AP English Literature (12th grade) – Required Summer Reading Assignment #2

This spells out the second of two assignments. You are required to read Thomas C. Foster’s book How to Read Literature like a Professor and complete the first written assignment that goes with that reading. Note: Be sure you are reading his book on LITERATURE. AP Lit students are also required to read and annotate one of the titles listed below. I will check your annotations at the end of that first week of school and you will be required to write your first essay on your summer reading within the first week of class.

 The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (94 pages). This play is the story of two bachelors, John ‘Jack’ Worthing and Algernon ‘Algy’ Moncrieff, who create alter egos named Ernest to escape their tiresome lives. They attempt to win the hearts of two women who, conveniently, claim to only love men called Ernest. The pair struggle to keep up with their own stories and become tangled in a tale of deception, disguise and misadventure. The elaborate plot ridicules Victorian sensibilities with some of the best loved, and indeed bizarre, characters to be found on the modern stage.

 Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (277 pages). A classic novel originally written for adults that has become a classic amongst adolescents for its themes of teenage angst and alienation. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, our narrator, Holden Caulfield is kicked out of his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. This dramatic tale defines the struggle of growing up and loss.

 A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (311 pages). Set in a near-future New England, in a totalitarian Christian theonomy that has overthrown the US government, the novel focuses on the journey of the handmaids who are forced to echo and serve their male master. It explores the themes of women in suppression in a patriarchal society and the various means by which these women attempt to gain independence. (It is now a television series on Hulu).

 Mystic River by Dennis Lehane (401 pages). When they were children, Sean, Jimmy, and Dave were friends. Then a strange car pulled up to their street; one boy got into the car, two did not, and something terrible happened -- something that ended their friendship and changed all three boys forever. The past comes back to haunt them twenty years later in this chilling story. There was also a 2003 movie directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Sean Penn made based on the book.

 Lord of the Flies by William Golding (202 pages). At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything. But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued …

Ideas for annotating literature: “Every text is a lazy machine asking the reader to do some of its work.” ~Novelist Umberto Eco

 Use a pen so you can make circles, brackets, and notes. If you like a highlighter, use one for key passages, but don’t get carried away and do not ONLY highlight.  Look for patterns and label them (motifs, diction, syntax, symbols, images, and behavior, whatever).  Mark passages that seem to jump out to you because they suggest an important idea or theme – or for any reason really (an arresting figure of speech or image, an intriguing sentence pattern, a striking example of foreshadowing, a key moment in plot, a bit of dialogue that reveals character, clues about setting, etc.)  Mark phrases, sentences, passages that puzzle, intrigue, frustrate, or displease you. Ask questions – make comments back to the text or author.  At the end of chapters, make a bulleted list of key events. This not only forces you to think about what happened, see the novel as a whole, and identify patterns, but you create a convenient record of the whole plot.  The Harvard College Library has posted an excellent guide to annotation, “Interrogating Texts: Six Reading Habits to Develop” https://guides.library.harvard.edu/sixreadinghabits