AP ENGLISH SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT [PDF]

We will begin the year with a series of canonical works which explore representations of gender, sexuality, and social m

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SUMMER READING 2017

AP ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION

AP ENGLISH SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT Dear AP English Students, The summer reading assignment is designed to prepare you for the level of critical reading and the depth of conversation required in AP English. We will begin the year with a series of canonical works which explore representations of gender, sexuality, and social mobility. As a critical frame for our analysis of these texts, we will use feminist theory/gender studies, one of several critical approaches that you will study in AP English. The feminist theory selections vary in focus and cultural context; however, they all provide a series of critical terms and concepts to use as tools for examining both literature and life. As you complete the summer reading, please also prepare Parts I, II, and III below to submit on the first day of class. During the first week of classes, you will also be asked to complete an in-class essay based on one or more of the primary summer reading texts. Challenging literature commands your full intellectual attention. Therefore, begin your reading early in the summer so that you have plenty of time to enjoy and carefully contemplate the complexities and nuances of the literature. In addition to the All-School read, We Should All Be Feminists, please read the required AP selections listed below, and complete the written assignment in preparation for the first day of classes (Tuesday, September 6, 2017). I look forward to learning with you! All Upper-School Read (grades 9-12) We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi The highly acclaimed, provocative New York Times bestseller—a personal, eloquently-argued essay, adapted from the much-admired TEDx talk of the same name—from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, award-winning author of Americanah. Here she offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman now—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists. AP English Required Summer Reading

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre (originally published as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography) is a novel by English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published on 16 October 1847, by Smith, Elder & Co. of London, England, under the pen name "Currer Bell." The first American edition was published the following year by Harper & Brothers of New York. Primarily of the bildungsroman genre, Jane Eyre follows the emotions and experiences of its title character, including her growth to adulthood, and her love for Mr. Rochester, the Byronic master of fictitious Thornfield Hall. In its internalisation of the action— the focus is on the gradual unfolding of Jane's moral and spiritual sensibility, and all the events are

SUMMER READING 2017

AP ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION

coloured by a heightened intensity that was previously the domain of poetry—Jane Eyre revolutionised the art of fiction. Charlotte Brontë has been called the 'first historian of the private consciousness' and the literary ancestor of writers like Joyce and Proust. The novel contains elements of social criticism, with a strong sense of morality at its core, but is nonetheless a novel many consider ahead of its time given the individualistic character of Jane and the novel's exploration of classism, sexuality, religion, and proto-feminism.

Madame Bovary by Gustav Flaubert For this novel of French bourgeois life in all its inglorious banality, Flaubert invented a paradoxically original and wholly modern style. His heroine, Emma Bovary, a bored provincial housewife, abandons her husband to pursue the libertine Rodolphe in a desperate love affair. A succès de scandale in its day, Madame Bovary remains a powerful and scintillating novel.

Sula by Toni Morrison Toni Morrison's highly acclaimed novel Sula is as gripping on audiotape as it is on paper. The Nobel Prize-winning writer narrates the unabridged version of the book in a rich, soothing voice that mesmerizes listeners with its relaxed and methodical cadence. Sula revolves around the relationship between two little girls growing up in a poor, black neighborhood nestled high in the hilltops. "The Bottom," as the barrio came to be known, is brimming with eccentric residents but sadly deprived of human warmth. (The town actually takes pride in celebrating National Suicide Day.) However, out of this bitter, abrasive environment grows a beautiful friendship between Sula and Nel. Their shared secrets and dreams blossom through childhood, but their special bond suffers after the two separate. Sula leaves the Bottom to conquer the unknown cities of America, while Nel becomes a homebody, settling down as a wife and mother. When Sula returns to her hometown, she feels like a stranger; she repels everyone, even the only true friend she ever knew. Morrison's vocal range evokes an extraordinary atmosphere of survival in a harsh and unforgiving world.

