AP English IV Independent Reading Requirements
AP English IV Independent Reading Requirements
Each nine weeks you are required to read at least one book from the AP Book List. After reading each book you are required to complete AP Book Notes for the book and sit down with me personally to do a book talk.
Book Talk 100 points
Book Notes 100 points
Extra Credit Book Talk and Notes 25 Bonus points OR Credit for next 9 weeks
AP Book List
The following novels and plays have appeared multiple times as options for the open response question on the AP Literature and Composition test over the last thirty years. Familiarity with these texts will help ensure your success on the exam, in particular the infamous third essay question.
21 Times
Ellison, Ralph – Invisible Man
18 Times
Bronte, Emily – Wuthering Heights
15 Times
Dickens, Charles – Great Expectations
14 Times
Bronte, Charlotte – Jane Eyre
Melville, Herman – Moby Dick
13 Times
Dostoevsky, F. – Crime and Punishment
12 Times
Conrad, Joseph – Heart of Darkness
11 Times
Heller, Joseph – Catch-22
Melville, Herman – Billy Budd
10Times
Chopin, Kate – The Awakening
Faulkner, William – A Light in August
Joyce, J. – Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
9 Times
Hurston, Z. N. – Their Eyes Were Watching God
Silko, Leslie Marmon – Ceremony
8 Times
Anaya, Rudolfo – Bless Me Ultima
Faulkner, William – As I Lay Dying
Morrison, Toni – Song of Solomon
7 Times
Conrad, Joseph – Lord Jim
Forster, E. M. – A Passage to India
Hardy, Thomas – Jude the Obscure
Sinclair, Upton – The Jungle
Tolstoy, Leo – Anna Karenina
Walker, Alice – The Color Purple
Wright, Richard – Native Son
6 Times
Faulkner, William – The Sound and the Fury
Hemingway, Ernest – The Sun Also Rises
James, Henry – Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry – The Turn of the Screw
Kogawa – Obasan
Morrison, Toni – Beloved
Morrison, Toni - Sula
Paton – Cry the Beloved Country
Wharton, Edith – Ethan Frome
5 Times
Austen, Jane – Pride and Prejudice
Defoe, Daniel – Moll Flanders
Flaubert, Gustave – Madame Bovary
Hardy, Thomas – The Mayor of Casterbridge
Hardy, Thomas – Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Lee, Chang-Rae – Native Speaker
McCarthy, Cormac – All the Pretty Horses
Rhys, Jean – The Wide Sargasso Sea
Shelley, Mary – Frankenstein
Swift, Jonathan – Gulliver’s Travels
Warren, Robert Penn – All the King’s Men
Woolf, Virginia – Mrs. Dalloway
21st Century Additions in AP Exams
Alexie, Sherman – Reservation Blues
Alvarez, Julia – In the Time of Butterflies
Atwood, Margaret – Alias Grace
Atwood, Margaret – Surfacing
Atwood, Margaret – The Blind Assassin
Atwood, Margaret – The Handmaid's Tale
Camus, Albert – The Plague
Cao, Lan – Monkey Bridge
Crane, Stephen – The Red Badge of Courage
Doctorow, E. O. – Ragtime
Erdrich, Louise – Tracks
Ford, Ford Maddox – The Good Soldier
Forster, E. M. – A Room with a View
Frazier, Charles – Cold Mountain
Gaines, Ernest – A Gathering of Old Men
Garcia, Cristina – Dreaming in Cuban
Guterson, David – Snow Falling on Cedars
Hosseini, Khaled – The Kite Runner
Hughes, Richard – A High Wind in Jamaica
Ishiguro, Kazuo – The Remains of the Day
Jen, Gish – Typical American
Johnson, J. W. – Autobio. of an Ex-Colored Man
Kesey, Ken – One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Lee, Chang-Rae – A Gesture Life
21st Century Additions (continued)
Maclean, Norman – A River Runs Through It
Malamud, Bernard – The Fixer
McEwan, Ian – Atonement
Mistry, Rohinton – A Fine Balance
Murakami, Haruki – Kafka on the Shore
Naipaul, V. S. – A Bend in the River
Naipaul, V. S. – Middle Passage
Ng, Fae M. – Bone: A Novel
O’Brien – In the Lake of the Woods
O’Brien, Tim – Going After Cacciato
O’Brien, Tim - The Things They Carried
Oates, Joyce Carol – We Were the Mulvaneys
Ondaatje, Michael – Coming Through Slaughter
Petry, Ann – The Street
Potok, Chaim – My Name is Asher Lev
Potok, Chaim – The Chosen
Rushdie, Salman - The Moor's Last Sigh
Salinger, J. D. – The Catcher in the Rye
Sapphire – Push
Smiley, Jane – A Thousand Acres
Solzhenitsyn, A. – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Tan, Amy – The Bonesetter's Daughter
Villarreal, Jose, Antonio – Pocho
Wideman, John Edgar – Sent for You Yesterday
Wolff, Tobias – Old School
AP Book Notes
The purpose of constructing book notes on AP novels and plays is to give each student a complete record of the individual works they have studied. Through researching each work, the student has an intimate knowledge of the piece and its place in literature. An added advantage of the notes is that the student will have a comprehensive study guide at his/herdisposal in preparation for the AP exam and also for future college English courses. Your notes must include each of the seven sections below and you must write in complete sentences.
I. Authorial Background:
Where, when born, what’s going on in his/her country at the time? What happens to make him/her want to write this work? Can also, include other works published by this author.
II. Literary Period:
Place the work in the right country and the right literary period. What were the general literary movements of the time (realism, naturalism, modernism, etc.)?
III. Setting
Time and place significant to the work (or lack of significance); culture of the area. Remember the setting can be different than the time period in which the work was written.
IV. Characters
List the major characters along with DETAILS about each.
If there are quotes in the work that describe that character perfectly, you may use those. Be sure to include both positive and negative traits.
V. Themes
In your research of the work, you should have discovered the main themes of the book.
After identifying each theme, explain how it is developed. “Love” is not a theme. “Love is an emotion that all will hold onto, no matter what, even in the time of war” is more like it.
VI. Plot Summary
This is the ONE time when you can write a plot summary and be rewarded for it! It should be very detailed because this will help you remember the book during your
AP exam.
VII.Literary Devices Unique to the Work
Any particular literary techniques used including symbolism, allusions, motifs, etc.