Cardinal McCarrick High School
Reading List
2014-2015
Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition
Grade 12
During the summer, you will be expected to keep a notebook for the AP material.
You should purchase a loose-leaf binder with the following sections labeled.
Section I: Literary Terms
Section II: Reading journal/ General Notes and Character logs
Section III: Poetry / General Notes
Section IV: Typed essays and rough drafts
Section I: Literary terms: During the year, you will be responsible for defining the following 45 terms
using the Kennedy text. In addition, find specific literary examples for each one of them. They should
be placed in Section I of your binder (This will be done throughout the year do not worry about it
over the summer).
allegory
alliteration
allusion
assonance
antithesis
bathos
bildungsroman
blank verse
cacophony
connotation
denotation
dramatic irony
dynamic character
editorial omniscience
epigraph
euphony
free verse
hamartia
hubris
hyperbole
iambic meter
internal rhyme (rime)
syntax
imagery
rhetoric
irony
katharsis
metaphor
omniscient narrator
onomatopoeia
paradox
paraphrase
parody
peripety
personification
satiric poetry
scansions
simile
soliloquy
static character
stock character
stream of consciousness
theme
tone
verbal irony
Section II: Reading journal/ General Notes and character logs. This should be placed in Section II of
your binder.
In Kennedy text, read page 2120 (Keeping a Journal). Include your analysis of the four summer
reading books in this section.
You will keep a reading log as you progress in your summer reading. It is a place to record questions,
observations, personal life experiences, diagrams, etc. which will help you to relate to the plot or
characters. Add any other general comments about the readings. DO NOT WRITE SUMMARIES
OF THE PLOT. Also, you will be keeping track of characters in short analysis after a story is
completed. This section may be hand-written or typed.
Section III: Poetry
In Kennedy text, read pages 701 - 703 (Reading a Poem) These TYPED analyses of the
following poems should be placed in Section III of your binder.
Read the poems “To a Locomotive in Winter (720) and “I Like to See it Lap the Miles” (721)
Answer questions #1-6 page 722.
Read the poems “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? pages 815-817 (both
Shakespeare’s and Moss’ versions) Answer questions #1-4 pages 816-817
Read the poems “Richard Cory pages 842-843 (both Robinson’s and Simon” versions) Do
“Exercise: Comparing Poem and Song” top of page 842.
Read Horace’s Odes I (II) on pages 1028-1029 and its three translations on pages 1029-1030.
Answer questions #1-3 on page 1030.
In Kennedy text, read pages 944 – 948 (Poems for the Eye). On page 949, do “Experiment: Do
It Yourself” Create this concrete poem on drawing paper. It should be literary, but visual as
well.
Section IV: Essays and rough drafts
Read the following works over the summer:
A Streetcar Named Desire– Tennessee Williams
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky
Oedipus – Sophocles (in text)
INCLUDE THESE THREE WORKS IN READING LOG.
Choose any two essays:
1.) Crime and Punishment is a complex novel exploring the nature of a criminal, the
psychological motivations for the crime, and the extent to which a criminal can be successfully
rehabilitated. Write an essay in which you discuss the level of responsibility society must
assume for criminal behavior. Consider the following: Does Raskolnikov’s mental illness
cause the crime or does the crime cause his illness? Can a man be rehabilitated through the
power of reconciliation, repentance, or love? Does imprisonment or punishment help to deter
crime or rehabilitate a criminal? Give specific examples from you r reading to prove your
points.
2.) In A Streetcar Named Desire, past events affect, either positively or negatively, the present
actions, attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a character from this play that must contend
with some aspect of the past either personal or societal. Write an essay in which you show how
the character’s relationship to the past contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
3.) The dominant imagery in Oedipus the King is the imagery of sight and blindness. Comment
on Sophocles’ use of these images in conjunction with the theme of this play.
*** Use specific quotes from the works to prove your points. All essays must have at least one
rough draft with visual corrections. The final copy must be typed. Essays should be
approximately 4-5 pages in length.***
INCLUDE THESE IN SECTION IV OF YOUR BINDER.
In addition you are to choose one novel from the following list to read over the summer. You
are to take notes in your reading journal. You will be required to present an oral presentation
using Freytag’s Pyramid when we return in September.
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
The Awakening – Kate Chopin
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead – Tom Stoppard
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston
Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison
All the King’s Men – Robert Penn Warren
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
The Color Purple – Alice Walker
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe
INCLUDE EXTRA NOVEL IN READING LOG.
The following is a list of novels or plays that may be covered during the school year. All books
not in text can be purchased on classbooks.com
Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
Othello – William Shakespeare (In text)
The Bluest Eye– Toni Morrison
1984 – George Orwell
In addition, we will be preparing for the AP exam in May by using the following:
Barron’s AP English Literature and Composition
George Ehrenhaft
ISBN: 978-1-4380-0278-1
Good luck with all of the summer AP work!
It may seem like an extraordinary amount of work, but it will “pay off” when you are sitting in
the library for three hours some morning during the first week of May.