Orlando by Virginia Woolf

In 1928, way before everyone else was talking about gender-bending and way, way before the terrific movie with Tilda Swinton, Virginia Woolf wrote her comic masterpiece, a fantastic, fanciful love letter disguised as a biography, to Vita Sackville-West. Orlando enters the book as an Elizabethan nobleman and leaves the book three centuries and one change of gender later as a liberated woman of the 1920s. Along the way this most rambunctious of Woolf's characters engages in sword fights, trades barbs with 18th century wits, has a baby, and drives a car. This is a deliriously written, breathless-making book and a classic both of lesbian literature and the Western canon. (All summaries excerpted from amazon.com)

Selections of Feminist Literary Criticism: Read/view and annotate four (4) texts from the list below. One (1) of your selections may be video/audio if you choose. Anzaldúa, Gloria. Excerpt from La Frontera (Borderlands): The New Mestiza (1987). “Beyoncé Feminism.” The Huffington Post. (Choose 1 article). Boylan, Jennifer. She’s Not There

SUMMER READING 2017

AP ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION

De Beauvoir, Simone. “Introduction: Woman as Other,” The Second Sex (1949). Fey, Tina. Bossypants (audiobook) (2013). Available through Audible and iTunes Friedan, Betty. “The Problem that Has No Name.” The Feminine Mystique (1963). Gay, Roxanne. Confessions of a Bad Feminist. TED Talk. (2014). Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. The Yellow Wallpaper. (1892). Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Feminist Thought. (1990). (Choose 1 Chapter). hooks, bell. Feminism is For Everybody: Passionate Politics (2000). (Choose 1 Chapter). Kim, Yoonj. #NotYourAsianSidekick is a civil rights movement for Asian American women. The Guardian. (2013). Lorde, Audre. “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches (1984). Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” (1979). Monhanty, Chandra Talpade. Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. Feminist Review 30. 1988. 61-88. Sandberg, Sheryl. Barnard College Commencement Address. (2011). (Listen and take notes). Slaughter, Anne Marie. “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” The Atlantic. July/August 2012. Thelma and Louise (available through amazon video) and Set It Off (available through amazon video and iTunes). Walls, Jeannette. The Glass Castle Wolf, Naomi. Excerpt from The Beauty Myth (1991). Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Women. (1792). (Choose 1 Chapter). Woolf, Virginia. Excerpt from A Room of One’s Own (1929).

AP ENGLISH SUMMER READING ASSIGNMENT Part I: Reader Reflection & Response

Reflect….before you begin any of the reading for this summer, craft a well-written profile of yourself as a critical reader and writer. Keep in mind that “reading” includes critically engaging not only with written text, but also with “cultural text” (images/advertisements and other popular media). Please discuss your strengths as a reader and writer and your areas of challenge. Additional questions to consider:

SUMMER READING 2017

● ● ● ●

AP ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION

What do you read? How do you read? What are your interests? What would you like to accomplish in AP English this year?

Suggested length: approx. 200 words.

AFTER: Respond…after you have completed the required texts, write a reader response in which you comment on your personal reaction to one or more of the texts. Discuss the elements of the text/s which struck you as particularly evocative, compelling, or thought-provoking. Feel free to write about text that you didn’t like—explain your response either way. Suggested length: approx. 300 words. Part II: Reading Journals For two of the novels (Brontë, Flaubert, Morrison, Woolf), please respond to the following prompts in short essay format (approx. 1 fully developed paragraph per bullet). ● Identify the point-of-view from which the text is written, and discuss the effect of any significant shifts in the narrative voice. ● Explore the significance of setting in the text. In other words, to what extent does setting affect character development and/or thematic threads in the novel or play? ● Select 2 quotations from the text, and discuss their significance in terms of mood/tone, symbolism, and figurative language. ● Identify one (1) major theme or motif that you discover, and then explain how it contributes to the broader meaning of the text. ● Compose 2 open-ended questions which invite further discussion about the text and respond to them. Part III: Applications of Critical Theory Please read/view four (4) selections of critical theory from the list provided. Then, in a short essay of approx. 2 pages, respond to 1 (one) of the following prompts. Please incorporate specific evidence from 1-2 of these selections to support your response. Yes, you may write in firstperson.

CHOOSE 1: 1. How/in what ways does feminist critical theory enhance your understanding of the summer reading? OR

SUMMER READING 2017

AP ENGLISH LITERATURE & COMPOSITION

2. Based on your reading, how do you define “feminism”? The summer reading assignment will be assessed for organization, development, depth of insight, and clarity of expression.

See you in September!

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