Summer Assignments for Rising Seniors of AP Literature Pope John Paul the Great Catholic High School Here are the books you are required to read for this summer, as well as the assignment to cultivate your understanding of the books. You may type the A SHEETS or write them by hand. All assignments are due the first day of school and should be turned in when you report to your English class. You may be able to find the books in the library or borrow them from friends. Please find the full text of the novels, not the children s version. All students will read Edmund Campion by Evelyn Waugh The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien Tess of the D Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy If you have any questions you may email the English department chair, Dr. Janine McIlheran: Janine.McIlheran@jpthegreat.org, or the AP Literature teacher, Miss Everett, at Kelly.everett@jpthgreat.org.. Happy reading!
NAME: CLASS: DATE: A SHEET (50 POINTS) 1. TITLE (Italicize novels and plays). (1 Point) 2. AUTHOR (FULL NAME SPELLED CORRECTLY) (1 Point) 3. THEMES: WHAT ARE THE IDEAS THE AUTHOR PRESENTS? THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS THE MESSAGE OR MORAL BUT IT IS RELATED TO THE MESSAGE. (THERE MAY BE MORE THAN ONE THEME; THE THEMES WILL BE MORE THAN ONE WORD). (5 points) For example, one theme from Finding Nemo is Parents should not tell their children all the things they can t do or protect them too much, or else they will cripple the child. 4. CHARACTERS: (FIVE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTERS WITH NAMES SPELLED CORRECTLY AND A BRIEF BUT WELL-WRITTEN--NOT DULL PHRASE ABOUT EACH). (5 points) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 5. THREE IMPORTANT QUOTES, ONE FROM THE BEGINNING, ONE FROM THE CLIMAX, AND ONE FROM THE ENDING THAT YOU WILL HAVE MEMORIZED FOR FUTURE USE. YOU MUST INCLUDE THE CHAPTER AND PAGE NUMBER. (6 points) 1. 2. 3. 6. CHRONOLOGICAL PLOT LIST (TEN MOST IMPORTANT INCIDENTS FROM THE SELECTION IN ORDER). (10 points) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
# DETAILS: 1 2 3 4 5 # DETAILS: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. # DETAILS: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. FROM THE LIST ABOVE SELECT THREE PLOT INCIDENTS (EXAMPLE: #2, #6, AND 9). PROVIDE AND NUMBER FIVE DETAILS FOR EACH OF THE THREE INCIDENTS. (15 points) 8. AUTHOR S MESSAGE/PHILOSOPHY/MORAL: WHAT IS THE PRIMARY MESSAGE THE AUTHOR IS CONVEYING THROUGH THE VARIOUS THEMES PRESENT IN THE WORK. YOU MUST WRITE A CLEAR THESIS IN SENTENCE FORM AS YOU WOULD ON AN ESSAY. (7 Points) A formula for writing a thesis sentence is: (Author s last name) believes that (noun ) can (verb) because (give the proof). An example using the formula is: Dickens believes that death leads to resurrection because several of his characters are recalled to life and even the deaths during the French Revolution will lead to the new life of the French nation.
Additional Summer Assignments for AP Literature and Composition Your summer assignments come in several different forms: Reader response sheets (A sheets), memorization, and a college application essay. First of all, you need to memorize the definitions for the attached literary terms. You should already know most of these terms, so this is not as onerous a task as it may seem. If you don t already know most of these, it s about time that you did. You will be tested on these definitions on the first day of class. If you don t get all of them right, you better get almost all of them right. These are basic terms that any student of literature needs to be familiar with. In addition to these literary terms, you also have your summer reading assignments. In case you forgot your summer reading: Edmund Campion by Evelyn Waugh; The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien; and Tess of the D Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. o When you have finished reading each of these books, I would like you to complete the A- Sheet that assignment for each. Each A-Sheet is worth 50 points. These A-Sheets will be collected for grading on the first day of class. Late sheets will receive a zero. o Please do not use Spark Notes or other aids for the A-Sheets. The reason you are reading writing these assignments is to teach you to think for yourself. Finally, each AP Lit. student must write a college application essay. You must write an essay no matter whether the colleges you are applying to require such an essay. The attached handout explains the essay. All the work you do this summer will directly benefit you in your senior English class. The more diligent you are in your summer work, the greater the benefit. ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS I WILL COLLECT THE FOLLOWING: A-SHEET RESPONSES ON THE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ AND YOUR COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY. I WILL THEN TEST YOU ON THE LITERARY DEFINITIONS. If you have any questions or concerns, please e-mail me at Kelly.everett@jpthegreat.org or Everettkl@gmail.com. I also hope to have our AP page up and running on Moodle as soon as possible. Good luck!
