AP literature summer reading 2013

Welcome to AP English literature and composition. You have chosen a challenging but rewarding path. This is a class for students with intellectual curiosity, a love of reading and discussing literature, and a strong work ethic. We view the summer reading as a starting point and foundation for theentire yearand hope you will enjoy and learn from it.

-----Ms. Crewdson and Mr. Ertman

You will read and annotate two novels:Great Expectations, a classic nineteenth century novel by Charles Dickens, and a novel you choose from the list below. You will discuss and write aboutboth books throughout the year. We expect you to have read and annotated both books by the time school starts in August.

If you are able to purchase your own copies of these books, you can annotate the texts and will have them to refer to throughout the year. If not, you can find any of the novels in a local library. You can find many of the novels online as well. If you do not buy your own books, annotate on Post-It notes or notebook paper. Read the suggestions for annotating at the end of this packet.

Great Expectations

Published serially in 1860 and 1861, this is one of Dickens' last – and many critics believe greatest – novels. It tells the story of the childhood and growth to adulthood of Pip, a poor orphan boy who hopes to achieve greatness.IMPORTANT NOTE about Great Expectations: this novel has two endings. Be sure the edition you read contains both; some editions omit the original ending. We will be discussing the differences.

Some aspects to think about as you read

  • In many nineteenth-century novels, the characters easily can be pegged as either good or bad. Is that the case here? Try listing all of the novel’s many and varied characters in two columns, good and bad. Any complications?
  • This novel, like many others of its time, came out serially in a magazine. Every week from December of 1860 to August of 1861, readers eagerly awaited the next installment. Figure out where each installment ends and think about why and how you can tell. What features of the novel might have been designed to keep readers interested in the intervals between installments?
  • How would you describe Pip, our first-person narrator, as a narrator? Try comparing him to Holden Caulfield or other first-person narrators you know.
  • This novel is often referred to as a bildungsroman. Look up the term and then think about what you learn by applying it.
  • Dickens was known for his moral outrage at social injustice. Note examples.
  • What kind of place is London? The other settings?

Specific annotation assignment: see page 3 of this handout for a written assignmentrelated to GreatExpectations.

choice novels

Pick a novel from this list that you will enjoy reading in summer, as well as re-reading and using as a basis for an analysis paper during the first semester. Take some time to learn about the novels and sample them before you settle on one. Making a careful, informed selection is an important part of this assignment.

  • Note: If you want to read a novel that is not on the list, seek approval from Mrs. Crewdson or Mr. Ertman before school ends.

classics from the 18th and 19th centuries

Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe

Moby DickHerman Melville

The House of Seven Gables Nathaniel Hawthorne

Persuasion Jane Austen

Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky

Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev
Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert

The Return of the Native Thomas Hardy

Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte

Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte

classics and other standouts from the 20th and 21st centuries

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man James Joyce

The Age of Innocence Edith Wharton

The Portrait of a Lady Henry James

The Trial Franz Kafka

Glory Vladimir Nabokov

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter Carson McCullers

The Plague Albert Camus

A Passage to India E.M. Forster

Sons and Lovers D.H. Lawrence

Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston

Light in August William Faulkner

Death Comes for the Archbishop Willa Cather

Native Son Richard Wright

Burger’s Daughter Nadine Gordimer

One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A Bend in the River V.S. Naipaul

Midnight’s Children Salman Rushdie

The Ghost Writer Philip Roth

The Adventures of AugieMarch Saul Bellow

Terrorist John Updike

Beloved Toni Morrison

Oryx and Crake Margaret Atwood

Going After Cacciato Tim O’Brien

Disgrace J.M. Coetzee

Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy

Blindness Jose Saramago

The Inheritance of Loss Kiran Desai

White Teeth Zadie Smith

Atonement Ian McEwan

ideas for annotating novels

  • Think of annotation as part of active reading—something you do for yourself to stay engaged while you read and to create a record that will help you think and write about the novel later.Learn to do this in a way that leaves a useful record of your reading experience but that does not interfere with that experience. You can achieve this balance – it just takes practice.
  • Use a pen so you can make circles, brackets and notes. If you like highlighters, use one for key passages, but don’t get carried away and don’t only highlight.
  • Mark passages that jump out at you because they suggest an important idea or theme – or for any other reason. Mark things that puzzle, intrigue, please or displease you. Note patterns such as repeated images or phrases. Ask questions, make comments – talk back to the text.
  • At the ends of chapters or sections, quickly write a bulleted list of key plot events. This practice forces you to think about what happened and identify patterns. You end up with a convenient record of the whole plot.
  • Circle words you want to learn or words that jump out at you for some reason. If you don’t want to stop reading, just guess. Later, look the word up and jot down a relevant meaning. You need not write out a full dictionary definition; it is often helpful to put the relevant meaning in your own words.

Great Expectations assignment – due on the first day of school

Find and type up threepassages from Great Expectationsthat YOU found particularly evocative – one from the first third of the novel, one from the middle section, and one from the last third. After each passage, explain in four to five well-written sentences why you selected it. Cite specific details, including words central to the passage’s meaning. As a serious reader of this novel, you will need no help in selecting these passages or in writing your analysis of them.