AP English IV – Literature and Composition 2015-2016 Welcome to AP English IV! AP Literature and Composition is like the title says, it is about literature and writing. Some items we will be reading for the 2015-2016 school year include: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, King Lear by Shakespeare, and A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. To help your understanding of literature, the book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, will help not only in this class, but also in college (and beyond). It is a relatively easy read and is REQUIRED reading for the summer. See below for the assignment. Want some recommendations of what else to read over the summer that will help you prepare for the AP Literature Test for college credit? Listed below are some of the most frequently cited novels / plays on the AP Literature Test. The number by the title is how many times it has been cited for the Free Response Question #3 since 1970. Do you need to read all of these – NO. Would we like for you to read some of these, YES. We will offer “optional assignments” each six weeks over some of these books. If you read the book and do the optional assignment well, it will only help our grade. If it doesn’t help your grade, we won’t count it. We recommend you look up the synopsis of the story to see if you are interested in it before purchasing the book. Optional Assignments can include a test over the book, a timed writing about the book, a book report to the class, etc… If you read the book in a previous English class, it cannot be used for an Optional Assignment grade. The ones that are bolded, might appeal to you more than some of the others. It is personal taste, though. Wuthering Heights (21) Great Expectations (19) Heart of Darkness (17) Crime and Punishment (16) Jane Eyre (16) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (15) Portrait of the Artists as Young Man (14) Catch – 22 (13) Their Eyes Were Watching God (13) The Awakening (12) Beloved (11) Light in August (11) Othello (11) Antigone (10) As I Lay Dying (10) The Color Purple (10) The Glass Menagerie (10) Native Son (10) Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (10) A Streetcar Named Desire (10) The Crucible (9) A Passage to India (9) A Raisin in the Sun (9) All the Pretty Horses (8) Anna Karenina (8) Candide (8) The Grapes of Wrath (8) Jude the Obscure (8) The Jungle (8) Portrait of a Lady (8) Hamlet (5)

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (8) Sula (8) Tess of the d’Urbervilles (8) Waiting for Godot (8) All the King’s Men (7) The Beloved Country (7) Ethan Frome (7) Lord Jim (7) Madame Bovary (7) Mayor of Casterbridge (7) The Merchant of Venice (7) Oedipus Rex (7) The Sound and the Fury (7) The Sun Also Rises (7) The Tempest (7) Things Fall Apart (7) Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf? (7) A Doll’s House (6) An Enemy of the People (6) Frankenstein (6) Gulliver’s Travels (6) Hedda Gabler (6) Major Barbara (6) Moll Flanders (6) Mrs. Dalloway (6) Murder in the Cathedral (6) Obasan (6) The Piano Lesson (6) Sister Carrie (6) The Turn of the Screw (6)

AP English IV – Literature and Composition 2015-2016 Writing Assignments for How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster Use the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor; Revised Edition published in 2014. ISBN: 978-0-06-230 167-3.  If you begin early and work on this assignment consistently throughout the summer, you will be able to complete it comfortably by August and the start of school.  On the following questions and tasks, do not write volumes –concise, yet thorough, responses will suffice.  It should be typed in Word. Please type your responses in BLUE ink. (Not a light blue ink that we can’t read!)  This assignment will be due August 31, 2015 . NOTE: you may substitute movies for literary works in this assignment, but remember your choice of literary works and film are an indication of your reading background. Multiple references to Disney and Harry Potter are not desired.  You will submit to Safe Assign on LMS, so please do your own work! Plagiarism from the internet or your friends is not acceptable and will have consequences.  You will take a major grade test over the book, too within the first two weeks of school! 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 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) in the form used on pages 4-5. 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 4 –Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?