LITERARY TERMS Alliteration repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words. Allusion a reference to an historical event, a person, or something else outside of the work of literature. Ambiguity the expression of an idea in such a way that more than one meaning is suggested. Analogy a comparison of two things usually made by an author to show how something unfamiliar is like something widely known. Anaphora repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of lines or sentences. Antithesis contrasting ideas presented in parallel structure. To err is human, to forgive divine. Apostrophe direct address of an inanimate object or someone who is absent. Archetype original model for persons appearing later in history or characters appearing later in literature. Assonance repetition of vowel sounds. Ballad narrative poem originally meant to be sung. Repetition and refrain characterize the ballad. Blank verse unrhymed iambic pentameter. Cacophony harsh, rough, or unmusical language. Caesura a pause or stop within a line of poetry, usually indicated by a punctuation mark. Carpe Diem Poetry poetry that stresses the brevity of life and living life to its fullest. Common Meter quatrain with first and third lines iambic tetrameter, second and fourth lines iambic trimester. Usually rhyming abcb or abab. Conceit an elaborate metaphor often strained and far-fetched. Connotation the suggestion of a meaning by a word beyond what it explicitly denotes or describes. The word home, for example, suggests comfort and security though it doesn t denote either of those. Consonance repetition of consonant sounds other than at the beginning of words. Continuous Form poetry that is not broken up into stanzas. Couplet two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme. Denotation the dictionary definition of a word. Diction word choice. Dramatic Irony failure of a character to see or understand what is obvious to the audience.
Elegy a poem lamenting the dead. End-Stopped Line a line of poetry that has a pause or stop at the end indicated by a punctuation mark. Enjambment a line of poetry with no stop or pause at the end. Epiphany a moment of enlightenment or heightened awareness when an ordinary object or scene is suddenly transformed into something that possesses significance. Euphony language that is smooth, pleasant, and musical to the ear. Explication close analysis, examination, and exposition of a text. Free verse poetry that has no pattern of rhyme or meter. Horatian Satire named after the poet Horace, this form of satire is gentle, good humored and sympathetic. Hyperbole exaggeration for effect. Imagery language that evokes mental images involving the five physical senses as well as the emotions. Irony saying the opposite of what is meant (verbal irony); a result or ending that is the opposite of what is expected (situational irony). Juvenalian Satire named after the poet Juvenal, this form of satire is harsher, more intolerant, and often uses invective to attack particular people. Metaphor a comparison that doesn t use like or as. Meter a recurring pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Iamb unstressed stressed Trochee stressed unstressed Anapest unstressed unstressed stressed Dactyl stressed unstressed unstressed Spondee stressed stressed Monometer a line with one metric foot. Dimeter a line with two metric feet. Trimeter a line with three metric feet. Tetrameter a line with four metric feet. Pentameter a line with five metric feet. Hexameter a line with six metric feet. Metonymy substitution of one word to stand for a word that it is closely related to. The crown is anti-catholic. The White House opposed the plan.
Motif a recurring theme or pattern. Octave an eight line stanza, an octet. Ode lyric poem, usually long, on a serious subject and written in dignified language. Onomatopoeia word mimics a sound; an arrangement of words that suggest a sound. Oxymoron a form of paradox that places opposing words side by side. Sweet sorrow. Living death. Paradox contradictory statement that contains some element of truth. Parallelism repetition of grammatical form and function. Paraphrase restatement of a text giving the meaning in another form for clearness. Rewording. Parody a work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original. Persona the voice or figure of the author, which may or may not share the values of the actual author. Personification giving human qualities to an abstraction or non-human object. Quatrain four line stanza or poem. Refrain group of words presented at key intervals in a poem. Rhyme the repetition of the same or similar sounds, most often at the ends of lines. Masculine rhyme rhyme of one syllable. Feminine rhyme rhyme of two or more syllables. Internal rhyme rhyme within a line of poetry. End rhyme rhyme at the end of a line of poetry. Approximate rhyme two words have similar sounds but not exact. Sarcasm form of verbal irony that insults a person with insincere praise. Sonnet a fourteen line poem with a specific rhyme scheme. Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet An octave and a sestet. Octave must rhyme abba abba; the rhyme scheme of the sestet can vary. Shakespearean (English) Sonnet three quatrains and a couplet. abab cdcd efef gg. Simile comparison using like or as. Symbol a physical person, place, or thing that represents something else.
Synecdoche substitution of a part to stand for the whole. All hands on deck. Synesthesia the juxtaposition of one sensory image with another image that appeals to an unrelated sense. e.g. the blue screamed at me from across the room. Syntax the order of words in a sentence, sentence structure. Terza rima three line stanza where first and third lines rhyme and second line becomes the first and third lines of next stanza. aba bcb cdc... Theme main idea of a literary work. Tone the attitude created by the author s manipulation of language. Understatement a statement that says less than what it means. Often used to make an ironic point.
Writing the College Application Essay Why write one anyway? I mean, the college application process is already a big pain in the butt. Why add to the agony? The simple answer, of course, is the school you are applying to requires it. But even if the school does not require an essay, it is still useful to write one. Why? Because the essay requires you to examine who you are, where you came from, and what you want to be. In fact, a school is doing you a favor by requiring you to write an essay. They are giving you an opportunity you don t get anywhere else in this whole application process the opportunity to present yourself in your words, in your own voice, on your own terms, on your own turf. You are in complete control of the essay. You choose what to write about; you choose how to write it; you choose how to present yourself. The college application process includes a whole series of portraits of you as a young person ready to graduate from high school. The information you provide on the application is one portrait names, addresses, years of birth, extracurricular activities. These facts represent a partial portrait of you. But there s a lot more to you than just facts. Your high school transcript offers yet another partial portrait, this time painted with numbers and letters. These give the admissions officer another snap shot of you. As do your scores on whatever standardized tests you have taken: PSAT, SAT, ACT. These scores are yet another picture taken from another angle. Letters of recommendation let somebody else paint a picture of who you are. When college admissions officers look at your file, they see all these different pictures of you, and they try to figure out exactly who you are and how you might fit into their community. But something crucial is missing your voice and your thought process. What s missing is the closest thing to the real you that you can offer. Your application essay gives the admissions office the chance to hear you speak, to see your mind at work, to engage in a dialogue with you. For the first time, you are totally in control of the message, of the way you look and of the way you sound. You may not have had much choice in choosing your high school courses; your grades were determined in great measure by the kinds of tests and measurements your teachers chose to use; somebody else wrote your letters of recommendation. The college essay, however, is you. All you. It s your one and only chance to show the college exactly who you are and what they will be missing out on if they don t select you. If that sounds like it s pretty important, it is. It s a great opportunity. So how are you going to write the best essay you ever wrote? It s going to take some work. So be sure to give it sufficient time and your full attention. The first thing you should do is read some essays. You can find sample essays on line or in any number of books you can buy or check out at the library. Since all writing begins with imitation, find some good essays and see if you can t find something to imitate, to make your own. Before you begin writing, of course, you will have to figure out what to write about. This is the heart of the matter. If you choose the right subject, you re more than halfway home. Write about what you are passionate about. What are the things that you truly care about? What are you truly interested in? Don t try to guess what admissions officers want to hear. They want to hear you. And you are your passions.
Spend a lot of time here. The subject has to be the right one. When it comes to actually writing, spend a lot of time on your introduction. This is the most important part of the essay. You have approximately two minutes of their attention. You need to capture them right away. Be interesting. Make your writing lively and interesting to read. Nobody wants to sit next to a bore. And nobody wants boring students at their school. Have friends and family and honest readers take a look at your essay. Get their input. Don t be afraid to swallow your pride and take their advice. Finally. PROOFREAD. Your essay should be pristine. No typos, no spelling errors, no grammatical glitches. Remember, this is a picture of you. Proofreading mistakes are like spinach stuck in your teeth when you smile. Who wants to buy that picture? YOUR ESSAY IS DUE THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS. This will give us plenty of time to work on revisions in order to make it the best essay you have ever written. You have complete control over the topic choice for this essay. You may choose a prompt for a college to which you plan to apply or just write a general personal statement. Try to avoid last-minute panic and get these assignments done sooner rather than later.