AP Literature and Composition/Hallberg Summer Assignment, 2016

Transcription

1 AP Literature and Composition/Hallberg Summer Assignment, 2016 Welcome to Advanced Placement Senior English at Gov. John R. Rogers High School. Our focus for the year will be on a variety of different works, focusing on world literature as well as some of the classics. Keeping this as our focus, this summer assignment will challenge you to examine two very different works, and utilize your analytical reading skills. To begin, you will have the delightful task of reading, noting, and responding to two works for your summer assignment. You will be reading Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. Death of a Salesman is a relatively quick read, and it will serve as an introduction to the work of the year, as well as the concept of tragedy and the tragic hero in literature. If you did not check out a copy, and are unable to buy your own, there is a good online version available at: I also encourage you to view a theatrical version of this play, if you get the chance. Performances may be scarce, so feel free to look to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, or your local video retailer (or the library) for viewing options (the Dustin Hoffman/ John Malkovitch version is recommended). You will also be selecting a contemporary work of literary merit off of the list below. Please do your due diligence before selecting a work. If you have any particular qualms or issues with a particular type of read, make another choice off of the list. There are many resources online, as well as real people (recent graduates, teachers, etc.) that can help you with your choice. Your Second Choice a list to select from: Pulitzer Prize: The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan Gilead by Marilynne Robinson The Road by Cormac McCarthy Swamplandia! by Karen Russell Man Booker Prize: The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes The Vegetarian by Han Kang Women s Prize for Fiction: How to be both by Ali Smith May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller The Tiger s Wife by Tea Olbreht The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara The Glorious Herisses by Lisa McInerney PEN Literary Awards: Netherland by Joseph O Neill The Great Man by Kate Christiensen Mr. and Mrs. Doctor by Julie Iromuanya War Dances by Sherman Alexie

2 *Because you are encouraged to read actively annotating the text with notes, comments, and questions you are encouraged to buy a copy of this work or make extensive notes if you check out or digitally purchase the work. *Also note that your previous English teachers have given me a list books read as a class and independently from your years of study. DO NOT REREAD THE SAME WORK AGAIN. You are on the Honor System. In addition to in text notation, you will begin a commonplace book for your thoughts, questions, and insights into your reading, called a Reading Response Notebook (or RR for short). See the attached pages for additional information. You will RR both of your summer reads. The information gathered in this packet will help provide some context for Death of a Salesman, as well as give context to additional assignments. Please read, annotate, and be familiar with the excerpts from Aristotle s Poetics and Arthur Miller s Tragedy and the Common Man. I have also included a brief biography for Arthur Miller. Please note that you will be expected to buy other works during the school year. I will make every effort to keep costs down, but the wise student will start a book fund in anticipation of this expense. If money is a concern, do not drop the course! See me. If you need to contact me, please feel free to use the below. Do not wait until the end of the summer to ask questions, but rather feel free to do this as you read through each of your assigned works. early and often until you are clear on your work. You do not need to send your Reading Response Notebook before the beginning of the school year. Simply bring it with you to class the first day. Also attached to this packet, by request, is a list of highly suggested reading for the summer, both fiction and poetry. These are not required reads, but rather works that might be worth your time, if you happen to love literature or want to broaden your reading experiences. Have a safe and wonderful summer, Ms. Hallberg hallbeej@puyallup.k12.wa.us Unless you would like to read them twice steer clear of the following titles (Note: we may not read them all in the coming year) Antigone by Sophocles; Hamlet by William Shakespeare; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad; Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe; The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver;; Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf; Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood; Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, 1984 by George Orwell; Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky; Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte; Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney; Bel Canto by Ann Patchett.

