Dear Parents/Guardians and Students,
In preparing our students for the advanced language, literature, and composition curriculum, we believe that improving reading ability and maintaining gains made during the school year are important goals. In order to be certain students maintain their reading and critical thinking skills, we are requiring that students participate in a summer reading project. Summer reading will extend the honors/AP English curriculum and provide students with better preparation for advanced level work. This is an opportunity for students to explore areas of school boardapproved reading not necessarily taught in the classroom. This will also provide a more comprehensive literary background for those who choose to seek college credit through successful completion of the Advanced Placement examinations.
Our philosophy is that summer reading should be pleasurable and thought-provoking, and should cover a wide range of literary genres. As a result, we have selected a list of board-approved, grade-level appropriate texts for students to read. Although our school library will be closed for the summer, students may avail themselves of the public library, local bookstores, or online retailers in order to obtain copies of their selected texts. Should you have any concerns about the texts your student will read, please contact our main office at 327 –4000.
As they read, students must write a series of double-entry journals demonstrating ability to excerpt text and think critically. The grading rubric, instructions, and a sample journal entry are included for your edification. While we do not oppose student use of the internet and other sources for help in understanding their summer novels, we strongly caution students against substituting others’ ideas for their own. We are interested in the questions and ideas individual students have as they read, not in the standard ideas found in resources such as sparknotes.com.
We encourage students to read carefully and think deeply and independently.
Thank you for supporting rigorous educational standards at our school. We are pleased that your student has accepted the challenge of working in our AP program next year, and we look forward to working with him or her.
Sincerely,
Honors / AP Teachers
Clovis East High School

SUMMER READING-
PREPARING TO TAKE AP LITERATURE
The Assignment:
“I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.”
“Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.”
E.M. Forster
The philosophy that is reflected in these quotes serve as both an invitation to those ready to explore great literature, as well as a caution to those who wish to play it safe: I know that you are aware of the fundamentals of good writing and perceptive reading. The challenge for me, then, is to provide you with an experience that will push you even more as a thinker and a writer, building on those skills that you already have begun to refine. The summer reading assignment will help prepare you for success in the course.
Our class motto: Fluency—Insight—Evidence
Summer Assignment Get a copy of both 1984 by George Orwell and Their Eyes Were
Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston and read them carefully, making many notes in the margins as you read – in other words, annotate the text with copious commentary. It is preferable to have your own copy, but if you must use a library book, use Post-It notes for your commentary, as opposed to writing in the margins. One of your first grades will be based on the amount of commentary in your books. In this course you will always be encouraged to annotate your texts. Attached you will find the journal writing assignment associated with these novels, as well as the rubric. The journal questions will help focus your attention on many of the elements related to each novel that we will study in class. The entries need to be typed and thorough.
These texts will also lead to assignments in the first six-week grading period, such as timed essays, dialectic journals, discussions, and presentations. Not doing the reading will seriously affect a student’s semester grade.
Please remember that being in an honors or Advanced Placement class requires considerable commitment and responsibility. We assume that students take these challenging courses because they have intellectual curiosity and a passion for learning.
Both intellectual ability and a strong work ethic are necessary for success.
Although our school library will be closed for the summer, students may avail themselves of the public library, local bookstores, or online retailers in order to obtain copies of their selected texts.
Should you have any concerns about the texts your student will read, please contact our main office at 327–4000.
Thank you,
Julieann McKinney
AP Literature Teacher

These are merely ideas of what to look for in each novel. Be sure to periodically relate your responses to yourself and the world. (See the rubric for more information). Create at least one
DJ response per chapter, for a total of at least 20 for Their Eyes Were Watching God . For
1984 , also a total of at least 20 entries; the novel is divided into three parts, so aim for about seven entries per chapter.
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Whole Novel Analysis
Use this as a guide for the quotes you write about in your double entry journal: (Quotes and page numbers go on the left and your response to the quote goes on the right) Be thorough!
1.
Symbol and Metaphor: The Horizon, The Pear Tree
2.
Character Analysis: Nanny & Logan, Joe (Jody) Starks, Tea Cake
3.
Theme: Janie’s development
TEWWG reflects one human being’s journey in life. Examine passages/quotations that delve into Janie’s self-discovery/development.
4.
Setting: Eatonville and the Muck

Hurston uses the two major settings of Eatonville and the Muck as metaphors to define Janie’s character in relation to Joe Starks and Tea Cake (Vergible Woods).
5.
Narrative Structure: Storytelling/Voice/Language
Hurston sets her novel up as a story within a story. Why? Examine the novel for instances of storytelling.
1984
Whole Novel Analysis
Use this as a guide for the quotes you write about in your journal: (Quotes and page numbers go on the left and your response to the quote goes on the right) Be thorough!
1. Winston’s Journey to Dehumanization
2. Truth
How do Winston’s memories shape his view of the present? What meaning do they hold?
3. Language
What is the role of Newspeak in the novel? What happens to the human condition when language is debased, condensed, and divorced from meaning? What is Orwell suggesting about the role and purpose of language in human society?
4. Love
What forms of love are present in the novel? How does love impact Winston’s life?
5. Fear / Hatred –
Why does Orwell show us a government / society based on fear and hatred?

