AP English Literature and Composition Summer Assignment
AP Literature students are expected to be self-directed learners and avid readers. You’ll note that for the
summer assignment there is no requirement of anything “due” when we return to school in August; rather
what you see below are strong recommendations for reading and research you should do to prepare yourself
for success as an AP student, particularly for the essay writing and diagnostic exams of the opening week.
The Assignment
Select a novel of literary merit from the attached list to read and closely annotate. These are works that often
appear on the AP exam and in surveys of literature courses for seniors and college students.
During the first week of school, we will begin exploring the elements of the AP Literature exam and
you will write an AP-style open-ended, timed in-class essay. For this essay only, you will be allowed to
use your summer reading book and the annotations therein—this your incentive to prepare rather than try to
dig back into the past. To get a sense of the types of writing prompts offered and scoring guidelines, visit the
AP English Literature and Composition Exam Practice page. Be savvy—use these tools as a guide but don’t
be tempted to copy or “internalize” sample essays you find online because your teachers read these, too!
More Information About the Course
The AP class is structured to reflect the expectation and rigor of an introductory college-level English course
as well as to pass the AP exam in May. In the first few weeks of the school year, we will be introducing you to
the language of close reading and literary analysis as well as the components of the AP exam:
 multiple-choice literary analysis questions on selections of poetry and short prose
 FRQ prompts: poetry analysis, prose passage analysis, open response (thematic analysis)
A truly motivated AP student loves learning for its own sake and wishes to mentally prepare for this rigorous
curriculum. This summer, we strongly suggest that you build a library of resources to help you achieve this
goal. Here are some tips to help you get started:
1. Go online and explore a college-level poetry anthology (such as The Norton Anthology of Poetry or The
Norton Introduction to Poetry). Look at the table of contents to see a list of the most frequently anthologized
poems and authors. Most of these poems are in the public domain, which means you can find free copies
readily available for download elsewhere on the Internet. Read a few, print them out and annotate them
with an eye for close reading analysis. The AP test likes to ask poetry prompts like: How does the poet
employ literary devices to reveal the overall meaning of his/her poem? Keep these annotations in
your course binder—we will use them throughout the year. Also, there will definitely be an in-class
timed poetry essay within the first few weeks of school.
2. Purchase a glossary of literary terms or bookmark reputable sources online. The Bedford Glossary of Critical
and Literary Terms is an excellent resource as is Essential Literary Terms from W.W. Norton & Company. A
used copy of either text will be an essential addition to your college reference bookshelf. If you prefer
online resources, try LitGloss from Bedford/St. Martin’s, LitWeb from Norton, or the BYU Forest of
Rhetoric for some really obscure terms. Do not rely on dictionary.com or even a standard collegiate
dictionary for literary-specific terms.
3. Acquire an AP Literature and Composition exam preparation book (such as CliffsNotes, Princeton
Review, or 5 Steps to a 5). During the first week of school, you will be given an AP-style multiple
choice test that mimics the AP exam given in May. It consists of 50-55 questions on 4-6 prose and
poetry selections that represent a range of major literary eras; the passages date from the 16th century to
contemporary literature.
4. Finally, spend some time exploring resources from the College Board. These folks are your test writers,
so you truly are going to the source when you examine the AP English Literature and Composition
Course Overview page. Here you will find links to the course description, course details, and reading and
writing study skills.
Novels of Literary Merit
We’ve selected the novels below to represent titles you are likely to see on the open response prompt of the
AP exam. Titles marked with (*) have appeared on the list of suggested texts five or more times. Although
some titles you have previously read (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, Frankenstein) are also
included among these “greatest hits,” you may not re-read them for your summer assignment nor may you
write on a book you have previously read for class for the first essay assignment.
Achebe, Chinua
Allende, Isabel
Anaya, Rudolfo
Atwood, Margaret
Bronte, Charlotte
Bronte, Emily
Cooper, James Fennimore
Defoe, Daniel
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor
Dumas, Alexandre
Eliot, George
Ellison, Ralph
Esquivel, Laura
Faulkner, William
Flaubert, Gustave
Forster, E. M.
Garcia Marquez, Gabriel
Guterson, David
Hansberry, Lorraine
Hardy, Thomas
Hemingway, Ernest
Heller, Joseph
Hosseini, Khaled
Huxley, Aldous
Kesey, Ken
Lewis, Sinclair
McCarthy, Cormac
Melville, Herman
Miller, Arthur
Morrisson, Toni
Ondaatjie, Michael
Potok, Chaim
Remarque, Erich
Shakespeare, William
Silko, Leslie Marmon
Sinclair, Upton
Smith, Betty
Sophocles
Steinbeck, John
Tolstoy, Leo
Voltaire
Walker, Alice
Warren, Robert Penn
Wharton, Edith
Wright, Richard
Things Fall Apart*
The House of the Spirits
Bless Me, Ultima*
The Handmaid’s Tale
Jane Eyre*
Wuthering Heights*
Last of the Mohicans
Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders
Crime and Punishment*
The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers
Middlemarch*, Silas Marner
Invisible Man*
Like Water for Chocolate
The Sound and the Fury*, Light in August*
Madame Bovary*
A Passage to India, A Room With a View, Howards End
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Snow Falling on Cedars
A Raisin in the Sun*
Tess of the D’Urbervilles*, Return of the Native
A Farewell to Arms*, The Sun Also Rises*
Catch 22*
The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns
Brave New World
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Babbit, Main Street
All the Pretty Horses*
Moby Dick*, Billy Budd*
The Crucible*
Beloved*, Sula*, Song of Solomon*
The English Patient
The Chosen, Davita’s Harp
All Quiet on the Western Front
King Lear*, The Tempest*
Ceremony*
The Jungle*
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Antogone*, Oedipus Rex*
The Grapes of Wrath*
Anna Karenina*
Candide*
The Color Purple*
All the King’s Men*
Ethan Frome*, The Age of Innocence*, The House of Mirth
Native Son*