TWELFTH GRADE AP LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION
SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT - PEEKSKILL HIGH SCHOOL
Welcome to Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition! This packet provides
an overview of the summer reading assignment and outlines the supplies you will need for the course.
As you have heard before, be sure to pace yourself and work on the assignment during July and
August. If you are not willing to put in the time this summer, then the heavy workload of an AP course
will be a problem. When you return in the fall, there will be an in class assessment based on your
reading.
Course Supplies:
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Three ring binder
Lined paper
Dividers (Your binder will be divided into three sections)
Pens (Blue or black ink only)
In d e x c a r d s
Review Book- 5 Steps to a 5English Literature(Any addition from
2012 to the present)
The assignment:
1. Part I- For the novel of your choice, you are required to complete a set of dialectical journals.
Divide your novel into ten equal sections. For each section, choose a significant
quotelmoment and write an entry based on the directions given. Use the sample entries to help
guide you. During the first weeks of school, your teacher will give you an AP-style openended, timed in-class essay. You will apply your novel to whatever prompt is assigned. You
may use your dialectical journals on your essay.
2. Part H- Poetry Annotation and Analysis. (See Summer Reading Part III) There will also be an
in-class essay on poetry during the first few weeks of school. This essay will mimic the poetry
prompt from the AP test. Preparing for this essay involves having a focused approach for
analyzing poetry, and this is what you will be doing in the summer assignment.
3. Part Read the passages about and by William Wordsworth. Answer all applicable
questions.
4. Extra Credit- You will read the assigned chapters from How to Read Literature like a
Professor by Thomas C. Foster. Complete each assignment after reading the designated
chapter. (See attached) You do not need to write volumes; concise, yet thorough responses
will suffice. Please use a standard font. You will receive a total of 100 points for this
assignment. You can use the points to improve certain test scores or homework assignment
tirades throughout the year.
Novels of Literary Merit
Choose a book from this list for your dialectical
journal assignment. Your AP essay during the first
week of school will be on this book,
Allende,
Isabel
Buck, Pearl Is,
Dickens, Charles
Dostoyevsky, Fydor
Dumas, Alexandre
Eco, Umberto
Eliot, George
Esquivel, Laura
Forster, E.M.
Guterson, David
Hemingway, Ernest
Heller, Joseph
Marquez, Gabriel
Garcia Orwell, George
Paton, Alan
Potok, Chaim
Rand, Ayn
Remarque, Erich
Sinclari, Upton
Wharton, Edith
The House of Spirits
The Good Earth
anything except A Tale of Two Cities or
A Christmas Carol
Crime and Punishment
The Count of Monte Cristo,
The Three Musketeers
The Name of the Rose
Middlemarch,
Silas Magner
Like Water for Chocolate
A Passage to India,
Room With A View,
Howards End
Snow Falling on Cedars
A Farewell to Arms,
The Sun Also Rises
Catch 22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
1984
Cry Beloved Country
Davita's Harp,
The Chosen
Atlas Shrugged,
The Fountainhead
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Jungle
Ethan Frome,
The Age of Innocence
Part I Summer Assignment
What are dialectical journals and how do I do them?
A dialectical journal is a thoughtful interaction between you and the written word. It is NOT a
translation of a quotation or plot summary, nor is it supposed to be all about your personal
opinion. Each entry will focus on a quotation that you will choose from the text, and you will be
writing about/responding to various elements of the author's style. You might want to comment
on diction (word choice), syntax, setting, or character development, emerging themes, conflicts,
irony, tone, use of language, symbolism, patterns such as motifs, how allusions function, use of
foreshadowing, or other stylistic devices. Don't just identify devices; explain the function of
them.
A nice rule of thumb: Ask yourself, "What strikes me about this quote? What is the
author trying to do here?" NOT what is the plot, but what ideas/concepts are being presented and
HOW does the author do this? Look at the sample below. Avoid general comments like, "The
diction is nice and flows smoothly." Work to make your responses specific and relevant to your
chosen quote.
Divide your chosen novel into 10 equal sections. For each section, choose one quote for your
written response. You may opt to do more, depending on the length of the novel. Divide your
paper in half the long way. On the left, write out the quote from the text to which you are
responding, including the page number in MLA format. These should be direct quotes, not
paraphrasing. In the right hand column, respond to the author's words. They are not to be
novellas, nor are they to be two sentences long. 3-6 sentences is good.
