Bridgeport High School
515 Johnson Avenue
Bridgeport, WV 26330
(304) 842-0259
To: Students and Parents of AP English Literature 12 Students
From: Mrs. Amy Lohmann, AP English Literature 12 Teacher
Date: April 30, 2012
Re: Summer Reading Assignments
Dear Students and Parents or Guardian:
Your child has enrolled in Advanced Placement English Literature for the 2012-13 school year. As a
requirement of the class, he/she must complete summer reading assignments. The assignments are attached.
Please review the reading selections and the assignments that accompany them and sign the attached
permission form.
Parent involvement is crucial to student success in school, so I encourage you to read the books along with
your child so that you may engage with him/her in meaningful conversations about these works.
If you have any questions regarding either the reading selection or the assignment, please feel free to contact
me at amylohmann@aol.com or Bridgeport High School.
Please return the permission form by May 18, 2012.
Sincerely,
Amy W. Lohmann
2012-2013 AP ENGLISH 12 SUMMER READING
If you have questions, I may be reached at (304)842-0259 or amylohmann@aol.com.
AP Overview
If you are planning on taking the AP Literature exam, please be aware that the exam tests all your years
of English study; therefore, the more you have read and analyzed, the better. If you would like to read beyond
the required assignments, I recommend using the attached list of suggested authors/works.
Assignments are due the first day of school and will be part of the 1st six weeks’ grade. In addition to the
following, you will be evaluated on other assignments related to the reading such as class discussion, additional
writings, group projects, quizzes, and tests.
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
1. Keep a reader’s response log as you read. There is no maximum number of entries, but you should
have at least 30 entries spread throughout the novel. These responses MUST display depth of
thought/interaction with the text (avoid superficial responses). Consider character motivation, Tan’s
writing style, themes, recurring motifs, connections to other works, etc. Attached, you will find an
example of an RRL.
2. After reading the novel, consider the following quote from the book: “’What will I say? What can I
tell them about my mother? I don’t know anything…’ The aunties are looking at me as if I had
become crazy right before their eyes…And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see
their own daughters, just as ignorant…They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk
in Chinese…who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to
generation.” This quote is the inspiration for the following assignment:
Part of the importance of the novel is gaining inter-generational understanding. Choose
one of your parents, guardians, or grandparents you’d like to know more about/have a
deeper understanding of to complete the following:
a. Record an interview with the person you chose (either audio or visual). The goal is to
foster an understanding of this person and his/her life, so the questions/interview
direction is primarily up to you. The only subject you must address is at least a
brief discussion of this person’s teenage years. This interview must be turned in for a
grade.
b. Present the information you gained through your interview in a creative manner (for
example, a video, a scrapbook with journaling, a narrative, or some comparable
product). You may see me for examples.
Individual Approved Choice
1. You will complete reader response logs for this novel as well. While there is no maximum number
of entries, you must have at least 30—and they must be well developed and show depth of thought
(if you choose a longer worker, you may obviously need more entries). These should be done in the
novel on Post It Notes. This will help you later in the year when we use these works for the basis
of individual literary analysis. Because you will work with this novel all year, I recommend having
your own copy instead of checking out from a library. Most of the approved titles can be purchased
for nominal cost at local bookstores or online sources.
2. Be prepared for an AP in-class writing and quizzes based on the work of your choice.
READ FOR PLEASURE THIS SUMMER!!
Approved Titles for 2nd Summer Reading Assignment
**You must choose a work you have not previously read.**
Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Aeneid by Virgil
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Antigone by Sophocles
Anthony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
As You Like It by William Shakespeare
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Black Boy by Richard Wright
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevski
Candide by Voltaire
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevski
The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
The Dollmaker by Harriet Arnot
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
Dracula by Bram Stoker
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Emma by Jane Austen
An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Henry V by William Shakespeare
The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde
Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Medea by Euripides
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
My Ántonia by Willa Cather
Native Son by Richard Wright
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
1984 by George Orwell
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia
Marquez
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
The Orestia by Aeschylus
Othello by William Shakespeare
A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
Persuasion by Jane Austen
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy
A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom
Stoppard
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Separate Peace by John Knowles
The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
The Stranger by Albert Camus
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zorah Neale Hurston
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
Parent/Student Form for AP English 12 Summer Reading
Parent Permission Statement:
I , ____________________________________, parent of _____________________________,
give my son/daughter permission to read the AP summer reading selections The Joy Luck Club,
by Amy Tan, and an approved selection from the attached list. This may not be a novel that
has been read for a past class and should be one that is entirely new to your son/daughter in
order to increase his/her preparation for the AP Literature Exam. I also understand that my
child will be responsible for completing the summer assignments, which will be graded .
Parent Signature: ______________________________________________________________
Date:_________________________________________________
Student Responsibility Statement:
I, _____________________________________, acknowledge that I am required to read and
complete the AP summer reading requirements, which will be graded assignments.
Student Signature: _____________________________________________________________
Date:_________________________________________________
Additional Novel Choice See me by 5/23/12 for approval of the work.
Only two students are generally granted
permission to read the same title, so you may want to turn this form in as soon as possible.
1st Choice: Title/Author
_________________________________________________________
2nd Choice: Title/Author ________________________________________________________
Student email/contact information:
_____________________________________________________________________________