AP LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION (GRADE 12) SUMMER READING What are the AP Literature and Composition summer reading requirements? William Shakespeare s The Tempest - Please read the Arden Shakespeare edition, so that you all share the same pagination (ISBN: 1408133474). Please do NOT read No Fear Shakespeare or any other such translation of Shakespeare. Take the challenge, wrestle with Shakespeare s language, and be proud of that achievement. Read by Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (ISBN: 0060850523) Complete an AP Cue Card for both texts The Tempest and Brave New World. Both Cue Cards are due the first day of class. o Link to Cue Card instructions (page two of this handout) o Link to Cue Card Rubric In lieu of taking AR tests, you will take a reading assessment over all the novels during the first week of school. PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE CUE CARD ASSIGNMENTS ARE NOT COLLABORATIVE. YOU MUST TURN IN AN ASSIGNMENT THAT REPRESENTS YOUR INDIVIDUALIZED THINKING, NOT THE THINKING OF YOUR FRIENDS. TURNING IN WORK THAT IS NOT SOLELY YOUR OWN WILL RESULT IN A ZERO ON THESE ASSIGNMENTS. When do I have to be done? AP Cue Cards are due on the first week of school. Once I get the Turnitin.com accounts set up, I will send out a more specific due date. Where do I turn in my essay or cue cards? I (Miss Dennison) will set up a Turnitin.com account for you to submit these cue cards to. I will not be able to do that until late in the summer, but I will send out an email a week or so before for school starts, giving you instructions for how to set up the Turnitin.com account you will use periodically throughout the year. What if I don't do my summer reading? The English portion of summer reading will count as 5% of each student's first semester English grade. For each day that summer reading assignments are late, 10% will be deducted from the student's summer reading grade.
AP Cue Cards You will complete a Cue Card for each of the two texts read over the summer. Ideally, you will also complete one of these "cards" for every major work of literature that we cover this year. You need to be familiar with 4-5 major novels / plays for the "Open Choice" essay question on the AP test. The aim of these cue cards is to have a set of notes that are useful in the last few days of study before the AP exam; these cue cards are intended to help you study for the test. While you will receive a grade, the cue card is mostly for your benefit. What you invest is what you will reap. To think about as you compose these Cue Cards: It is a challenge to write a 40 minute essay well and persuasively (conveying a strong sense that you know the book intimately, i.e. not just the plot and characters) if you have not read and re-read carefully. You should keep this in mind while you compose each "card" - display an intimate and familiar grasp of the text, from language, to character, to tone, to authorial intent. You should include on your cue card(s) references to page numbers of significant passages so the week before the exam you can re-read specific scenes that are crucial to the novel. DO NOT JUST RELY ON NOTES YOU HAVE TAKEN IN THE PAST. You must KNOW the novel/play INTIMATELY, DIRECTLY FOR ITSELF. Format for each Cue Card Each cue card must be typed in order for it to be graded. Each section must be formatted like the instructions below: numbered and labeled with the headings, to make it easier for me to read and grade. Please SINGLE SPACE this assignment (you will double space only between each section as is modeled below). Each card should be 3 PAGES TO 3 ½ PAGES in length no shorter and please do not write more than 4 pages. To see how you will be graded, please reference the Cue Card Rubric below. Contents of each Cue Cards: 1. TITLE (properly punctuated) and AUTHOR 2. HISTORICAL DATE THE BOOK WAS PUBLISHED (NOT the publication date of the edition you read) 3. LIST OF THE MAJOR CHARACTERS (make sure that you spell their names correctly) and a oneline description of their significance (to the plot, symbolically, and anything else that you think is important) 4. LIST OF THE SIGNIFICAN MINOR CHARACTERS (make sure that you spell their names correctly) and a one-line description of their significance 5. LIST OF MAJOR PLACE NAMES (It is hard to write about Dante, for example, without knowing about the nine circles of Hell and how he divides the sins of incontinence from violence and fraud; you should know that Hamlet occurs in Denmark! and that the river in Huckleberry Finn is the Mississippi, etc.) In parenthesis after each place that you list, jot two phrases: one that will give you context and one that will briefly address any symbolism of the setting. 6. LIST OF MAJOR EVENTS, SCENES, SPEECHES / SIGNIFICANT CONVERSATIONS Give page numbers for a quick reference. If you have not already done so, mark these passages in your book with a post-it or with a pen if you own the book. In many cases this list will be chronological. In some cases (Heart of Darkness, Hamlet, etc. for example), you will need to have two lists: the order of
appearance in the structure of the book - including flashbacks and past history; and the order of appearance in real time. Don't overdo it here - 7 to 10 scenes per book is probably adequate - REMEMBER these are KEY scenes. Please note: The above information will fill the first page. Keep it short and concise. The meat of your Cue Card is numbers 7 12 below; these numbers should fill the next two pages of your card. 7. LIST OF MAJOR SHORT BUT SIGNIFICANT QUOTATIONS (These are good / impressive to insert where appropriate in an AP essay - MEMORIZE THESE!) Again, don't overdo it - 5 to 7 significant quotations will be plenty. Also include the name of the character who says the quotation (or who the quotation is about) and a brief statement (one sentence) of why it is important. 8. POINT OF VIEW (NARRATIVE PERSPECTIVE) Address all of the following topics in your answer: Identify the narrator. Who is telling the story - a participant narrator (first person) or a nonparticipant narrator (third person limited or omniscient)? The most important question to consider: What effect does the author achieve with point of view, and what seems to be his / her purpose? 