Keep in mind: Your entries should be in order. Please, please, please proofread. You will be
graded on content, completion, entry length, grammar, and punctuation, To get an A, your
responses must demonstrate understanding, insight, thoughtfulness, thoroughness, and
stylistic maturity. That means it looks like you took your time with each entry and have
demonstrated higher order thinking skills. Please use a standard font; single spacing is fine.
Samples: (from Lord of the Flies)
"Piggy moved among the crowd, asking names
frowning to remember them."
Piggy demonstrates a preoccupation with
names numerous times. He systematically goes
about asking Ralph and the smaller children
their names. Names seem to be a symbol for
both ordered society and individual identity.
Though Ralph does not put the same emphasis
on names that Piggy does, Piggy's own
concern with names is an example of his
concern with order. The significance he finds
in names as a representation of one's identity
and as a tool of communication spurs on his
hatred of his own nickname
Summer Reading Part II — Poetry Annotation and Analysis
Select one poem from each of the following literary eras and annotate. This means you
will be annotating six poems total. This is not about annotating blindly, (i.e.
paraphrasing the poem or listing all the literary poetic devices you can find). It's about
having a focused approach to uncovering a poem's meaning(s) by letting the details
and devices guide you. It's about deductive, not inductive logic. A poem isn't going to
magically give up its secrets after you've done one quick read through. Hence the
attached handout: TPS-FASTT. Read it and let it guide your annotations and help you
figure out how to approach poetry.
STEP I: Read through the Approaching Poetry/TPSFASTT handout
STEP 2: Read through several of the options before selecting one poem from each
literary era.
STEP 3: Annotate. What does this mean? It is not simply underlining! Generally
speaking, annotation involves having an active dialogue with whatever it is you are
reading. Fill the margins around the poem with your words that comment on and
clarify the text. What does that mean? Not in any hierarchal order, annotating a poem
involves the following:
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Knowing the vocabulary of the poem. Look up words you don't know. How
and why might the poet have used such diction?
Cataloguing questions. Do not be afraid to ask questions of the language.
Remember it, the poem, is speaking to you.
Cataloguing your insights. What are you thinking as you read?
What associations are you making? Why? What led you there?
Considering what poetic devices seem significant or speak to you. Why is
the poet using them? What effect and function do these devices have? In
other words, how does the poet construct meaning through his/her poetic
devices? Is the poem dominated by a very specific metrical rhythm? Is that
even important? What devices are dominant? Look for sound devices
(alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance, consonance). Analyze figures of
speech: simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, allusion, symbol,
allegory, paradox.
STEP 4: Below is a list of some of the most frequently anthologized poems and
authors. They are also most likely to show up in a college survey course. Choose one
poem from each era to annotate. Don't forget, you are doing six annotations.
The English Renaissance
Christopher Marlowe "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"
Sir Walter Raleigh "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd"
Shakespeare's or Edmund Spencer's sonnets
17th century Metaphysical/Cavalier Poets
Ben Johnson "To the Mistress of My Beloved Master, William Shakespeare"
"Song: to Celia"
"On My First Son"
Robert Herrick "To the Virgins to Make Much of Time"
Richard Lovelace "To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars"
"To Althea, from Prison"
John Milton "When I Consider How My Light is Spent"
Pre-Romantics and Romantics
William Blake "Holy Thursday"
"The Lamb" and "The Tiger"
William Wordsworth "The World is Too Much With Us"
"It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge "Kubla Khan"
Lord George Gordon Byron "She Walks in Beauty"
Percy Bysshe Shelley "To a Skylark"
"Ode to the West Wind"
John Keats "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
"Ode to a Nightingale"
"To Autumn"
The Victorians
Tennyson "Tears, Idle Tears"
Mathew Arnold "Dover Beach"
Gerard Manley Hopkins "Pied Beauty"
Dante Gabriel Rossetti "Body's Beauty" "Soul's Beauty"
20th Century
The Modernists: W.B. Yeats, Arthur Rimbaud, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens.
Marianne Moore, Langston Hughes. Robert Frost
The Post-Modernist: Elizabeth Bishop, Philip Larkin, James Dickey, Jimm y Santiago, Robert
Lowell, Maya Angelou, Eavan Boland, Howard Nemerov,
See attached for samples of an annotated poem and the TPS-FASSTT Approach to Poetry handout.
BALLA
Approaching Poetry: The TPS-FASTT or "Types Fast" Method
When faced with the sometimes daunting task of analyzing a poem, you will need to keep all of the following
points in mind or risk a significant misreading.
