AP ENGLISH LITERATURE
Summer Reading Assignment
Summer 2015
Cadets and Parents,
AP Literature is a course focused on the close reading and analysis of major literary works, providing
students the opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of these skills in order to receive college credit. That
being said, it is crucial that students preparing to take this class jumpstart their learning over the summer by
completing the assignments listed below. These reading selections and corresponding assignments were
developed with the goal of meeting the demands of the course, keeping in mind the breadth of content
knowledge and skills that students are required to demonstrate on the AP English Literature Exam. Because we
have so much to cover in so little time this year, it is critical that students complete these assignments before the
beginning of the next academic year.
If there are any questions or concerns about any of the assignments or reading materials listed below,
please feel free to contact me at sheim@nomma.net. You may also refer to my Homework Now page for
downloads of required materials.
Sincerely,
Ms. Heim
PART I: Literary Terms
Below is a list of literary terms that commonly show up on the AP Literature exam. It is important for you to be
familiar with these terms before the beginning of the school year. You are responsible for defining and
understanding each of these terms by the first week of school, when you will have an assessment covering this
material.
 Allegory
 Figurative Language
 Paradox
 Allusion
 Flashback
 Personification
 Analogy
 Flat Character
 Point of view (types)
 Anaphora
 Foreshadowing
 Pun
 Antagonist
 Hyperbole
 Rhyme
 Apostrophe
 Imagery
 Rhythm
 Assonance
 In media res
 Round character
 Ballad
 Litotes
 Simile
 Blank Verse
 Lyric
 Soliloquy
 Cacaphony
 Metaphor
 Sonnet
 Consonance
 Metonymy
 Suspense
 Deux ex machina
 Motif
 Symbolism
 Dialect
 Monologue
 Synecdoche
 Diction
 Mood
 Syntax
 Epic Poem
 Onomatopoeia
 Theme
 Epigram
 Omniscient
 Tone
 Euphony
 Oxymoron
 Understatement
PART II: How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster
This non-fiction text is written to help students realize what it is they should be looking for or aware of when
analyzing literary texts in a thoughtful, scholarly manner. Read and annotate the book and complete the
corresponding assignment (attached).
For most chapters, you will just be required to read and annotate the text, but for some, I will ask that you
complete notes and/or come up with examples from your own reading experiences to contextualize what Foster
is writing about. This assignment will be collected and graded the first week of school for a total of 50 points.
PART III: Independent Novel Selection
Choose one of the novels from the list below to read. Then, complete a Great Works Reader’s Journal
(attached) to accompany your reading and analysis of the novel.
 Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
 Reservation Blues, Sherman Alexie
 The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien
 The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Your Great Works Reader’s Journal will be collected and graded the first week of school for a total of 50
points. You should also be prepared to write an in-class essay using your selected novel as evidence and to
discuss your novel with your classmates in a Socratic Seminar when we return to school.
Summer Reading Breakdown
PART
GENRE


I – Literary Terms

II – How to Read
Literature Like a
Professor
III – Independent
Novel Selection


Read and annotate the text
Complete corresponding
assignment (worth 50 points)


