AP Literature and Composition 12

SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENTS

Mrs. Murdock/2015

1. Read one of the following books and write an essay responding to the prompt from the 2015 AP Exam.

Book Choices

Billy Budd Herman Melville

Cat’s Eye Margaret Atwood

Black Boy Richard Wright

Beloved Toni Morrison

Lord of the Flies William Golding

Medea Euripides

Sophie’s Choice William Styron

Sister Carrie Theodore Dreiser

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf Edward Albee

Essay Prompt

In literary works, cruelty often functions as a crucial motivation or a major social or political factor. Consider which acts of cruelty are important to the theme of the novel you selected. Write a well-developed essay analyzing how cruelty functions in the work as a whole and what cruelty reveals about the perpetrator and/or victim. Support your response with specific text references, using MLA in-text citations.

ESSAY IS DUE JULY 10, 2015.

2. Select and read a collection of poems by one of the following poets (or another of literary merit):

John Donne Christina Rosetti Walt Whitman Eavan Boland Billy Collins

Rita Dove Seamus Heaney Robert Hayden e. e. Cummings W.H. Auden

W. B. Yeats Langston Hughes E. A. Robinson Emily Dickinson Natasha Trethewey

Keep a poetry journal (handwritten or typed) with responses to at least five poems. Your responses should be in paragraph form and contain the following:

q The complete text of the poem.

q Discussion of the meaning of the work as a whole (with text references—quotes).

q Written analysis of literary devices (i. e., meter, rhyme, figurative language, structure, etc.) that contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole (with text references—more quotes).

POETRY JOURNAL IS DUE JULY 10, 2015.

3. Read both of the following books. During the first week of school, you will take a test and/or

do a timed writing on each. I have limited copies of these that I will check out for the summer.

Brave New World Aldous Huxley

Silas Marner George Eliot

Tests will be given the first week of school.

SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENTS ARE REQUIRED; IF YOU DO NOT COMPLETE THESE ASSIGNMENTS, YOU MUST CONTACT MR. ASADORIAN BY JULY 10, 2015, TO DROP THE COURSE.

See me if you have any questions. If you need to contact me over the summer, email me at or call me at 643-1981. Have a great summer!