AP Literature and Composition 2015-2016
Summer Reading Assignments
Mrs. Hersker
jhersker@hatboro-horsham.org
Summer Titles
Please choose ONE option from each of the groupings below. If you have already read a
selection for another class, you are welcome to re-read for this assignment or choose the other
option. Please note you must read a total of FOUR books.
1. World Literature selection:
Choose Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe OR A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
2. Drama selection:
Choose Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett OR Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
3. Political Satire selection:
Choose Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift OR Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
4. Character study selection:
Choose The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens,
OR Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Journal Assignment
For each reading selection, students will document their progress in the form of a typed journal.
Each reading selection must contain a minimum of 3 journal entries. Before each journal entry,
please note the pages in the work that you have read prior to writing your journal entry. The
length of each journal entry must be 2-3 pages, for a total of 6-9 pages for each reading selection.
For the journal entries themselves, feel free to discuss anything of note within the portion of the
book you have read. However, below are a few questions I would like you to address
somewhere in each.
Entry #1: Who is the protagonist of the novel/play? What is s/he like, and what is your personal
response to him/her at this point? If a novel, what is the point of view from which it is narrated
(1st, 3rd limited, or 3rd omniscient)? How does this affect the reader’s response to the text at this
point? Be sure to provide textual support with appropriate citations. 2 to 3 pages total.
Entry #2: What are the conflicts that have arisen in the novel/play so far? What motifs or
patterns seem to be emerging? Be sure to provide textual support with appropriate citations. 2 to
3 pages total.
Entry #3: What is your response to both the overall writing style and ending of the novel/play?
Most importantly, what seems to be the meaning of the work as a whole? Be sure to provide
textual support with appropriate citations. 2 to 3 pages total.
ALL JOURNALS MUST BE SUBMITTED TO TURNITIN.COM. Please go to turnitin.com
and enroll in the class using the information below.
Class ID: 9948274
Password: Hersker (case sensitive!)
The date you submit each complete journal will be recorded by the website. Listed below are the
deadlines for your work. You may read your selections in any order, but make sure you upload
your submissions to the correct category:
 First Summer Reading Novel: Three Journal Responses DUE: July 24, 2015
 Second Summer Reading Novel: Three Journal Responses DUE: July 24, 2015
 Third Summer Reading Novel: Three Journal Responses DUE: September 8, 2015
 Fourth Summer Reading Novel: Three Journal Responses DUE: September 8, 2015
Please bring a hard copy of your complete reading journals to class with you on the first day of
class.
A word of caution: These journals are meant to be conversational and informal. Do not feel so
pressured to have the “right answer” that you go to sparknotes or another source to make sure
you are correct. Grades will be given on the basis of whether or not you read the book and have
given it careful thought, even if your thoughts are not identical to mine. If your true purpose in
taking this course is to do well on the AP exam and then college, simply reading and honestly
responding to the text will benefit you the most. We all start somewhere, and this is your starting
point!
During the first quarter, students complete a timed writing response and a presentation
based on these readings.
Additional titles
If you would like to get ahead over the summer, you can also read the following major titles.
Reading poetry and short fiction is also encouraged. Any advance reading you do will be
helpful.
Definite titles:
The Awakening, Kate Chopin
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky OR One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel GarciaMarquez
Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller
A Doll House, Henrik Ibsen (Also called A Doll’s House)
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad OR Candide, Voltaire
King Lear, William Shakespeare
The Inferno, Dante Alighieri (Robert Pinsky translation)
Oedipus Rex or Antigone (Also sometimes entitled Oedipus the King)
AP Literary Terms: You will be expected to know definitions for the terms on the attached list.
You will be tested on these within the first week of class. Most of them should already be
familiar to you. I have created a list on vocabulary.com for you to use as a study guide. However
be aware that not all of these words are defined on vocabulary.com (indicated with an asterisk *),
words in bold are defined on the website, but do not appear on the practice tests. You will need
to review these words on your own.
http://www.vocabulary.com/lists/444098
Absurdism
(absurdity)
allegory
alliteration
allusion
anapest
anaphora
anecdote
antagonist
apostrophe
archetype
aside
assonance
asyndeton
aubade*
ballad
blank verse
cacophony
caesura
caricature
catharsis
character
characterization
chorus
climax
colloquial
conceit
comedy
comic relief*
conflict
connotation
consonance
couplet
dactyl
denotation
denouement
deus ex machina
dialect
diction
dimeter*
elegy
end rhyme*
end-stopped rhyme*
enjambment
en medias res*
epic
epiphany
euphemism
euphony
exposition
falling action*
farce
feminine rhyme*
figurative language
foil
foot
foreshadowing
form
free verse
genre
hamartia
hexameter
hyperbole
iamb
imagery
internal rhyme
irony
litotes
lyric
masculine rhyme*
melodrama
metaphor
meter
metonymy
monometer*
mood
moral
motif
narrator
octave
ode
onomatopoeia
oxymoron
paradox
parallelism
parody
pastoral
pathetic fallacy
pentameter
personification
phonetic intensive*
plot
point of view
protagonist
quatrain
refrain
rhetoric
rhyme
rhyme scheme*
rhythm
rising action*
sarcasm
satire
scansion
sentimentality
sestet
setting
simile
soliloquy
sonnet
spondee
stanza
stream of consciousness
stress
structure
symbol
syntax
tercet
terza rima
tetrameter
theme
tone
tragedy
trimeter
trochee
understatement
verse
villanelle*
voice