Read and annotate the text
Complete Great Works
Reader’s Journal (worth 50
points)
Non-fiction
Fiction
ASSIGNMENTS
Define each term
Come up with an example of
each term
Be able to identify these
terms being used
ASSESSMENTS
Literary Terms and Analysis
Test
1. Literary Terms and
Analysis Test
2. Socratic Seminar
1. Socratic Seminar
2. In-class Essay
**Please be prepared to turn in these assignments on the first day of school.
Assessment dates will be announced once classes have started.**
AP LITERATURE – Ms. Heim
Summer Reading Assignment: Part II
How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster
DIRECTIONS: For each chapter of How to Read Literature Like a Professor, read and annotate. Then, follow the
instructions and fill in the guided notes that correspond with that chapter.
This assignment will be worth 50 points (quiz grade). You will have a test, in-class essay, and Socratic Seminar when you
return from summer break that will require you to demonstrate a thorough understanding of this text.
Chapter 1: The Quest
“The real reason for a quest is always self-knowledge.”
Take notes on the five criteria for a quest. Then, in the corresponding column, give examples of each criteria from a text
you’ve already read.
CRITERIA FOR A QUEST
EXAMPLES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Chapter 2: Acts of Communion
“Generally, eating with one another is a way of saying, ‘I’m with you, I like you, we form a community together.’ And
that is a form of communion.”
1.
What are acts of communion? What do they typically symbolize in a text according to Foster?
2. Give three examples of “communion” scenes from literature or movies and analyze them for their significance.
1.
2.
3.
Chapter 2: Acts of Vampires
“That’s what this figure really comes down to, whether in Elizabethan, Victorian, or more modern incarnations:
exploitation in its many forms.”
List the “essentials of the vampire story” Foster gives on page 19. Then, analyze an example of a piece of literature or
film that you think possesses these “essentials” in the corresponding column.
Essentials of the Vampire Story
Examples
Chapter 4: Sonnets
“And this is why form matters, and why professors pay attention to form: it just might mean something.”
On a separate sheet of paper, write a sonnet. Then, explain how you used its form to convey some deeper meaning.
Chapter 5: Intertextuality
“If you begin to pick up on some of these other elements, these parallels and analogies, however, you’ll find your
understanding of the novel deepens and becomes more meaningful, more complex.”
1.
Define “intertextuality.”
2. Give three examples of pieces of literature or films that contain references or parallels to other texts. Explain
the significance of the reference made in each.
1.
2.
3.
Chapter 6: Shakespeare
“It’s worth remembering that comparatively few writers slavishly copy bits of Shakespeare’s work into their own. More
commonly there is this kind of dialogue going on in which the new work, while taking bits from the older, is also having
its say.”
No additional notes! Just read and annotate!
Chapter 7: The Bible
“Many modern and postmodern texts are essentially ironic, in which the allusions to biblical sources are used not to
heighten continuities between the religious tradition and the contemporary moment but to illustrate a disparity or
disruption.”
No additional notes! Just read and annotate!
Chapter 8: Children’s Literature and Fairy Tales
“…We want strangeness in our stories, but we want familiarity, too. We want a novel to be not quite like anything we’ve
read before. At the same time, we look for it to be sufficiently like other things we’ve read so that we can make sense of
it. If it manages both things at once, strangeness and familiarity, it sets up vibrations, harmonies to go with the melody
of the main story line.”
No additional notes! Just read and annotate!
Chapter 9: Mythology
“Let’s say it this way: myth is a body of story that matters. Every community has its own body of story that matters.”
No additional notes! Just read and annotate!
Chapter 10: Weather
“You may say that every story needs a setting and that weather is part of the setting. That is true, by the way, but it isn’t
the whole deal…weather is never just weather.”
Choose three different types of weather. Then, for each type, come up with at least three possible functions or
meanings associated with it.
Type of Weather
Possible Meanings
Chapter 11: Violence
“Violence is one of the most personal and even intimate acts between human beings, but it can also be cultural and
societal in its implications...Violence in real life just is…Violence in literature, though, while it is literal, is usually also
something else.”
Come up with three examples of violent acts you have seen in literature or film. Then, explain their deeper significance.
1.
2.
3.
Chapter 12: Symbolism
“So some symbols do have a relatively limited range of meanings, but in general a symbol can’t be reduced to standing
for one thing.”
What is the difference between a symbol and an allegory? Define each in the chart below. Then, come up with an
example of each and explain its meaning.
SYMBOL
ALLEGORY
Definition
Example and Explanation
Chapter 13: Politics
“…writers tend to be men and women who are interested in the world around them. That world contains many things,
and on the level of society, part of what it contains is the political reality of the time—power structures, relations among
classes, issues of justice and rights, interactions between the sexes and among various racial and ethnic constituencies.”
List three novels or films that you believe are subtly political. Explain which political realities each text deals with.
1.
2.
3.
Chapter 14: Christianity and Christ Figures
“Culture is so influenced by its dominant religious systems that whether a writer adheres to the beliefs or not, the values
and principles of those religious will inevitably inform the literary work.”
1.
What ways does Foster cite as ways in which principles of religion inform literary works?
2.
What are the qualities of a “Christ-figure?” Analyze and explain using an example you are familiar with from
past readings.
Chapter 15: Flight
“These examples of actual flight, necessary as they are, remain valuable chiefly for the instruction they give us in
interpreting figurative flight.”
In the chart below, list examples of at least three possible figurative meanings of flight. Then, come up with an example
for each.
Figurative Meanings of FLIGHT
EXAMPLES
Chapter 16: Sexuality
“Suddenly, as the twentieth century gets rolling, two things are happening. Critics and readers are learning that
sexuality may be encoded in their reading, while writers are learning that they can encode sexuality into their writing.”
What reasons does Foster offer for why novels often encode sexual content more subtly?
Chapter 17: Deeper Meaning Behind Sexual Acts
“The truth is that most of the time when writers deal with sex, they avoid writing about the act itself…The further truth is
that even when they write about sex, they’re really writing about something else.”
If sex scenes aren’t really about sex, then what are they about? What other meanings does Foster suggest and why?
List and explain three examples.
1.
2.
3.
Chapter 18: Baptism and Drowning
“Like baptism, drowning has plenty to tell us in a story. So when your character goes underwater, you have to hold your
breath.”
1.
When writers baptize a character, what do they mean?
2. In a literary work, does submersion in water always signify baptism?
3. When a character drowns, what does that mean?
Chapter 19: Geography
“Literary geography is typically about humans inhabiting spaces, and at the same time the spaces that inhabit humans.”
Give an example of how geography can…
 Connect to a theme:

Define or develop characters:

Affect the plot:
Chapter 20: Seasons
“For about as long as anyone’s been writing anything, the seasons have stood for the same set of meanings.”
For each of the season, list as many possible things they could symbolize below. Then, write what the seasons in general
represent.
Seasons (general)
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
Chapter 21: Physical Deformities
“Things have changed pretty dramatically in terms of equating scars or deformities with moral shortcomings or divine
displeasure, but in literature we continue to understand physical imperfection in symbolic terms.”
No additional notes! Just read and annotate!
Chapter 22: Blindness
“Every move, every statement by or about that [blind] character has to accommodate the lack of sight; every other
character has to notice, to behave differently, if only in subtle ways. In other words, the author has created a minor
constellation of difficulties for himself by introducing a blind character into the work, so something important must be at
stake when blindness pops up in a story.”
No additional notes! Just read and annotate!
Chapter 23: Heart Trouble
“In literature there is no better, no more lyrical, no more perfectly metaphorical illness than heart disease.”
No additional notes! Just read and annotate!
Chapter 24: Illness and Disease
“Even knowing how disease is transmitted, we remain largely superstitious. And since illness is so much a part of life, so
too is it a part of literature.”
What are the four principles governing disease in literature established by Foster? What is the significance of each?
1.
2.
3.
4.
Chapter 25: Our Perspectives as Readers
“…Don’t read with your eyes. What I really mean is, don’t read only from your own fixed position in the Year of Our Lord
two thousand and some. Instead try to find a reading perspective that allows for sympathy with the historical moment
of the story, that understands the text as having been written against its own social, historical, cultural, and personal
background.”
No additional notes! Just read and annotate!
Chapter 26: IRONY
“We must remember: irony trumps everything.”
1.
What is irony?
2.
Identify and explain an example of irony you have come across in your reading.
Chapter 27: APPLICATION
Read and annotate the short story below. Then, analyze it. On a separate piece of paper, write as much as you can,
identifying and explaining the different aspects of literature Foster taught you to look for.
"The Story of An Hour"
Kate Chopin (1894)
Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible
the news of her husband's death.
It was her sister Josephine who told her, in broken sentences; veiled hints that revealed in half concealing. Her
husband's friend Richards was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of
the railroad disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name leading the list of "killed." He had only taken the time to
assure himself of its truth by a second telegram, and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in
bearing the sad message.
She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same, with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She
wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went
away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressed down by a physical
exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul.
She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The
delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song
which some one was singing reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other
in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except when a sob came up into her
throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a
dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of
reflection, but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too
subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents,
the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess
her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under hte
breath: "free, free, free!" The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed
keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her
to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind, tender hands folded in
death; the face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter
moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely. And she opened and spread her arms
out to them in welcome.
There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will
bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will
upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in
that brief moment of illumination.
And yet she had loved him--sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter! What could love, the unsolved mystery,
count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her
being!
"Free! Body and soul free!" she kept whispering.
Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhold, imploring for admission. "Louise, open the
door! I beg; open the door--you will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake open the door."
"Go away. I am not making myself ill." No; she was drinking in a very elixir of life through that open window.
Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days, and summer days, and all sorts of days that
would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a
shudder that life might be long.
She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she
carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her sister's waist, and together they descended the
stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom.
Someone was opening the front door with a latchkey. It was Brently Mallard who entered, a little travel-stained,
composedly carrying his grip-sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident, and did not even know
there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view
of his wife.
When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills.
AP LITERATURE – Ms. Heim
Summer Reading Assignment: Part III
Great Works Reader’s Journal - FICTION
Title:
Biographical Information About the Author:
Author:
Date of Publication:
Genre:
Historical Information About the Period of Publication:
Plot Summary:
Characters (at least 6):
Character Name
Role
Significance
Description
Text:
Critical, Analytical Response
Personal Response
Connection to Theme:
Text:
Critical, Analytical Response
Connection to Theme:
Personal Response
Text:
Critical, Analytical Response
Personal Response
Connection to Theme:
Text:
Critical, Analytical Response
Connection to Theme:
Personal Response