9. SOCIAL / POLITICAL / PHILOSOPHICAL AGENDAS OR ISSUES BEING DEALT WITH BY THE AUTHOR (AKA THEMES): This is the most important part of your cue card. In it, you will consider WHY this text was written. What insight to society or human nature (the human condition) is the author of this book conveying? Why does it still apply to us today? What are several of the book's controlling ideas or insights? Any essay you write must hook into this larger perspective / understanding of the book. What passages would you cite to illustrate the core of the author's ideas (include pertinent page numbers ONLY)? You will need to do some serious thinking about this, distilling what you have learned from your own reading into manageable, concise thoughts. These topics answer the question WHY of a literary work and are ultimately the CORE of the work. This is NOT about observations; this is about explanation and analysis why does the author want us to think about these issues? So, you should try to come up with 4-5 of these agendas / themes per book. Then, you should write a paragraph explaining each agenda and the author s purpose in including them. This is your opportunity to convey your own, direct understanding of the achievement of the book and the contribution it makes as a commentary on society and humanity. 10. SYMBOLS AND MOTIFS: Identify any major symbolism and / or recurrent motifs. Be sure to include the mutation of any symbolism / motifs. Include a one sentence comment of how the symbolism / motif contributes to the author's purpose. You should be able to come up with 5 of these. 11. TECHNICAL, STRUCTURAL, AND STYLISTIC STRATEGIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE AUTHOR IN THIS BOOK (Aside from the Social / Political / Philosophical Agendas in the work, this is probably the most important category on this sheet): You should be able to convey a strong sense (and appreciation for) the author's artistic creation / achievement. In addition to knowing what a piece of literature is about, you should be able to write about HOW the novel or play is put together / written and WHY it is put together in such a way. Essays that you write will be especially strong if you can relate STYLE / STRUCTURE to MEANING. (For this reason, some choices of the books you will work with will be better than others. Which ones invite your attention to style and structure as a contribution to meaning?) Come up with 3 STYLISTIC, artistic achievements the author manages in the novel or play (yes, you should use the techniques you learned in AP Lang and Honors American Literature to point out the stylistic devices that the author uses). 12. ADDRESS AT LEAST ONE SIGNIFICANT CRITICAL PROBLEM / QUESTION THAT YOU SAW IN THE TEXT: For the summer reading, please state at least one question that you have as a result of your reading OR that you may have discovered in the process of some independent research.
For our Cue Cards during the year, you will briefly summarize a discussion we have had in class about a critical issue. Some examples to consider: the problem of Hamlet's delay; why does Huck go west in the end of the novel; the significance of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg's eyes in The Great Gatsby; Steinbeck and naturalism, etc. There will be a number of these issues / problems in each of the books. 13. POSSIBLE AP QUESTIONS: Think of one possible AP Open Choice Question which this book could be used to answer. Remember, the AP question will NEVER be about a particular work. Instead, it will focus on common qualities of different works. So, you should come up with a question that will apply to many works too. It might be a question that deals with characterization, tone, theme, etc. Please do NOT go online to find actual AP questions; I want you to try to think of your own question. EXAMPLE: Some novels and plays seem to advocate change in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and briefly identify the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader's or audience's views. Avoid plot summary. You may choose any work of literary merit to answer this prompt. 14. PERSONAL REFLECTION (one thoughtful and personal paragraph): Write a paragraph in which you personally react to the text. What did you think of the text and why? (The following questions are guiding questions that you may consider and include in your PERSONAL reaction. You do not need to answer them, but they are here if you need the help: What did you like? What didn't you like? Do you have any lingering questions? Is this text similar to anything else you have read? Do you anticipate any lasting effects from reading this book? Would you recommend this book to someone else? Why or why not? And it is okay to NOT like a text. But you need to explain your antipathy. Also, remember that not liking something is NOT the same thing as not respecting it. Every year, I teach a text that I don t like. But I challenge you to tell me which text it is, because even if I don t like it, I have a deep respect for it. ) One final note: Copying another student's cue card or Mr. Cliff or Pink Monkey or Book Rags or Spark Notes (you get the idea) is CHEATING and will result in a grade of Zero for the assignment. Likewise, if you do not acknowledge that you got an idea from another source, you have plagiarized. So, make sure to cite all sources you use, or better yet, please go out on a limb and be autonomous as you do this assignment.
Rubric: Cue Card 1. The student follows all of the directions neatly, precisely, and thoroughly. 1 2 3 4 5 2. The student demonstrates a thorough and complete knowledge of the text... 1 2 3 4 5 3. The information included on the cue card is accurate and / or supportable by the text.... 1 2 3 4 5 4. The elements selected for inclusion on the card are well-chose, meaningful and significant to the text as a whole.. 1 2 3 4 5 5. The student explores the technical aspects of the text (diction, syntax, figurative elements, and imagery) with deliberate consideration and clearly indicates how these elements contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole..... 2 4 6 8 10 6. The thematic explorations are plausible, insightful, and thought-provoking; the student has clearly considered the broader, universal implications of the text... 2 4 6 8 10 7. The card demonstrates a thoughtful effort to penetrate beyond a superficial understanding of the text to an exploration of the author s purpose... 2 4 6 8 10