AP 12 English Literature & Composition Summer Reading Assignment

Congratulations on your choice to take AP Literature. Students choosing this course are interested in studying literature of various periods and genres and using this wide reading knowledge in discussions of literary topics. This is a college level course that requires careful reading and critical analysis of a work’s structure, style, and themes as well as smaller scale elements, such as the use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone. Thoughtful discussions and writing about complex, canonical texts in the company of one’s fellow students is our goal. It goes without saying that you should be reading a bit in preparation for this course. Specifically, we ask that you select and read one of the following texts and complete the assignments outlined to help us to build upon a common conversation at the beginning of the year.

Reading Assignments: Before beginning your selection, read “How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer Adler. (The essay is easy to find on- line by searching for the title and author)

Then choose one of the following texts to read and annotate according to Adler’s description:

To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut On the Road – Jack Kerouac For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent – Julia The Joy Luck Club- Amy Tan Alvarez Ceremony - Leslie Marmon Silko

All of these books are readily available at your local library and from major bookstores. If you use a library copy of the text, be sure to annotate using sticky notes. I recommend getting your own copy so that you can annotate freely.

The Writing Assignment: Create a 6 entry dialectical journal. Each quote you choose should highlight a specific and different literary element. For example, you might have one entry focused on tone and another on diction.

Quote (include citation with Analysis of quote: page number) Be sure to include the literary element you are examining.

Analysis might include: • the impact/effect of that element at this exact moment in the text; • the way in which the author established that element; • author’s purpose in relation to that element • The effectiveness (or lack thereof ) of the element in this moment

Use details and be specific. Entries should be a solid paragraph or more

(see sample on next page)

Have fun! Happy Reading! We’ll see you in August. -AP English Literature Teachers

Passage (including page numbers) Analysis (techniques = syntax and tone) Example:* The principle stylistic technique in this passage is “As he turned to go he heard the train. He stopped and syntactical, as McCarthy demonstrates that the very waited for it. He could feel it under his feet. It came structure of a sentence can reinforce its imagery and boring out of the east like some ribald satellite of the meaning. In particular, McCarthy hyperbolizes and coming sun howling and bellowing in the distance extends the action of a train breaking the silence of a and the long light of the headlamp running through quiet, early Texas morning through his use of the tangled mesquite brakes and creating out of the polysyndeton in the fourth sentence. The intended effect night the endless fence line down the dead straight is that of a run-on, as clauses are connected by right of way and sucking it back again wire and post conjunctions but never slowed down by punctuation mile on mile into the darkness after where the boiler (i.e. commas or dashes). The sentence itself mirrors “the smoke disbanded slowly along the faint new horizon endless fence line” suggested by the train image, as it and the sound came lagging and he stood still holding too seems to run “wire and post mile on mile,” passing his hat in his hands in the passing ground shudder before the reader and the dwarfed protagonist. However, watching it till it was gone” (McCarthy 4-5). the imagery can’t possibly be completed through sentence structure alone. McCarthy’s gift for word choice brings the train to life, alluding to its relentless power over the pastoral scene. His diction is strategic here, as he needs to present his elegiac theme of a dying West early. The train comes “boring” out of the modern “east” like a “ribald satellite,” both unseemly and out of place. Yet it is unstoppable. It “howls” and “bellows” bestially, “sucking” everything in its path. Even after it passes, the ground still “shudders,” and our protagonist is left, standing “still holding his hat in his hands,” uncertain and wary about the future the train will bring (and perhaps we are reminded of an earlier line which describes him “[standing] like a man come to the end of something”).

Dialectical Rubric

Reading Lit Writing Language

4 In addition to the Level 3, the student In addition to the Level 3, the In addition to the Level 3, the may: student may: student may: • Examine multiple interpretations of • Employ precise transitions • Employ vivid or unusual figurative language and techniques that gracefully diction, including figurative move the reader from one language, where • explain how an excerpt contributes idea to the next appropriate, to enhance to the whole text by examining meaning or effect ambiguity and contradiction, • Develop a complex thesis including intentionality and impact that contains an element of • Grammar is nearly perfect tension • Infer how events/details the author • No formatting errors in has chosen to omit affect the ideas • Embedding the language of relation to the task of the text. the passage of the analysis to enhance analysis • Select a variety of quotes to establish a nuanced pattern within the text and/or the development of main ideas 3 In addition to the Level 2, the In addition to the Level 2, the In addition to the Level 2, the student: student: student:

• Determines the meaning and • Use words, phrases, and • Can use precise language impact of words and phrases as clauses to link the major and vocabulary to clearly they are used in the text, sections of the argument, convey ideas including figurative and create cohesion, and clarify • Grammar errors are few connotative meanings the relationships between and do not affect points readability • Cites strong and thorough • Submitted work closely evidence to support analysis of • Establish and maintain a follows the format of the what the text says explicitly as formal style and objective, task, with few and minor well as inferences drawn from the scholarly tone errors text, • Quotations are employed and • Analyzes the implicit and explicit supported within analysis themes in the passage by examining how the specific details of the passage contribute to and shape that development

2 The student can: The student can: The student can:

• Identify words and phrases which • use words and phrases to • Use straightforward contribute to the tone, genre, introduce examples and language appropriate to the and/or theme of the text details and to identify topic in order to clearly relationships among ideas communicate ideas • Identify explicit details and • create and maintain a • Grammar conveys evidence that support main ideas consistent tone command of basic rules • Explicitly reference evidence • Submitted work follows the format with errors or omissions throughout • Identify and separate ideas in a text