AP Lit Summer Reading

AP Literature and English IV Honors Summer Reading Assignment
All students entering AP Literature or English 4 Honors must read the books assigned and have them available in class for
analysis and discussion. All students will complete the dialectical journal assignment specified on the back of this
paper; it is DUE THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.
The purpose of the summer reading assignment is complex:
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To help build confidence and competence as readers of complex texts
To give you, when you enter the class in the fall, an immediate basis for discussion of literature—elements like theme,
narrative, viewpoint, symbolism, plot structure, etc.
To set up a basis for comparison with other works we will read during the year
To provide you with the beginnings of a repertoire of works you can write about on the AP Literature exam next spring
To enrich your mind and stimulate your imagination
All students in AP Literature and English IV Honors will read the following two books:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
“Boisterous, ribald, and ultimately shattering, Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel has left an indelible mark on the literature of our time.
Here is the unforgettable story of a mental ward and its inhabitants, especially the tyrannical Big Nurse Ratched and Randle
Patrick McMurphy, the brawling, fun-loving new inmate who resolves to oppose her. We see the struggle through the eyes of
Chief Bromden, the seemingly mute half-Indian patient who witnesses and understands McMurphy’s heroic attempt to do
battle with the powers that keep them all imprisoned” (Amazon.com).
How to Read Literature like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster ** (No Dialectical Journal)
“A lively and entertaining introduction to literature and literary basics, including symbols, themes and contexts, that shows
you how to make your everyday reading experience more rewarding and enjoyable. While many books can be enjoyed for
their basic stories, there are often deeper literary meanings interwoven in these texts. How to Read Literature Like a
Professor helps us to discover those hidden truths by looking at literature with the eyes--and the literary codes--of the
ultimate professional reader, the college professor” (Amazon.com).
All AP Literature students, in addition, will choose one of the following five novels:
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“To the women in the hair-braiding salon, Ifemelu seems to have everything a Nigerian immigrant in America could desire, but the culture
shock, hardships, and racism she’s endured have left her feeling like she has “cement in her soul.” Astonished at the labyrinthine racial
strictures she’s confronted with, Ifemelu, defining herself as a “Non-American Black,” launches an audacious, provocative, and instantly
popular blog in which she explores what she calls Racial Disorder Syndrome. Meanwhile, her abandoned true love, Obinze, is suffering his
own cold miseries as an unwanted African in London. Americanah is a courageous, world-class novel about independence, integrity,
community, and love and what it takes to become a “’full human being’” (Amazon.com).
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
“Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks.
When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch
and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo,
where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with
his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a
talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of
the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and MarieLaure’s converge” (Amazon.com).
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
“We begin in contemporaryish New York with kleptomaniac Sasha and her boss, rising music producer Bennie Salazar, before flashing
back, with Bennie, to the glory days of Bay Area punk rock, and eventually forward, with Sasha, to a settled life. By then, Egan has
accrued tertiary characters, like Scotty Hausmann, Bennie's one-time bandmate who all but dropped out of society, and Alex, who goes on
a date with Sasha and later witnesses the future of the music industry. Egan's overarching concerns are about how rebellion ages, influence
corrupts, habits turn to addictions, and lifelong friendships fluctuate and turn. Egan answers the question elegantly, though not straight on,
as this powerful novel chronicles how and why we change, even as the song stays the same” (Publisher's Weekly).
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris
“It's 2001. As a parade of employees depart, banker’s boxes filled with their personal effects, those left behind raid their fallen comrades'
offices, sifting through the detritus for the errant desk lamp or Aeron chair. Written with confidence in the tricky-to-pull-off first-person
plural, the collective fishbowl perspective of the "we" voice nails the dynamics of cubicle culture--the deadlines, the gossip, the elaborate
pranks to break the boredom, the joy of discovering free food in the break room. A dysfunctional family of misfits forced together and
fondly remembered as it falls apart” (Amazon.com).
Station Eleven by Emily St. James Mandel
“A flight from Russia lands in middle America, its passengers carrying a virus that explodes “like a neutron bomb over the surface of the
earth.” In a blink, the world as we know it collapses. What’s touching about the world of Station Eleven is its ode to what survived, in
particular the music and plays performed for wasteland communities by a roving Shakespeare troupe, the Traveling Symphony, whose
members form a wounded family of sorts. The story shifts deftly between the fraught post-apocalyptic world and, twenty years earlier, just
before the apocalypse, the death of a famous actor, which has a rippling effect across the decades” (Amazon.com).
As you are reading, annotate your books, this will make the assignment easier to complete, and it will enhance your understanding and engagement
with the text. Here are a few suggestions for annotation:
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Make circles and brackets of sentences, lines, or paragraphs with notes. If you like highlighters, use them minimally—only for key
passages.
Look for patterns and label them (motifs, diction, syntax, symbols, images, and behavior, whatever you notice).
Mark passages that seem to jump out at you because they suggest an important idea or theme—or for any other reason (an unusual figure of
speech or image, a striking example of foreshadowing, a key moment in the plot, a bit of dialogue that reveals character, clues about the
setting, etc.).
Mark phrases, sentences, or passages that puzzle, intrigue, please, or displease you—note in the margin why. Ask questions—make
comments—talk back to the text.
At the ends of chapters or sections write a bulleted list of key plot events. This not only forces you to think about what happened, but also
to see the novel as a whole and identify patterns—as well as creating a convenient record of the whole plot.
Circle words you want to learn or words that jump out at you for some reason. If you don’t want to stop reading, guess—and look the word
up and jot down the relevant meaning later. You need not write out a full dictionary definition; it is often helpful to put the relevant
meaning in your own words. There is joy in adding to your “word hoard.”
Assignment The following is to be completed by THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL. All students should be prepared for a test on
their chosen books within the first TEN days of school.
All students will complete a dialectical journal for EACH book (**except How to Read Literature like a Professor). Each
dialectical journal must have 20 entries from each novel (AP Literature will have 40 entries total and English IV Honors will
have 20). Make sure that the entries are spread throughout the novels.
A dialectical journal is conversation between you and what you are reading. 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 impressions, reactions, and 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 “Quotation from the Text”
 Title the column on the right “Commentary/Response to the Text”
Responses may start:
 “The imagery reveals…”
 “The setting gives the effect of…”
 “The tone of this part is…”
 “The character(s) feel(s)…”
 “This is ironic because…”
 “The detail seems effective/important because…”
 “An interesting word/phrase/sentence/thought is…”
 “This reminds me of…”
 Or you may start with something else you feel is appropriate
3. Each response to a quotation should be 3‐5 sentences and must include the page number and/or percentage of the novel read.
You must have at least 20 entries from each of the novels read.
Sample Response Log: Jane Eyre
Quotation from the Text
Commentary/Response to the Text
“The night—its silence—its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a
shrill sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.
Jane feels frightened by yet another mysterious sound coming from
the attic. This “cry,” however, is much louder and there is a
commotion. This heightens the suspense. Who is making all of the
sounds? Why the commotion? Is this a ghost or a human? Does Mr.
Rochester know? What is he hiding?
My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed. The
cry died, and was not renewed….The thing delivering such utterance must
rest ere it could repeat the effort.” (216)