Trebert English IV AP
2015-16 Summer Reading Assignment
English IV AP Literature
The following is your summer reading assignment for English next year, with me, Mrs.
Trebert,. Please feel free to contact me this summer if you have any questions or concerns. I can be
reached by phone at (972)757-5705 (please don’t call after 10:30 pm) or by e-mail at
ltrebert@uplifteducation.org .
Please obtain the following works before the start of the 2015-2016 school year.
(Any edition will do.)
Summer Reading Novels:
Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that follows a
cast of characters living in the fictional town of West Egg on prosperous Long Island in the summer of
1922. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic
passion and obsession for the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be
Fitzgerald's magnum opus, The Great Gatsby explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to
change, social upheaval, and excess, creating a portrait of the Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties that
has been described as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream.
Fitzgerald—inspired by the parties he had attended while visiting Long Island's north shore—
began planning the novel in 1923, desiring to produce, in his words, "something new—something
extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." … First published by Scribner's in
April 1925, The Great Gatsby received mixed reviews and sold poorly. Fitzgerald died in 1940,
believing himself to be a failure and his work forgotten. However, the novel experienced a revival
during World War II, and became a part of American high school curricula and numerous stage and
film adaptations in the following decades. Today, The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a
literary classic and a contender for the title "Great American Novel". In 1998 the Modern
Library editorial board voted it the 20th century's best American novel and second best Englishlanguage novel of the same time period.
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Written in the early 1960s, and Sylvia Plath's only full-length prose work, The Bell Jar is an
autobiographical novel that relates the childhood longings and descent into madness of Plath's alterego, Esther Greenwood. Plath was so concerned about the closeness of her novel to her life that she
published it under a pseudonym, Victoria Lucas (just as in the novel Esther plans to publish a novel of
her life under a different name).
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously
talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully
draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely
real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep
penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and
has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.
Trebert English IV AP
Reading Assignment:
There will be a major discussion (TEST GRADE) paralleling and analyzing major themes and
elements in both novels at the start of next year:
A. Read both novels.
B. As you read, annotate:
a. Read and annotate very carefully, because we will be discussing and analyzing both
novels in class. You will be able to use your annotated texts for a graded discussion
first quarter.
b. Marking and annotating a text is like having a conversation with a book—it allows the reader to
ask questions, comment on meaning, and mark passages to revisit.
How to Annotate:
 Make brief notes on the page or on a sticky note marking important plot events, narrative shifts,
or themes.
 Circle words that are unfamiliar or unusual—try to figure out the word’s meaning through
contextual clues and supplement with a dictionary.
 When new characters are introduced, underline phrases that describe them.
 Mark words, images, and details that form a pattern throughout the text (motif). For example,
if a large clock appears in the first chapter, and then you notice words like “timely” or “ticking”
in the text, and then a character checks his/her watch or is late, you may have uncovered a
pattern of imagery which suggests a thematic idea.
 Mark passages you think might be symbolic.
 Use brackets, checks, stars, bullets, or asterisks to mark very important.
Writing Assignment:
1. Choose ONE of the prompts below and ONE of the two novels.
2. Write an analytical essay (between 700 – 1,000 words) that addresses the prompt you chose and
analyzes the novel you chose (direct quotes, devices, character, setting, plot, symbols, themes, etc…).
3. You will turn in the essay at the start of the school year. We will revise the piece during the first weeks
of school.
Prompt Choices:
a. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated
from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel in which such
a character plays a significant role and show how that character's alienation reveals the surrounding
society's assumptions and moral values.
b. Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions.
Such scenes may reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a
novel that includes such a scene and, in a focused essay, discuss the contribution the scene makes to
the meaning of the work as a whole.
c. Morally ambiguous characters – characters whose behavior discourages readers from identifying
them as purely evil or purely good – are at the heart of many works of literature. Choose a novel in
which a morally ambiguous character plays a pivotal role. Then write an essay in which you
explain how the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral ambiguity
is significant to the work as a whole.
Trebert English IV AP
d. The eighteenth-century British novelist Laurence Sterne wrote,
"No body, but he who has felt it, can conceive what a plaguing thing it is to have a man's mind
torn asunder by two projects of equal strength, both obstinately pulling in a contrary direction at
the same time."
Choose a character from a novel (not necessarily the protagonist) whose mind is pulled in
conflicting directions by two compelling desires, ambitions, obligations, or influences. Then, in a
well-organized essay, identify each of the two conflicting forces and explain how this conflict
within one character illuminates the meaning of the work as a whole.
e. The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about happy endings:
“The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from readers are the
writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy ending, I do not
mean mere fortunate events—a marriage or a last-minute rescue from death—but some kind of
spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death."
Choose a novel that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay, identify the
"spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending and explain its significance in
the work as a whole.