Double-entry Journal Instructions:
Divide your paper into two columns – a small column on the left and a larger column on the right. As you read, select lines (quotations) from the text and write them in the left-hand column
(please include page numbers for quotations). In the right-hand column, respond to the quotation with your thoughts, opinions, questions, analysis, insights, and interpretation, etc. Please refer to the following:
Quote

Does not have to be dialogue

Keep it brief: 2-3 sentences

Include the page number
“She looks around with a swivel of her huge head… So she really lets herself go and her painted smile twists, stretches to an open snarl, and she blows up bigger and bigger, big as a tractor, so big I can smell a motor pulling too big a load. I hold my breath and figure… This time they let the hate build up too high and overloaded and they’re gonna tear one another to pieces before they realize what they’re doing!”
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest , (11)
Response to Quote


Your thoughts, opinions, questions, analysis, insights, and interpretation; explanation of what is significant about this quotation

Should be longer than quote

No personal connections or plot summary
Nurse Ratched is a complex character. She is placed in the same category as a machine, designed to carry out the Combine’s work both inside and outside the asylum. She may seem to be the source of everyone’s problems on the ward, but she’s really just a cog in the supercontrolling greater whole of society. She may appear to be bigger than others occasionally, with her swelling anger and expertly hidden emotions, but these instances are really designed to show another side of her – her humanity. We know she is human because machines do not react to emotion, yet she does. She exerts great effort to remain the complete drone – always complying, stolid, following the rules of society
– but her outbursts betray her human side.
Kesey exaggerates her fury – her head “swivels” like a robot’s, she “snarls” and “blows up bigger and bigger” like a terrible monster coming to life. Ironically, her portrayal as a mechanical monster betrays her human failings beneath the cold, controlled, orderly appearance she tries so hard to maintain in the face of the messy mass of men she supervises on the ward. Her
“painted smile” is false, a strained attempt to hide her intent to control the men and force them to conform.

A
Detailed, elaborate responses
Detailed responses

Your commentary is thoughtful, well-developed, and insightful.
 You “read between the lines” of the text.

You create a meaningful interpretation of the text in terms of a larger or universal significance (theme).

You consider different possible interpretations.

Your ideas are original and you carry on a dialogue with the writer; you question, agree, disagree, appreciate, or object.

You create meaning by making text-to-text and textto-world connections.

You have insightfully analyzed elements such as character development, author’s style (literary devices), and author’s purpose.

You have selected significant quotations and written an appropriate number of entries that reflect the length and complexity of the novel.

Your commentary is thoughtful and well-developed.
 You “read between the lines” of the text.

You create a meaningful interpretation of the text in terms of a larger or universal significance (theme).

You consider some different possible interpretations.

You explain why you disagree or agree with something in the text, and you explain and support your reaction.

You have considered elements such as character development, author’s style (literary devices), and author’s purpose and explained their significance.

You have selected important quotations and written an appropriate number of entries that reflect the length and complexity of the novel.

Somewhat detailed responses
Simple, factual responses
Inadequate responses

Some of your commentary is thoughtful and welldeveloped.

You consider the text in terms of a larger or universal significance (theme), but don’t adequately support or explain your analysis.

You agree or disagree with ideas in the text, but you don’t thoroughly explain or support your opinion.
You ask simple questions about the text.

You may have considered elements such as character development, author’s style (literary devices), and author’s purpose, but you have not fully explained their significance.

You have selected some important quotations and written an average number of entries, but the number of entries does not fully reflect the length and complexity of the novel.

Your responses are factual and literal without considering different possibilities in meaning.

Your responses are mostly summary instead of commentary about the quotation.

You are sometimes confused by unclear or difficult sections of the text, and you do not successfully make meaning from it.

Your responses make few connections to the text and lack sufficient detail, explanation, analysis, etc.

You have selected several quotations from the novel, but they are not especially significant.

You have written few entries, and your journal does not reflect the novel’s length or complexity.

You make few or no connections to the text, and your ideas lack development.

You find the text confusing but do not make any attempt to figure it out.

You have written few entries, and you have chosen quotations that are insignificant.