Dear Junior AP English Students,
While there is no required summer work for you, I thought you might like a recommended reading/viewing list from
me. I put together a rather exhaustive (and exhausting *yawns*) list of things you might find interesting, given our topics
for the coming year. I wrote down the essential question we’ll discuss, followed by books and films that address that
question in some way. (At times, I wrote some commentary, at other times not. You can read about the films at
www.imdb.com and you can read the reviews on books at www.Amazon.com.)I don’t intend that you view and read
everything! The list is exhaustive so that you have a variety of choices. These books and films will challenge and
inform you, as well as (I hope) provoke you and enrich the conversations that will follow in our time together. If you’d
like, keep a journal of your responses to any of these books or films you choose to experience. As you read or view, jot
down how you think the author or creator of the work would answer the essential question tied to it, and why.Also jot
down how you would answer the essential question after reading/viewing the work, and why. Later, you can certainly use
your journal work in your essays for class. Read/view as much or as little as you like, and enjoy your summer.
Cheers!
Hennessy
AP Junior English Teacher
PS: feel free to contact me anytime this summer at pamela.hennessy@tusd1.org.
First Semester Topics and Essential Questions
On Education: To what extent do our schools serve the goals of a true education?
Nonfiction:
There Are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz. A powerful account of two boys struggling to survive in a Chicago housing
project.
Summerhill, by A.S. Neill. The story of a school he founded in 1921 based on a progressive philosophy that includes
making “lessons” optional.
Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, by Azar Nafisi. A best seller that addresses censorship and the experience of
teaching Western classics such as The Great Gatsby in Iran.
Children of Crisis, a five-volume series by Robert Coles. The first book focuses on African American children during
integration of schools in the South and might be the most understandable read of the five.
The Future of the Race, by Henry Louis Gates,Jr. and Cornel West. Analyzes the classic essay “The Talented Tenth” by
W.E.B. DuBois and considers its implications for African Americans today.
Autobiography and Memoir:
The Autobiography of Malcom X. A classic that discusses the role of reading and self-education in his development.
The Color of Water, by James McBride. A memoir about his mother’s raising twelve children to embody and take full
advantage of the opportunities of higher education.
Black Ice, by Lorene Carey. Carey’s experiences as an African American scholarship student from Philadelphia attending
the elite St. Paul’s Preparatory School.
Lives on the Boundary, by Mike Rose. Questions the practice of tracking as he recounts his own experience of being
mistakenly placed on a remedial track.
Iron and Silk, by Mark Salzman. Describes his perceptions and cultural encounters as an American teaching in the 1980s
in Changsa, China.
Fiction Classics
Great Expectations and Hard Times, both by Charles Dickens
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce.
Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest Gaines.
No Longer at Ease, by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria)
The Schoolmaster, by Earl Lovelace (Trinidad)
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, by Daj Sijie (China)
Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta (Nigeria)
Film
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), book by Muriel Spark
The Water Is Wide (2006), autobiographical novel by Pat Conroy
To Sir with Love (1967), novel by E.R. Braithwaite
Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939 version), novel by James Hilton
Not One Less (1999), Chinese film in Mandarin directedby Zhang Yimou.
Freedom Writers (2007), memoir by Zlata Filipovic
Dead Poets Society (1989)
The Boys of Baraka (2005)R. Coming-of-age story about a group of at-risk boys from inner-city Baltimore who are
transported to the Baraka School in Kenya. Documentary.
Spellbound (2002). Best Documentary Film of 2002. The story of eight competitors in a spelling bee; it raises issues of
competition, family involvement, class and economics, and the American Dream.
On Work: How does our work shape or influence our lives?
Nonfiction:
Working: People Talk about What They Do AllDay and How They Feelabout What They Do, by Studs Terkel. One of my
favorite books, but at almost seven-hundred pages, you might want to just “pick and choose” chapters. A classic.
Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science, by Atul Gawande. MacArthur-winning physician whose
columns often appear in the New Yorker.
Mountains beyond Mountains, by Trace Kidder. Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Paul Farmer, of Harvard University
Medical School, who devoted his life to working in the poorest areas of the globe, notably Haiti.
