Seniors

From the following list of novels, you will select:*Applied Level- Select ONE selection.*Academic Level – Select TWO selections.*Honors Level – Select THREE selections.

Bronte, Emily               Wuthering Heights
Edwards, Kim              The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
Gaiman, Neil               Neverwhere
Gardner, Justine          Sophie’s World
Gillespie, Marcia Ann   Maya
Franz Kafka                 The Metamorphosis
Krakauer, Jon              Into the Wild
Pausch, Randy            The Last Lecture
Pratchett, Terry            The Color of Magic
Shakespeare, William   A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare, William   King Lear
Truss, Lynn                  Eats, Shoots and Leaves

*Please Note: Upon returning to school, you will be expected to complete a presentation and or project in your English class. If you have English during second semester and would like to complete your project early, please stop by the English Department Office in C202 for more information.

Seniors Advanced Placement

Summer Reading and Assignments
Rather than simply reading selected books in a vacuum over the summer and then being subjected to needlessly picky multiple guess exams in the fall, I’d like you to instead engage with a number of works that can then become a common set of texts for us to refer to as a class throughout the year.  In doing so, you’ll be both reading and writing about literature, which is, after all, the primary activity of this course.

The specific works and assignments are listed below.  Please remember that everything that you write should be typed, double-spaced with 1?– 1 ¼? margins, devoid of surface errors, and prefaced by a brief heading indicating your name, the assignment, and the due date (which is the very first day of class).  Please staple all writing for each part together separately, and then join the entire packet with a binder clip of some sort.  Assignments will be evaluated for both their understanding of the works read and the quality of their ideas and writing.  Each will count as one short essay in your first quarter grade.

Part One: Drama First, read all four of the following plays:

• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
• A Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill
• Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
• Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco

Next, think about the prominent physical objects found in each play (these might be small objects that function as props, such as a loaf of bread, or large objects that serve as the setting of the play, such as the deck of a ship).  What is the practical, physical importance of these objects to the action of the play?  How might they also serve symbolic functions that contribute to the overall meaning of the play?  Choose three objects from each play and write a brief paragraph on each explaining their significance.

Now write an essay of 700-1200 words on one of the plays in which you suggest a theme for the work in general and use the physical objects that you have identified as evidence supporting your assertion.  (One can imagine a format for these essays that would include an opening paragraph that introduces the play and states your suggested theme in a clear thesis, three paragraphs discussing each object in turn, and then a final paragraph which both restates your thesis and suggests why it matters.)

Part Two: Non-Fiction
Read one of the following works of non-fiction:

• The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
• A Sense of Where You Are by John McPhee
• Savage Inequalities by Jonathan Kozol
• Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

As you read, think about the following questions:  What is the author’s main point in this work about his or her specific subject?  In addition to this, what broader point might the author be making about human nature or the world at large?  Finally, how does the author develop these points – in other words, what tone, style, types of evidence, or rhetorical techniques does he or she use to convince the reader?

Rather than writing a formal essay, you should first write a paragraph or two addressing each of the questions listed above.  Then, you should list the following:

• one sentence that might serve as a thesis for the entire work
• five examples of clear, compelling topic sentences
• five examples of effective “clinchers” (closing sentences of paragraphs)
• five examples of clever transitions (provide the last sentence of the paragraph before and the first sentence of the paragraph that follows)

Part Three: Poetry
First read all of the poems listed below one of the following authors:

William Wordsworth "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"
"The Green Linnet"
"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
"Mutability"
"My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold"
"The Reaper"
"She Dwealt Among the Untrodden Ways"
"The Sun Has Long Been Set"
"Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower"
"To a Skylark"
"To the Cuckoo"
"Written in Early Spring"  

Samuel Taylor Coleridge "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison"
"The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner"
"Frost at Midnight"
"Kubla Khan"
"Inscription for a Fountain on a Heath"
"To Nature"

Alfred Edward Housman"Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now"
"On moonlit heath and lonesome bank"
"When I was one-and-twenty"
"To an Athlete Dying Young"
"Brendon Hill"
"In my own shire, if I was sad"
"Far in a western brookland"
"Grenadier"
"The mill-stream, now that noise cease"

Then, drawing on all of the poems you have read but relying on evidence drawn from 3-4 specific poems, write an essay in which you attempt to explain your author’s view of any one particular subject.  (If you notice that three or four poems all discuss fire trucks, for instance, you might want to write an essay in which you explain to your reader your author’s opinion of fire fighting.)  Try to choose a subject that is broad enough to support an interesting essay, but not so broad as to make drawing a specific conclusion impossible.  Your final essay should likely be 700 to 1200 words in length.

When writing about poetry, keep two general considerations in mind.  First, be sure to consider both the literal meaning of the words in the poem as well as the figurative; understanding both is necessary to developing a full appreciation of the poem’s effect.  In addition, be certain to support your arguments with direct evidence from the text: only by quoting from the text and using specific verbal and musical evidence can you create a compelling case for your thesis.

Part Four: Novel
Read one of the following novels, paying attention to both story and structure:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua  Achebe
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
1984 by George Orwell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding

All four of the novels listed deal in some way with human nature and the organization of society.  In a carefully argued essay of 700 to 1200 words that considers both the literal and metaphorical meanings of the novel you have selected, explain what point your work makes on this topic.  What are human beings like, according to your novel, and how should their interactions be organized?  How does the (literal or figurative) journey of your protagonist illustrate this point?  How might his outcome be emblematic of the author’s vision of how society functions?