Title
Examine the title before reading the poem. Sometimes th e title will give you a clue about the
content of the poem. In some cases the title will give you crucial information that will help you
understand a major idea within the poem. For example, in Anne Bradstreet's poem "An Author
to Her Book," the title helps you understand the controlling metaphor.
Paraphrase
Paraphrase the literal action within the poem. At this point, resist the urge to jump to
interpretation. A failure to understand what happens literally inevitably leads to an interpretive
misunderstanding. For example, John Donne's poem: "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" is
about a man who is leaving for a long trip, but if it is read as poem about a man dying, then a
misreading of the poem as a whole is inevitable.
Speaker
Who is the speaker in this poem? Remember to always distinguish speaker from the poet. In
some cases the speaker and poet might be the same, as in an autobiographical poem, but often
the speaker and the poet are entirely different. For example, in "Not My Best Side" by Fanthorpe,
the speaker changes from a dragon, to a damsel, to a knight — none of these obviously are
Fanthorpe.
Figurative Language
Examine the poem for language that is not used literally. This would include, but certainly not
limited to, literary devices such as imagery, symbolism, metaphor, litotes, allusion, the effect of
sound devices (alliteration, onomatopoeia, assonance, consonance, rhyme), and any other
devices used in a non-literal manner.
Attitude (TONE)
Tone, meaning the speakers ATTITUDE towards the SUBJECT of the poem. Of course, this means
that you must discern the subject of the poem. In some cases it will be narrow, and in others it
will broad. Also keep in the mind the speaker's attitude toward self, other characters, and the
subject, as well as the attitudes of characters other than the speaker.
Shifts
Note shifts in speaker and attitude. Shifts can be indicated in a number of ways including the
occasion of poem (time and place), key turn words (but, yet), punctuation (dashes, periods,
colons, etc), stanza divisions, changes in line or stanza length, and anything else that indicates that
something has changed or a question is being answered.
Title
Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level.
Theme
First list what the poem is about (subject), then determine what the poet is saying about each of
those subjects (theme). Remember, theme must be expressed as a complete sentence.
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Wordsworth—The Spirit of the Age
Read the following passages by and about William Wordsworth carefully.
The principal object, then, which I proposed to myself in these poems was to choose
Incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them throughout, as far as
was.possible, a selection of-language really used- by- men; and at-the•same time to throw
over them a certain colouring of imagination, whereby ordinary things should be presented to
the mind in an unusual way; and further, and above all, to make these incidents and situations
interesting by tracing in them. truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature:
chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in a state of excitement. Low
and rustic life was generally chosen, because in that condition the es; sential passions of the
heart find a better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under restraint, and
speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because in that condition of life our elementary
feelings co-exist in a state of greater simplicity, and consequently may be more accurately
contemplated and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of rural life germinate
from those elementary feelings, and from the necessary character of rural occupations are
more easily comprehended, and are more durable: and lastly, because in that condition the
passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent forms ofnature. The
language, too, of these men is adopted (purifiedindeed from what appear to be its real defects,
from all lasting and rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly
communicate with the best objects from which the best part of language is originally derived;
and because, from their rank in society and the sameness and nan•ow circle of their
intercourse being less under the influence of social vanity, they convey their feelings and
notions in simple and unelaborated expressions. Accordingly such a language, arising out of
repeated experience and regular feelings, is a more permanent and a far more philosophical
language than that which is frequently substituted for it by poets, who think that they are
conferring honour upon themselves and their art in proportion as they separate themselves
from the sympathies of men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression in
order to furnish food for fickle tastes and fickle appetites of their own creation.
Taking up the subject, then, upon general grounds, I ask what is meant by the word
poet? What is a poet? To whom does he address himself ?And what language is to be expected
from him? He is a man speaking to men: a man, it is true. endued with more lively sensibility.
more enthusiasm and tenderness, who has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more
comprehensive soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind; a man pleased with
his own passions and volitions, and who rejoices more than other men in the spirit of life that
is in him; delighting to contemplate similar volitions and passions as manifested in the goings on of the universe, and habitually impelled to create them where he does not find theta. lb
these qualities he has added a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things
as if they were present: an ability of conjuring up in himself passions which are indeed far
from being the same as those produced by real events, yet (especially in those parts of the
general sympathy which are pleasing and delightful) do more nearly resemble the passions
produced by real events than anything which, from the motions of their own minds merely.
other men are accustomed to fee) in themselves: whence. and from practice. he has acquired a
greater readiness and power in expressing what he thinks and feels, and especially those
thoughts and feelings which by his own choice, or from the structure of his own mind, arise in
him without immediate external excitement.'
