on the left “Quotations from the Text” or • Title the column on the right “Commentary/Responses to the Text” Responses may start: • “The imagery reveals…” • “The setting gives the effect of…” • “The author seems to feel…” • “The tone of this part is…” • “The character(s) feel(s)…” • “This is ironic because…” • “An interesting metaphor or symbol is” • “The detail seems effective/out of place/important because…” • “An interesting word/phrase/sentence/thought is…” • “This reminds me of…” • “Something I notice/appreciate/don’t appreciate/wonder about is…” • The author emphasizes______in order to…” 3. Generally each response to a quotation should be 3-5 sentences and should include your analysis of the literary and rhetorical techniques. Present in the quotations, the author’s attitude, purpose or tone, and relation to personal experience. 4. You must include a total of 15 entries that range from the beginning to the end. Show me that you have read the entire text by responding to the book from the first to the last page. 5. Make sure that you note the page number for the quotes.

Your response log will be used to determine your comprehension of the text. Be sure that your responses are thorough and that you complete the journal for all chapters of the book. Please remember that these logs are not meant to be personal diaries. They are meant to be read by others and should be related only to the assigned material. You will be sharing your logs in class, so keep this in mind as you write. When sharing you will have the opportunity to confirm, clarify, and modify your responses through discussion. You will also find that your response logs can be helpful in writing literary and rhetorical analysis of the text.

***I do not expect you to be an expert at analyzing rhetorical techniques (yet), so don’t panic if you don’t know what to do here. We are going to spend nearly the entire class working with rhetorical analysis. Focus on using the analytical techniques you learned in your previous language arts and history classes. Sample Response Log: To Kill a Mockingbird

Quotations from the Text Commentary/Responses to the Text

“ ‘He might have hurt me a little,’ The tone here is matter-of-fact. Atticus Atticus conceded, ‘but son, you’ll admits that Mr. Cunningham could have understand folks a little better when harmed him, but he explains that Mr. you’re older. A mob’s always made Cunningham’s actions were not entirely his up of people, no matter what. Mr. own; he was influenced by the crowd as is Cunningham was part of a mob last common for many people. It takes Scout night, but he was still a man…So, it recognizing him and talking to him to make took an eight-year-old child to bring Mr. Cunningham realize that what he is ‘em to their senses didn’t it?’” doing is wrong. (159-160)