3 A brief biography of Arthur Miller (Courtesy of In the period immediately following the end of World War II, American theater was transformed by the work of playwright Arthur Miller. Profoundly influenced by the Depression and the war that immediately followed it, Miller tapped into a sense of dissatisfaction and unrest within the greater American psyche. His probing dramas proved to be both the conscience and redemption of the times, allowing people an honest view of the direction the country had taken. Arthur Miller was born in Manhattan in 1915 to Jewish immigrant parents. By 1928, the family had moved to Brooklyn, after their garment manufacturing business began to fail. Witnessing the societal decay of the Depression and his father s desperation due to business failures had an enormous effect on Miller. After graduating from high school, Miller worked a number of jobs and saved up the money for college. In 1934, he enrolled in the University of Michigan and spent much of the next four years learning to write and working on a number of well-received plays. After graduating, Miller returned to New York, where he worked as a freelance writer. In 1944, his first play, The Man Who Had All the Luck, opened to horrible reviews. A story about an incredibly successful man who is unhappy with that success, The Man Who Had All The Luck was already addressing the major themes of Miller s later work. In 1945, Miller published a novel, FOCUS, and two years later had his first play on Broadway. All My Sons, a tragedy about a manufacturer who sells faulty parts to the military in order to save his business, was an instant success. Concerned with morality in the face of desperation, All My Sons appealed to a nation having recently gone through both a war and a depression. Only two years after the success of All My Sons, Miller came out with his most famous and well-respected work, Death of a Salesman. Dealing again with both desperation and paternal responsibility, Death of a Salesman focused on a failed businessman as he tries to remember and reconstruct his life. Eventually killing himself to leave his son insurance money, the salesman seems a tragic character out of Shakespeare or Dostoevsky. Winning both a Pulitzer Prize and a Drama Critics Circle Award, the play ran for more than seven hundred performances. Within a short while, it had been translated into over a dozen languages and had made its author a millionaire. Overwhelmed by post-war paranoia and intolerance, Miller began work on the third of his major plays. Though it was clearly an indictment of the McCarthyism of the early 1950s, The Crucible was set in Salem during the witch-hunts of the late 17th century. The play, which deals with extraordinary tragedy in ordinary lives, expanded Miller s voice and his concern for the physical and psychological wellbeing of the working class. Within three years, Miller was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and convicted of contempt of Congress for not cooperating. A difficult time in his life, Miller ended a short and turbulent marriage with actress Marilyn Monroe. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he wrote very little of note, concentrating at first on issues of guilt over the Holocaust, and later moving into comedies. It was not until the 1991 productions of his The Ride Down Mount Morgan and The Last Yankee that Miller s career began to see a resurgence. Both plays returned to the themes of success and failure that he had dealt with in earlier works. Concerning himself with the American dream, and the average American s pursuit of it, Miller recognized a link between the poverty of the 1920s and the wealth of the 1980s. Encouraged by the success of these works, a number of his earlier pieces returned to the stage for revival performances. More than any other playwright working today, Arthur Miller has dedicated himself to the investigation of the moral plight of the white American working class. With a sense of realism and a strong ear for the American vernacular, Miller has created characters whose voices are an important part of the American landscape. His insight into the psychology of desperation and his ability to create stories that express the deepest meanings of struggle, have made him one of the most highly regarded and widely performed American playwrights. In his eighty-fifth year, Miller remains an active and important part of American theater.

4 Please read and annotate:

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6 Please read and annotate:

7 Reading Response Notebook (RR)-The Explanation During the school year the RR is mandatory for each reading homework assignment (including novel chapters, play scenes and acts, and long poems), so it is an important skill to begin using as a part of your reading process over the summer. A wise scholar would make the Reading Response Notebook an active part of your homework routine (don t wait until you are tired at the end of your busy day to begin your reading). All Reading Responses should help you to review for tests, contribute to class discussions, as well as a working as a helpful review, should you choose to take the AP exam in May. Format-One page, four sections, pen or typed. Label the sections in the margin, skipping lines between the sections. Typically the RR should fit on one side of one page. Title at top of page Name of text and pages read. 1) Brief summary of reading assignment either by chapter, scene or combined; the form may be outline or complete sentence or fragments. Highlight main character s development. Any new characters and main action. *Please note an entire Act should never be just one entry (this includes Death of a Salesman) 2) Questions for discussion. These often fall into these categories: -Factual: right there on the page; you can put your finger on the answer; this is what the author says. -Interpretive: reading between the lines; more than one possible answer; what we think the author says. -Evaluative: judging and evaluating validity of a concept or point; what we think about what the author says; a level of right or wrong. 3) Vocabulary and concepts that are unfamiliar to you as a reader, and should be noted here for additional research and notation. 4) At least one signification quotation: including page number, act and scene and speaker or narrator and why it is significant. Student Reading Record Examples (for those with formatting concerns):

8 *Please note that each section of your RR should be broken into sections as you read. One reading equals one RR. And as previously stated, these sections should be of a reasonable length, to encourage detailed reading and response. Approximately 8-15 pages (in books with chapters, approximately 1-2 chapters to each RR entry). Please note that, while you many look at Cliffs Notes and actual literary criticism, the work that you turn in needs to be your own. I am much more interested in your ideas than a right answer and plagiarism will be dealt with harshly. Additional Note: If you enjoyed this analysis process and wish to get a head start on enhancing your literary analysis skills, which you will rely heavily on for next year, you may wish to read How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster. This is not part of the graded summer assignment, but it is an accessible book that will give you some insight into authors methods of writing literature and give you some ideas about how to unlock the meaning of symbols, setting, characterization, and many other literary elements. Recommended Reading List As requested, here are a list of titles and writers that are worth a closer look in your spare time this summer. This list is by no means exhaustive, but if you have any questions please ask. According to the College Board Advanced Placement program: "The AP English course in Literature and Composition should engage students in the careful reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature....reading in an AP course should be both wide and deep." Keeping that in mind Recommended Poet List (pulled from a list of recommended poets from AP-College Board): Elizabeth Bishop; William Blake; Anne Bradstreet; Gwendolyn Brooks; Billy Collins; Emily Dickinson; Rita Dove; T.S. Eliot; Robert Frost; Joy Harjo; Langston Hughes; Philip Larkin; Sylvia Plath; Edgar Allan Poe; Adrienne Rich; Anne Sexton; William Shakespeare; Walt Whitman; William Carlos Williams.