Letters to a Young Journalist, by Samuel G. Freedman. Part of a series called “The Art of Mentoring” and written as an
extended conversation. An interesting perspective on the role and responsibility of journalists.
The Mind at Work: Valuing the Intelligence of the American Worker, by UCLA Professor Mike Rose. Examines the
American laborer and particularly how society undervalues the skills and intelligence necessary for many jobs
considered “menial.”
Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich. An account of the lives of women who work for minimum wage. Ehrenreich
posed as a minimum wage worker for her source material.
Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier. Classics by George Orwell.
Fiction Classics on work:
The Tortilla Curtain, by T.C. Boyle.
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy
The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte
Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
Bartleby the Scrivener, by Herman Melville
The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Lucy, by Jamaica Kincaid
The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
Film
Modern Times (1936), Charlie Chaplain, dir. An indictment of the machine age in 1936. A long silent film, you have to
“settle into it,” but well worth the effort.
On the Waterfront (1954), Elia Kazan, dir. Classic starring the young Marlon Brando.
9 to 5 (1980)
Office Space (1999) R, Mike Judge, dir. Modern comedy classic.
Norma Rae (1979). Union activist.
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) R. . Originally a play by David Mamet. Cutthroat world of high-powered real estate. Strong
Language Caution.
The Devil Wears Prada (2006).
Roger and Me (1989) R. Michael Moore, dir. The impact of General Motors plants closing in Flint, Michigan. First of what
later becomes a new genre: the “edimentary.”
Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control (1997), Errol Morris, dir. An odd look at four odd careers: wild animal trainer, topiary
gardener, robot designer, and naked mole rat expert.
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices (2005)
Harlan County, U.S.A. (1976). 1977 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Covers the 1973 coal miner’s strike in
Harlan County, Kentucky.
Waitress (2007).
Citizen Kane (1941)
On Community: What is the relationship of the individual to the community?
Nonfiction
Urban Tribes, by Ethan Watters. Journals the thirty-something generation that delays marriage and family, lives in cities,
and seeks ways to form and sustain communities of friends.
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, by Robert D. Putnam. Believe it or not, this is a best
selling scholarly study with an appealing call for a renewed commitment to community. Two websites
connected to the book are: www.bowlingalone.com and <www.bettertogether.org>.
Miami, by Joan Didion. An old book, but written by an extraordinary author, dealing with the Cuban exiles in Miami in an
earlier era.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, by Anne
Fadiman. “Explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over
the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with sever epilepsy” (book jacket). Nonfiction that reads like a
novel.
Autobiography and Memoir:
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, by Barak Obama. Moving account of our president’s search for
an understanding of his Kenyan father and heritage.
American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood, by Marie Arana. Growing up in Peru and The US, with parents of different
cultures.
Fault Lines, by Meena Alexander. Examines the sense of displacement Alexander as well as her children felt trying to
reconcile their Indian heritage with life in New York City.
Fiction on immigrant transition from one culture to another:
Breath, Eyes, Memory, by Edwidge Danticat
Jasmine, by Bharati Mukherjee
Arabian Jazz, by Diana Abu-Jabar
Dreaming in Cuban, by Christina Garcia
The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan
In Cuba, I Was a German Shepherd, by Ana Menendez
The Namesake, by Jumpha Lahiri
When the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent, by Julia Alvarez
Classic Fiction the Addresses Community in some way:
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry
Passing, by Nella Larsen
Plainsong, by Kent Haruf
In Country, by Bobbie Ann Mason
The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
Sula, by Toni Morrison
The Plague, by Albert Camus
Trifles, by Susan Glaspell
An Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen
All My Sons, by Arthur Miller
Film
Star Wars, Episode IV: “A New Hope” (1977).
The Matrix (1999).
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
The Namesake (2006). Book to film. Clash of communities felt by two generations of immigrants.
Daughter from Danang (2002). Documentary. Tells the story of a young woman adopted by an American during
Operation Babylift; she was the daughter of an American serviceman and a Vietnamese woman. She returns to
Vietnam to meet her “real” family.
Witness (1985) R.