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
'William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Lyrical Ballads 1805. ed. Derek Roper (London:
Macdonald & Evans. 19761. 20. 21. 22. 30. 31.
C COPYRIGHT. The Center for Learning. Used with permission. Not for sale.
Date ____________________________________
Mr. Wordsworth
(The Spirit of the Age, 1825)
Mr. Wordsworth's genius is a pure emanation of the Spirit of the Age. Had he lived in any
other period of the world, he would never have been heard of . . . His style is vernacular: he
delivers household truths. He sees nothing loftier than human hopes, nothing deeper than
the human heart. This he probes, this he tampers with, this he poises, with all Its
incalculable weight of thought and feeling, in his hands, and at the same time calms the •
throbbing pulses of his own heart by keeping his eye ever fixed on the face of nature. If he
can make the life-blood flow from the wounded breast, this is the living colouring with
which he paints his verse: if he can assuage the pain or dose up the wound with the balm of
solitary musing, or the healing power of plants and herbs and "skyey influences," this is the
sole triumph of his art. He takes the simplest elements of nature and of the human mind,
the mere abstract conditions inseparable from our being, and tries to compound a new
system of poetry from them: and has perhaps succeeded as well as any one could . . . In a
word, his poetry is founded on setting up an opposition (and pushing it to the utmost
length) between the natural and the artificial, between the spirit of humanity and the spirit
of fashion and of the world!
It is one of the innovations of the time. It partakes of, and is carried along with, the
revolutionary movement of our age: the political changes of the day were the model on
which he formed and conducted his poetical experiments. His Muse (it cannot be denied,
and without this we cannot explain its character at all) is a levelling one. It proceeds on a
principle of equality, and strives to reduce all things to the same standard.
His popular, inartificial style gets rid (at a blow) of all the trappings of verse, of all
the high places of poetry: "the cloud-capt towers, the solemn temples, the gorgeous
palaces," are swept to the ground, and "like the baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a rack
behind." All the traditions of learning, all the superstitions of age. are obliterated and effaced.
We begin de novo on a tabula rasa of poetry. The purple pall, the nodding plume of
tragedy are exploded as mere pantomime and trick, to return to the simplicity of truth and
nature. Kings. queens, priests, nobles, the altar and the throne, the distinctions of rank,
birth. wealth, power, "the judge's robe, the marshal's truncheon, the ceremony that to
great ones longs." are not to be found here. The author tramples on the pride of art with
greater pride. The Jewels in the crisped hair, the diadem on the polished brow. are
thought meretricious, theatrical, vulgar; and nothing contents his fastidious taste beyond
a simple garland of flowers.
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No one has shown the same imagination in raising trifles into importance: no one has
displayed the same pathos in treating of the simplest feelings of the heart Reserved, yet
haughty, having no unruly or violent passions (or those passions having been early
suppressed). Mr. Wordsworth has passed his life in solitary musing or in daily converse with
the face of nature. He exemplifies in an eminent degree the power of association; for his
poetry has no other source or character. He has dwelt among pastoral scenes, till each object
has become connected with a thousand feelings, a link in the chain of thought, a fibre of
his own heart. Every one is by habit and familiarity strongly attached to the place of his
birth, or to objects that recall the most pleasing and eventful circumstances of his life.
But to the author of the Lyrical Ballads nature is a kind of home: and he may be said to
take a personal interest in the universe. . . .
COPYRIGIa. The CtrAtr fr-r
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Advanced Placement Writing
Name _______________________________________
Date ________________________________________
The daisy looks up to him with sparkling eye as an old acquaintance: the cuckoo
haunts him with sounds of early youth not to be expressed: a linnet's nest startles him
with boyish delight: an old withered thorn is weighed down with a heap of recollections .
. . He has described all these objects in a way and with an intensity of feeling that no one
else had done before him, and has given a new view or aspect of nature. He is in this
sense the most original poet now living, and the one whose writings could the least be
spared: for they have no substitute elsewhere. The vulgar do not read them; the learned,
who.See all things through books, do not understand them, the great despise, the
fashionable may ridicule them: but the author has created himself an interest in the heart
of the retired and lonely student of nature, which can never die. . . . Remote from the
passions and events of the great world, he has communicated interest and dignity to the
primal movements of the heart of man, and ingrafted his own conscious reflections on the
casual thoughts of hinds and shepherds.'
