AP English 12
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Grimsley High School
Summer Reading Assignment:
Using Richard Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor to
develop your critical lens
1. Read Richard Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor (no need to annotate, just read)
2. Read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Turn of the
Screw by Henry James, OR Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison with a critical eye (that reading between
the lines stuff from the Foster book).
a. Annotate. Foster’s book should help you figure out what to look for and how to do this. Focus
on connections, important quotes, and a search for deeper meaning. This is part of the process
of coming to your own interpretations and analyses.
i. Don’t just jump right to Spark Notes, Schmoop, and Wikipedia. Once you’re
tracked into their ideas and interpretations it’s hard to get out of them and
come up with your own; always try to figure it out on your own first.
b. In your annotations you must make specific and obvious references back to Foster. You will be
graded on this. Some students like to color code, others use acronyms, others use sticky tabs,
others just write the name of the chapter. Find a system that works for you and that we will be
able to grade.
c. At a minimum, you need to show obvious references to, and application of, the following
chapters in your annotations:
i. “Every Trip Is a Quest
ii. “Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion” (note, the inverse, eating alone, is
significant too. . . . can you figure out what that means?)
iii. Point out several allusions from at least two of the following chapters: “Now,
Where Have I Seen Her Before?”; “When in Doubt, It’s From Shakespeare . . . “;
“. . . Or the Bible”; “Hanseldee and Greteldum”; or “It’s Greek to Me”
iv. “It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow”
v. “ . . . More Than It’s Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence”
vi. “Is That a Symbol?”
vii. “It’s All Political”
viii. “It’s All About Sex . . . “ and/or “. . . Except Sex”
ix. “Geography Matters . . .”
x. “. . . So Does Season”
xi. “He’s Blind for a Reason, You Know”; “It’s Never Just Heart Disease . . . “; and/or
“. . . And Rarely Just Illness”
xii. “Is He Serious? And Other Ironies”
3. When you return to school you will have to write a paper applying Foster’s book to The
Handmaid’s Tale, Middlesex, The Turn of the Screw, or Invisible Man using specific quotes and
details from both Foster’s book and the novel you chose. If you do this assignment well, the
paper should be a piece of cake.
AP English 12
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Grimsley High School
Still not sure about this whole annotating thing? Here’s a brief guide:
Annotating is simply thinking about and interacting with what you are reading. Good readers
have multiple lines of thought going at once – a line of thought that is reading and enjoying the
language and the plot, and a line that is thinking about and analyzing what he or she is reading.
Just write some of that stuff down: fill the margins with what you are thinking, stars, questions,
disagreements, underline quotes that seem important or thought provoking or simply sound
good, etc.
1. Have a purpose. Why are you reading this? What are you looking for? You might have
multiple purposes and they may change as you read, but having a purpose will help you pay
attention and be critical of what you read. For example,
 You might notice something about the author’s style and mark every time you see an
example of certain usage, sentence structure, motifs, allusions or other style elements.
 You might have a hypothesis on a symbol or metaphor, so you underline and comment
anywhere you see the symbol mentioned or areas that would support your argument.
 You might track a certain theme and its development throughout the piece of writing.
 You might think about prevalent literary elements you might analyze and find words and
passages that create these elements.
 You might think about the historical context of the novel and the social critique it seems to
be purporting.
 You might do several or all of these by the time you reach the end of the book (they’re long
ones).
2. Read everything –this seems redundant, but you will have a lot independent work in this
course and you will need a positive work ethic. If you’re already skipping out on the reading, this
may not be the right course.
3. Mark it! – underline, write in the margins, etc.
 Circle, underline, or use a sticky note for important ideas and quotes.
 Mark repetitions. (Writers choose words for a living, if they choose the same word, phrase,
imagery, description, etc. twice, it’s for a reason)
 Circle confusing words or phrases. Define from context or dictionary if possible.
 Note passages that generate a strong response, positive or negative.
 Write summaries of important or difficult passages.
 Make connections – to things you’ve learned in other courses, to personal experience, to
other works of literature, etc.
4. Confused? Write questions. Why does he keep talking about eyes? Why does he keep
calling the elevator a metal box? Why such a preoccupation with people’s socks? Why is
Bob so concerned about an injured bird? Why is Suzie never in the room as the same time
as Bob?
5. You don’t have to fill every inch of white space or comment on every single page. You
might hit a page or section in which you have several underlines and comments, then hit a
dozen pages with nothing, and that’s fine. When I grade annotations I just want to see that
you read and interacted with the text. Quality is better than quantity, but as far as quantity,
AP English 12
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Grimsley High School
as long as it averages out to at least something every couple pages –sometimes
underlining, sometimes commentary, sometimes both – you’re fine.
Which Book Should I Choose?
All three summer reading selections are bound to have vocabulary and references
that you may not know, so reading with a dictionary, computer, tablet, or phone is
helpful (to look stuff up, that is, not for twittin’ and vinin’ and snapchattin’ or
whatever you whippersnappers do on those things all day).