Independence Day (1996)
Rear Window (1954)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Gender: What is the impact of the gender roles that society creates and enforces?
Nonfiction:
Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex, by John Gray. Popculture study of gender sure to bring a laugh.
Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys, by Dave Barry. Again a humorous pop-culture commentary on gender.
Reviving Ophelia, by Mary Pipher. Study of adolescent girls and how society’s expectations of certain roles can be
confining, even debilitating.
Raising Cain, by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson. Argues for a “new standard of ‘emotional literacy,’ to show how our
culture’s dominant masculine stereotypes shortchange boys” (Publisher’s Weekly).
The Envy of the World: On Being a Black Man in American, by Ellis Cose. A passionately argued history of African
American masculinity.
Autobiography and Memoir:
This Boy’s Life, by Tobias Wold.
The Road from Coorain,by Jill Ker Conway.
Persepolis, by Margane Satrapi
A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf.
Fiction:
Antigone, by Sophocles. Classic
The Taming of the Shrew, by Shakespeare. Classic
The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy. Classic
A Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen. Classic
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin. Classic
The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton. Classic
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neal Hurston. Classic
The Beet Queen, by Louise Erdrich.
Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eumenides
March, by Geraldine Brooks.
Film:
Tootsie (1982), Sydney Pollack, dir.
Boys Don’t Cry (1999) R.
Million Dollar Baby (2004). 7-Oscar winner.
Thelma and Louise (1991) R.
Girlfight (2000) R.
Ella Enchanted (2004)
Ever After (1998).
On Sports and Fitness: How do the values of sports affect the way we see ourselves?
Nonfiction
Seabiscuit, by Laura Hillenbrand. Reads like a good novel.
The Summer Game, Roger Angell. A collection of his pieces from the New Yorker.
Gold Dreams: Writings on Golf, John Updike. A collection of thirty fiction and nonfiction pieces.
Autobiography and Memoir:
Best Seat in the House: My Journey in Sports, by Christine Brennan. First father-daughter sports memoir.
Days of Grace, Arthur Ashe with Arnold Rampersad. Written by the Wimbledon champion shortly before he died of AIDS.
Beyond a Boundary, C.L.R. James. “equal parts sports, history and philosophy….Jame’s musings on culture and colonialism
are worth the effort.” (comment from Sports Illustrated “The Top 100 Sports Books of All Time”). Not an easy
read.
Fiction:
Fences, by August Wilson. A play not exactly about sports, the backdrop is the Negro Baseball Leagues and the issue of
segregation in sports in general.
You Know Me Al, by Ring Lardner
A River Runs through It, by Norman MacLean.
The Natural, by Bernard Malamud
End Zone, by Don DeLillo
Shoeless Joe, by W.P. Kinsella
Crooked Little Heart, by Annie Lamott
The Universal Baseball Association, by Robert Coover.
Film:
Friday Night Lights (2004). Particularly artful and open-ended. Book to film.
Any Given Sunday (1999) R. provocative look at professional football.
Million Dollar Baby (2004). Academy Award-winner. A heartbreaking but clear-eyed look at the possibilities sports offer –
for both achievement and tragedy.
Chariots of Fire (1981). Academy Award-winner. True story of British athletes preparing for and competing in the 1924
Summer Olympics. Compelling story of politics and sports.
Bend It Like Beckham (2002). The role of sports as an equalizer of other factors such as gender and ethnicity.
Hoop Dreams (1994). Now classic documentary which traces the high school career of a gifted but poverty stricken South
Side Chicago youth, as he plays ball for an elite private school in hopes of achieving his dreams.
Raging Bull (1980) R. Academy Award, best actor. Portrays boxer, Frank LaMotta.
Pride of the Yankees (1942). Includes the Lou Gehrig speech that we’ll discuss at the beginning of the school year. The
speech is delivered by Gary Cooper and takes on special significance since a complete audio or video of Gehrig’s
original speech no longer exists.
A League of Their Own (1992). Two sisters who play baseball in the All-American Pro Girls League during World War II.
Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken (1991). Depression-era runaway who becomes “diving girl,” riding a horse off a forty-foot
diving tower into a tank of water in Atlantic City. Quirky for those of you who like that style.