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
The two excerpts present views of Wordworth's experiment with language first presented in
his publication, with Coleridge, of Lyrical Ballads in 1798. In Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth
develops enlarged conceptions of poetry, its nature, scope, function, and language, from his own
experiences as reader and creative artist.
Excerpt from the Preface to Lyrical Ballads
1. What does Wordsworth define as his objective in publishing Lyrical Ballads?
2. What reasons does he give for choosing low and rustic life?
3. What reasons does he give for using the language of people in rural occupations?
4. What is Wordsworth's answer to the question, "What is a poet?"
*WEB= Hazlitt. Selected Essays of William Bastin. ed. Geoffrey Keynes. (New York: Random House.
1942). 739-4.
COP1M1GHT. The Center for Learning. Used with permission. Not for sale.
215
Advanced Placement Writing
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Nam
e __________________________________________________
Date
Excerpt from "Mr. Wordsworth"
5. Hazlitt's essay evaluates Wordsworth's experiment twenty-seven years after the first
publication of Lyrical Ballads and twenty years after the writing of the Preface. How
does he evaluate the collection of poetry?
6. Hazlitt says: "The political changes of the day were the model on which he
(Wordsworth) formed and conducted his poetical experiments." Explain this statement.
7. In paragraph 3, Hailitt says. "His popular, inartificial style gets rid of all the trappings of
verse, of all the high places of poetry." Cite some of the examples he uses to illustrate
this statement.
8. In paragraph 4, Hazlitt credits Wordsworth as being "in this sense, the most original poet
now living." On what basis does he make this statement?
t COPYRIGHT. The Center for Learning Used 7.-tch permIsslon. Not for sae.
)1 n
Extra Credit-Summer Assignment
In Arthur Conan Doyle's The Red-Headed League, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson both
observe Jabez Wilson carefully, yet their differing interpretations of the same details reveal the difference
between a "good reader" and a "bad reader." Watson can only describe what he sees; Holmes has the
knowledge to interpret what he sees, to draw conclusions, and to solve the mystery.
How to Read Literature Like a Professor, can be your guide to learning how to solve literary
mysteries. It will help transform you from a naïve, sometimes confused Watson to an insightful, literary
Holmes. Informed readers see symbols, archetypes, and patterns in literature because they are there, in the
literature, and you too will see the devices writers use when you have learned to recognize them. As Foster
says, you learn to recognize the literary conventions the 'same way you get to Carnegie Hall. Practice." (xiv).
Introduction: How'd He Do That?
How do memory, symbol, and pattern affect the reading of literature? How does the recognition of
patterns make it easier to read complicated literature? Discuss a time when your appreciation of a literary
work was enhanced by understanding symbol or pattern.
Chapter 1— Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When It's Not)
List the five aspects of the QUEST and then apply them to something you have read or viewed.
Chapter 2 — Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion
Choose a meal from a literary work and apply the ideas of Chapter 2 to this literary
depiction. Chapter 3: — Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires
What are the essentials of the Vampire story? Apply this to a literary work you have read
or viewed.
Chapter 5 —Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
Define intertextuality. Discuss three examples that have helped you in reading specific works.
Chapter 6 —When in Doubt, It's from Shakespeare...
Discuss a work that you are familiar with that alludes to or reflects Shakespeare. Show how the author
uses this connection thematically. Read pages 44-46 carefully. In these pages. Foster shows how
Fugard reflects Shakespeare through both plot and theme. In your discussion, focus on theme.
Chapter 10 — It's More Than Just Rain or Snow
Discuss the importance of weather in a specific literary work, not in terms of plot.
Chapter 21 — Marked for Greatness
Figure out Harry Potter's scar. If you aren't familiar with Harry Potter, select another character
with a physical imperfection and analyze its implications for characterization.
Chapter 25 — Don't Read with Your Eyes
After reading Chapter 25, choose a scene or episode from a novel, play, or short story written before the
twentieth century. Contrast how it could be viewed by a reader from the twenty-first century with
how it might be viewed by a contemporary reader. Focus on specific assumptions that the author
makes, assumptions that would not make it in this century.
Chapter 27 — A Test Case
Read "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield, the short story starting on page 245.
Complete the exercise on pages 265-266, following the directions exactly. Then compare your writing
with the three examples. How did you do? What does the essay that follows comparing Laura
with Persephone add to your appreciation of Mansfield's story?