Middlesex
Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides originated from his
appreciation for the character of Tiresias from Greek mythology, who was turned into a woman for
seven years by Hera and thus knew what it was like to be both sexes. Middlesex explores nature vs.
nurture, identity, and what it means to be classified as a man or a woman in modern society through its
protagonist Calliope (later Cal) who was born intersex due to a genetic mutation. While this mutation is
not unheard of, especially in interrelated families or small, isolated villages, the really interesting part
here is that it was not treated at birth. Calliope grew up socially as a girl, then when her intersexuality
was discovered as a teenager, decided to become Cal and assimilate as a male rather than undergo
surgery. Just like Tiresias, Calliope is able to experience society both as a male, a female, and an other.
Much of the first third of the book occurs in flashback as we trace the emergence of this gene through
the two previous generations, starting with Cal’s grandparents in Fascist Greece. Then we get to the
main event: Calliope’s development, first as a young girl with conflicting emotions and a quirky family in
suburbia, next as a humiliated subject of medical inquiry and freak show exhibitionism, and finally as a
man. Middlesex combines contemporary writing and issues with literary symbolism and allusions to
explore age old debates of gender constructs.
“When this story goes into the world, I may become the most famous
hermaphrodite in history.
AP English 12
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[ . . . ] I’ve got a male brain. But I was raised as a girl. If you were going
to devise an experiment to measure the relative influences of nature
versus nurture, you couldn’t come up with anything better than my
life.”
There are some interesting insights in Oprah’s overview of the book, including an interview and Q & A
with Eugenides.
Invisible Man
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is another long one, but also important to our modern culture. Taking its
title from H. G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, Ellison’s novel has appeared on numerous top 100 lists and has
appeared on the AP exam more than any other work. (Yep, this is the same Invisible Man that Randolph
County foolishly banned because they couldn’t find enough literary merit, until NC was embarrassed in
national news and book stores sold out of it). Symbolism and allusion abound here too as Ellison offers
a social critique exploring the various reactions to the race divide prior to the civil rights movement. The
relevance of the work remains sixty years later as the race divide continues to be part of the American
social, political, and cultural conversation – yet empathy struggles to find its way into that conversation,
which is what makes this book so important as few today truly know what it was like to be invisible to
society to the extent minorities experienced in the first half of the 20th century.
Invisible Man starts with the unnamed narrator underground, both literally and figuratively:
“I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted
Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am
a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids – and I might
even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply
because people refuse to see me.”
Check out Rap Genius’s annotated treatment of the prologue and click on the highlighted text for a
great start to the novel!
After the prologue, the unnamed narrator then plunges back to the beginning of his story as he
participates in a dehumanizing battle royal in order to win a scholarship. He is advised by his
grandfather to “overcome [whites] with yeses, undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death” but when
he tries doing this with Mr. Norton, one of the benefactors of the college he attends, he finds himself
expelled. The narrator then moves to New York where he bounces around between various identities
and allegiances before discovering himself and his invisibility.
Pride and Prejudice
AP English 12
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Grimsley High School
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen may appear to be the shortest of the three, but it can be hit or miss
for a lot of readers. Some students love the story and the language making it a fun read; others have
trouble getting into the language and the story, making it seem like the longest of the three choices.
Pride and Prejudice is the safe bet as far as unsavory content (it’s not going to be banned anytime soon).
As far as social issues, this one deals largely with women’s rights, classism, and changing ideas about
marriage in the 19th century – marrying for love and allowing the girl to have a say in the matter is such
a modern construct. Satire and verbal irony abound as you can see from the opening:
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a
good fortune must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his
first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the
surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some
one or other of their daughters.”
Bold characters such as Lizzy Bennett (one of England’s most beloved heroines) contrast with satirical
caricatures such as Mrs. Bennett and Mr. Collins. The entailed Bennett estate is in danger as the only
male heir is a cousin they’ve never met (Collins), which drives Mrs. Bennett’s impetus to marry off her
daughters. Rich gentlemen (Darcy and Bingley) come to Netherfield – to shop for a wife, of course, why
else would they visit? – but Mrs. Bennett’s gold-diggin’ plans are thwarted when the awkward Mr. Darcy
offends Elizabeth and Bingley’s conniving sister starts hatin’ on Jane. Then this vampiric military officer
named Wickham comes to town and tries to get with all the ladies and then there’s some more drama
before ending in happy marriages (for some, at least).
There’s a lot of fun stuff out there on this one. The A&E movie with Colin Firth is by far the most
accurate. Librivox has an excellent, free audiobook of Pride and Prejudice by Elizabeth Klett which can
really help you in your reading. There’s a lot on Austen’s life and the rights of women at the time that
might help put the novel in context, including Becoming Jane, which is quite interesting if you watch it
with the historical pop-ups on. And there’s no end to the adaptations either, from Bridget Jones Dairy to
graphic novels to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies to anime crossovers to personality tests . . . you could
lose countless hours on the internets over this book.