Semester II Topics, Essential Questions, and Recommended
Reading/Viewing Lists
On Language: How does the language we use reveal who we are?
Nonfiction:
The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone’s Saying Anymore, by William Lutz. Takes on the inflated,
imprecise, and deliberately ambiguous language of contemporary politics, journalism, and pop culture.
You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, by Deborah Tannen. Argues that gender based differences
are the cause of most miscommunications between men and women. Humorous, and you may even recognize
yourself.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss. Another “believe it or not” best
seller on …grammar? Offers up rules and examples for precise and correct use of the language. Great tone.
Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn, by Diane Ravitch. Pretty dense material. You may
not want to read it all, but if you get your hands on a copy, her analysis of how pressure groups from both the
left and right have influenced the language and content of the textbooks you read is fascinating and alarming.
Extensive and impressive use of examples, mostly direct quotes of passages that have been rejected.
Autobiography and Memoir:
One Writer’s Beginnings, by Eudora Welty. Recalls the impact reading had on her as a young child in the South – her
fascination with hearing and learning language and the siren-call of stories.
The Winged Seed, by Li-Young Lee. Moves among prerevolutionary China, Jakarta, and the US; a spiritual journey of the
developing writer.
The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston. Considered both fictional and autobiographical. Includes several
powerful sections on the impact of learning a second language and the development of a voice and an individual
identity through that voice.
Hunger of Memory, by Robert Rodriquez. Good choice since we’re reading an excerpt of this book.
The Farming of Bones, by Edwidge Danticat. Explores language as a means of persecution. Centers on the historical period
when the pronunciation of “parsley” as either “perejil” or “pesi” (Spanish or Haitian Kreyole) serves as a way for
the dictator Rafael Trujillo to distinguish Haitians from Dominicans and thus determine who lived and who died.
Fiction:
Pygmalion,by George Bernard Shaw. Turn of the century British linguist places a bet that he can turn a poor flower girl
into a princess through changing the way she speaks.
Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
1984, by George Orwell
Film
Interestingly, many of the commercial films that take on language and identity as an issue are R rated. One that isn’t is a
PBS documentary “Do You Speak American?”. It explores a ranges of issues from origins of “American” to
regional dialects to the question of “official English.”
Babel (2006) R
Thank You for Smoking (2006) R
Finding Forrester (2000)
Lost in Translation (2003) R
Children of a Lesser God (1986) R
Windtalkers (2002) R
Joy Luck Club (1993) R
On Science and Technology: How are advances in science and technology affecting
the way we define our humanity?
Nonfiction:
The Best American Science and Nature Writing, Houghton Mifflin, pub. A series published once each year.
The Beak of the Finch,by Jonathan Weiner
Trilobite: Eyewitness to Evolution, by Richard Fortey
Fiction:
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Player Piano, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A Canticle for Liebowitz, by Walter Miller
We, by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Galatea 2.2, by Richard Powers
Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
Ratner’s Star, by Don DeLillo
Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick
Hapgood and Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard
Copenhagen, by Michael Frayn.
Film
Bladerunner (1982) R
Brazil (1985) R
AI (2001)
Gattaca (1997)
The Boys from Brazil (1978) R
Metropolis (1927)
Solaris (1972)
2001 (1968)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) R
Contact (1997)
Minority report (2002)
On Popular Culture: To what extent does popular culture reflect our society’s
values?
Nonfiction:
Amusing Ourselves to Death,by Neil Postman.
Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs,by Chuck Klosterman.
Thirty-One Songs, by Nick Hornby
Totally, Tenderly, Tragically: Essays and Criticism from a Lifelong Love Affair with the Movies, by Phillip Lopate.
An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood, by Neal Gabler.
Everything Bad Is Good for You, by Steven Johnson.
Fiction:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon. Novel about the development of the comic book.
Perseopolis, by Marjane Satrapi. Graphic novel
V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore. Graphic novel
American Born Chinese,by Gene Luen Yang. Graphic novel
High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby. On music
The Wishbones, by Tom Perrotta. On music
Body and Soul, by Frank Conroy. On music
Cheese Monkeys, by Chip Kidd. Graphic design
Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson. The discovery and marketing of “cool.”