AP English IV – Literature and Composition 2015-2016 Define intertextuality. Discuss three examples that have helped you in reading specific works. Chapter 5 – 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 6–...Or the Bible Read "Araby" (available online). Discuss Biblical allusions that Foster does not mention. Look at the example of the "two great jars." Be creative and imaginative in these connections. Chapter 7– Hanseldee and Greteldum Think of a work of literature (including film) that reflects a fairy tale. Discuss the parallels. Does it create irony or deepen appreciation? Chapter 8 – It's Greek to Me Write a free verse poem derived or inspired by characters or situations from Greek mythology. Be prepared to share your poem with the class. (Greek mythology available online.) Chapter 9 – It's More Than Just Rain or Snow Discuss the importance of weather in a specific literary work, not in terms of plot. Chapter 10 – Never Stand Next to the Hero Explain the difference between round and flat characters. Give three examples in literature or in a movie where the title of this chapter applies and how. Interlude – Does He Mean That Chapter 11 – ...More Than It's Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence Present examples of the two kinds of violence found in literature (including film). Show how the effects are different. Chapter 12 – Is That a Symbol? Use the process described on page 113 and investigate the symbolism of the fence in "Araby." (Mangan's sister stands behind it.) Chapter 13 – It's All Political Assume that Foster is right and "it is all political." Use his criteria to show that one of the major works assigned to you as a sophomore or junior is political. Chapter 14 – Yes, She's a Christ Figure, Too Apply the criteria on page 126 / 129 to a major character in a significant literary work (or film). Try to choose a character that will have many matches. This is a particularly apt tool for analyzing film – for example, Star Wars, Cool Hand Luke, Excalibur, Malcolm X, Braveheart, Spartacus, Gladiator and Ben-Hur. Chapter 15 – Flights of Fancy Select a literary work in which flight signifies escape or freedom. Explain in detail. Chapter 16 – It's All About Sex... Chapter 17...Except the Sex OK ..the sex chapters. The key idea from this chapter is that "scenes in which sex is coded rather than explicit can work at multiple levels and sometimes be more intense that literal depictions" (149). In other words, sex is often suggested with much more art and effort than it is described, and, if the author is doing his job, it reflects and creates theme or character. Choose a novel or movie in which sex is suggested, but not described, and discuss how the relationship is suggested and how this implication affects the theme or develops

AP English IV – Literature and Composition 2015-2016 characterization. Chapter 18 – If She Comes Up, It's Baptism Think of a "baptism scene" from a significant literary work. How was the character different after the experience? Discuss. Chapter 19 – Geography Matters… Discuss at least four different aspects of a specific literary work that Foster would classify under "geography." Chapter 20 –...So Does Season Identify the symbolic significance of each of the four seasons. Interlude – One Story Write your own definition for archetype. Then identify an archetypal story and apply it to a literary work with which you are familiar. Chapter 21 – Marked for Greatness Why do writers give characters in literature deformities? 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 22 – He's Blind for a Reason, You Know If it is difficult to write a story with a blind character, why might an author include one? Explain what Foster calls the “Indiana Jones Principle”. Chapter 23 – It's Never Just Heart Disease... And Rarely Just Illness Why does Foster consider heart disease the best, most lyrical, most perfectly metaphorical illness? Recall two characters who died of a disease in a literary work. Consider how these deaths reflect the "principles governing the use of disease in literature" Discuss the effectiveness of the death as related to plot, theme, or symbolism. Chapter 24 - Don't Read with Your Eyes After reading Chapter 24, choose a scene or episode from a novel, play or epic 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 25 – It’s My Symbol and I’ll Cry If I Want to. Do you have a poet or author who uses an odd word/phrase that might be over-looked for its symbolic meaning? Give some explanation here – both of the author and of the work/s in which the symbol appears. Chapter 26 – Is He Serious? And Other Ironies Select an ironic literary work and explain the multi-vocal nature of the irony in the work. Chapter 27 – A Test Case Read “The Garden Party” by Katherine Mansfield, the short story starting on page 262. Complete the exercise on pages 282-283, 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? Envoi Choose a motif not discussed in this book (as the horse reference on page 304) and note its appearance in three or four different works. What does this idea seem to signify?

AP English IV – Literature and Composition 2015-2016 Adapted from Donna Anglin & Marti Nelson