AP English IV:
First, read How to Read Literature Like A Professor by Thomas Foster. Be sure to read carefully and annotate or take
notes on the various archetypes Foster presents. You will need familiarity with these archetypes upon entering class in
August. Practice applying them as you complete the remaining summer reading assignment described below.
Read at least two of the following novels to prepare for the school year. Read each novel with attention to ideas featured in
the text above, standard story elements (plot, setting, character, theme, conflict, tone, and point of view) and any other
literary techniques featured prominently (i.e. archetypes/symbolism, narrative structure, language, social commentary,
etc). You may choose books you have already read, but be sure to re-read them carefully. All novels should be fresh in
your mind at the start of school, so time your reading accordingly. During the first week of classes in August, you will
prepare a complex brief summary (précis) of each of the two texts and write an essay on one of them in response to a
prompt taken from a recent AP exam.
Bronte, Jane Eyre
Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Dickens, Great Expectations
Dostoevski, Crime and Punishment
Ellison, Invisible Man
Euripides, Medea
Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, Sound and the Fury
Faulkner, Absalom! Absalom!
Gardner, Grendel
Heller, Catch-22
James, Turn of the Screw
Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
McCarthy, The Road
Momaday, House Made of Dawn
Morisson, Beloved
Salinger, Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, King Lear
Shakespeare, Macbeth
Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Wharton, The House of Mirth
Williams, Streetcar Named Desire
Wilson, Fences