Advanced Placement Literature – 12th
Dialectic Notebook Summer Reading Assignment
Dialectic means “the art or practice of arriving at the truth by using conversation involving question and answer.” The “dialectic” was the method
Socrates used to teach his students how to be actively engaged in the struggle to obtain meaning from an unfamiliar and challenging work. A
dialectical journal is a written conversation with yourself about a piece of literature that encourages the habit of reflective questioning. You will use a
double-entry form to examine details of a passage and synthesize your understanding of the text.
You will choose 2 books from the attached list. You will maintain a dialectic notebook for both novels. The assignment will be due within the first
few weeks of school.
There is to be NO collaboration with other students. Any assistance from the Internet, movies, or secondary sources such as Sparknotes or Cliff Notes
will be viewed as cheating. If you have questions about format, e-mail me!
Instructions:
(1) Purchase a spiral bound notebook or composition book or create a 2 column table in a word document.
(2) Fold pages in half vertically or draw a vertical line down the middle of the page
(3) Label the top of each column: left TEXT and right RESPONSE
(4) In the TEXT column cite passages verbatim from the novel, including quotation marks and page numbers
a. Do between 20 and 30 quotes (depending on the size of your novel) throughout the ENTIRE novel.
b. When should you write passages down?
i. Details that seem important to you
ii. You have an epiphany
iii. You learn something significant about a character
iv. You recognize a pattern (overlapping images, repetitions of idea, details, etc.)
v. You agree or disagree with something a character says or does
vi. You find an interesting or potentially significant quotation
vii. You notice something important or relevant about the writer’s style
viii. You notice effective use of literary devices
(5) In the RESPONSE column reflect upon the passages
a. Raise questions about the beliefs and values implied in the text
b. Give your personal reactions to the passage, the characters, the situation
c. Discuss the words, ideas, or actions of the author or character
d. Tell what it reminds you of from your own experiences
e. Compare the text to other characters or novels
f. Write about what it makes you think or feel
g. Argue with or speak to the characters or author
h. Make connections to any themes that are revealed to you
i. Make connections among passages or sections of the work
j. Make predictions about characters’ futures
k. DO NOT MERELY SUMMARIZE THE PLOT
(6) Each RESPONSE must be at least 60 words (include word count at the end of each response)
(7) Write down your thoughts, questions, insights, and ideas while you read or immediately after reading a chapter so the information is fresh
(8) As you take notes, you should regularly reread the previous pages of notes and comments
(9) First person is acceptable in the RESPONSE column.
(10) Remember that quotations do not have to be dialogue!
Sample Journal:
From Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
Text
“The completeness of this transformation appalled me. It was
unlike anything I had imagined. I became two men, the
observing once and the one who panicked, who felt negroid
even into the depths of his entrails” (Griffin 11).
“Quote” (Author’s last name page number).
Response
In many movies and books, people wake up and realize how
old they truly are. I think that the people this happens to feel
the same as Mr. Griffin does because he feels that he is still a
white man; but when he looks in the mirror, he notices that
his skin color disagrees with his thoughts. Likewise, some
people feel they are still young, but they are trapped in a body
of a person who looks old and too different to be them. (80
words)
Response
Most Frequently Cited texts on the
AP English Lit and Comp Exam: 1970-2007
# of appearances appear to the left of the title
21 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
18 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
15 Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
15 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
14 Moby Dick by Herman Melville
13 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
13 Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevski
13 King Lear by William Shakespeare
12 Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
11 Billy Budd by Herman Melville
11 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
10 The Awakening by Kate Chopin
10 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
10 Light in August by William Faulkner
10 Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
9 Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
9 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
8 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
8 Candide by Voltaire
8 Othello by William Shakespeare
8 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
6 Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
7 Antigone by Sophocles
7 Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
7 Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
6 The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
7 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
7 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
7 Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
7 Native Son by Richard Wright
7 A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
6 Beloved by Toni Morrison
6 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6 The Crucible by Arthur Miller
6 Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
6 A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen
6 An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen
6 Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
6 Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
6 Obasan by Joy Kogawa
6 Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
6 A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
6 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
5 The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
5 A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
6 The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
6 The Tempest by William Shakespeare
6 Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
5 All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
5 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
5 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
5 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
5 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
5 The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
5 Medea by Euripides
5 The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
5 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
5 Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
5 Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot
5 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5 Sula by Toni Morrison
5 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
5 The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
5 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? by Edward Albee
5 Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Other Books You May Choose From:
*These may have appeared on more recent AP exams
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving
Linden Hills by Gloria Naylor
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards
Noah’s Compass by Anne Tyler
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor