IB LITERATURE SUMMER PROJECT
SUMMER OF 2015
***DUE FIRST THURSDAY OF THE FIRST WEEK…..***
Your second year of IB Literature encompasses a more exciting venue of learning, in
that the scope of this part of the course is employing more heartily the practices you began
in year one. The breadth and depth of this section should be more interesting as such,
including more group work, and explicating areas of literature on a more intrigue level. This
will include poetry on a deeper level, short story studies, and comparing genres of novels,
while getting the opportunity to explore critical lenses as applied to the works studied.
Fun, fun, fun and a little hard work.
The summer will be busy as you work on your Extended Essays and also on the
“Written Assignments”. However, in order to ease into the actual second year of IB Lit,
you must prepare with the following “Summer Assignment”, which is generated from your
syllabus, and thus readies you for the race to the end of your Senior year.
As you can see on your syllabus, your first semester will be the Part 2, “Detailed
Study” which begins with poetry and the exploration of the poetry of Langston Hughes and
Sylvia Plath (who were also novelists).
***So in keeping with that you must complete the following assigned tasks:
I.
REVISIT, REVIEW AND KNOW THE ATTACHED LITERARY TERMS.
 BE PREPARED FOR A POSSIBLE WRITTEN REVIEW OF THESE THE
FIRST OR SECOND DAY OF CLASS. THE MOST IMPORTANT FOR
NOW ARE STARRED. THESE ARE NOT NEW!
II.
REVIEW THE CRITICAL THEORY SCHOOLS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE
LITERARY TERMS LIST.
 WE ONLY BRIEFLY LOOKED AT THESE THIS YEAR SO
REACQUAINT YOURSELF WITH THE “LENSES”.
III.
LANGSTON HUGHES AND SYLVIA PLATH:
 THE LIST OF POEMS WE ARE READING ARE INCLUDED ON THIS
PAPER.
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20 POEMS TOTAL/10 FROM EACH POET
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THE TASK IS AS FOLLOWS:
 READ ALL 20 POEMS!
 THEN ANNOTATE AND EXPLICATE FIVE FROM EACH
POET (10 TOTAL POEMS).
 PICK TWO FROM EACH OF THE FIVE ANNOTATED POEMS
(TOTAL OF FOUR).
 WITH THESE FOUR, YOU WILL CREATE AN OUTLINE OF
EACH AS IF YOU WERE GOING TO WRITE AN ESSAY ON
THEME.
 INSURE THAT EACH OUTLINE STARTS WITH A
STRONG THESIS STATEMENT…..
LIST OF POEMS FOR BOTH POETS:
RESEARCH THE LIVES OF THESE TWO POETS BEFORE YOU BEGIN TO READ
THEIR WORK…AS WE KNOW, “NOTHING IS WRITTEN IN A VACUUM”
LANGSTON HUGHES:
 Read the article about Langston Hughes by Shane Vogel, “Closing
Time: Langston Hughes and the Poetics of Harlem Nightlife”.
muse.jhu.edu/journals/criticism/summary/v048/48.3vogel.html
 Also read Langston Hughes’ own essay, “The Negro Artist and the
Racial Mountain”
www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/hughes/mountain.htm
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Sylvia
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Weary Blues
The Negro Speaks of Rivers
Dream Deferred
Mother to Son
I, Too
Freedom’s Plow
God
Let America Be America Again
Night Funeral in Harlem
Dream
Plath:
Daddy
Morning Song
Words
The Rival
 Read the article by Elizabeth Hardwick, “On Sylvia Plath”. It is
about her as a poet and as a novelist.
www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1971/aug/12/0n-sylvia-plath/
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Ariel
Sylvia’s’ Death
Jilted
Stillborn
Full Fathom Five
Metaphors
FREY
THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK – FREDA