Film:
Entertaining and critical looks at music, television, and movies.
Adaptation (2002) R
Eight Mile (2002) R
Almost Famous (2000) R
Ed Wood (1994) R
Cinema Paradiso (1988) R
This Film Is Not Yet Rated ( 2005) NR
Eddie and the Cruisers (1983)
High Fidelity (2000) R
Hustle and Flow (2005) R
Network (1976) R
The Last Waltz (1978) PG
The Rolling Stones: Gimme Shelter (1970) R
The Truman Show (1998)
Walk the Line (2005)
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
On Nature: What is our responsibility to nature?
Nonfiction:
Walden, by Henry David Thoreau
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard
Into the Wild, by Jonathan Krakauer
The End of Nature, by Bill McKibben
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, by John M. Barry.
Coming into the Country, by John McPhee
Of Wolves and Men, by Barry Lopez
Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals,by Michael Pollan. “The way we eat represents our most profound
engagement with the natural world.” Traces the journey of four family meals from source to table.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver. Recounts her family’s experiment of spending one
year on their farm in the Appalachian Mountains when they followed a local/sustainable diet, eating only what
they grew themselves or bought from area farmers. Co-authored by her husband and teenage daughter.
Autobiography and Memoir:
The Way to Rainy Mountain, by N.Scott Momaday
The Solace of Open Spaces, by Gretl Ehrlich
Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain
A Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold
Never Cry Wolf, and People of the Deer, by Farley Mowat
The Voyage of the Beagle, by Charles Darwin
The Mountains of California, by John Muir
Fiction:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Lord of the Flies by WilliamGolding
The Call of the Wild or White Fang by Jack London
The Hamlet, by William Faulkner
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
Film:
Koyaanisqatsi (1983) by Godfrey Riggio. Visual landscape tone-poem set to music.
The title, a Hopi Indian word, is the only word in the film.
An Inconvenient Truth (2006), Al Gore, featured. Addresses global warming.
The Last of the Mohicans (1992) R. visual illustration of the American Romantic tradition in literature. Pay close attention
to the association of the landscape with theme.
Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time (2003). Andy Godsworthy, documentarist and installation artist.
Nature as artistic medium.
March of the Penguins (2005)
Grizzly Man (2005)
On Politics: What is the nature of the relationship between the citizen and the state?
Nonfiction:
A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid
Black Skins, White Masks, by Franz Fanon
Tao Te Ching, by Lao Tzu
Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius
The Book of the Courtier, by Baldassare Castiglione
Lincoln at Gettysburg , by Gary Wills
Regarding the Pain of Others,by Susan Sontag
The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, by Dee Brown
The Assault on Reason, by Al Gore.
Autobiography and Memoir:
If I Die in a Combat Zone, by Tim O’Brien
A Rumor of War, by Phillip Caputo
Autobiography, by Thomas Jefferson
Memoirs, by Ulysses S. Grant
The Education of Henry Adams,
Fiction:
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
Darkness at Noon, by Arthur Koestler
Going After Cacciatto, by Tim O’Brien
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Rainier Maria Remarque
Johnny Got His Gun,by Dalton Trumbo
The Ugly American, by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Catch 22, by Joseph Heller
The Quiet American, by Graham Greene
All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason
One Last Look by Susanna Moore
The Crucible and All My Sons by Arthur Miller
Macbeth, Hamlet, Othello, Julius Caesar, and Richard III by Shakespeare
Antigone by Sophocles
The Plough and Stars and The Shadow of a Gunman by Sean O’Casey
Film:
Vietnam War Films:
The Deer Hunter (1978) R
Full Metal Jacket (1987) R
Platoon (1986) R
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)R
Regret to Inform (2000)
The Killing Fields (1984) R
American Politics:
Good Night, and Good Luck (2005)
Advise and Consent (1962)
The Fog of War (2003)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
Wag the Dog (1997) R
Imperialism:
The Battle of Algiers (1965)
Why We Fight (2005)
Gandhi(1982)