May 2008

Dear Parents and Students entering E329: AP English Literature and Composition,

AP^® English Literature and Composition is designed to be a college/university-level course that will provide students with the intellectual challenges and workload consistent with a typical undergraduate university course.  At the end of the course, students are encouraged to take the AP^® English Literature and Composition Exam.

In order to be prepared for the rigors of an AP-level class, it is important for students to continue to read throughout the summer.  In addition to the school summer reading program required of all students, I Am the Messenger (Zusak) or Small Steps (Sachar), students registered to take AP Lit and Comp will be asked to read The Kite Runner (Hosseini) prior to the start of the school year.  Students are expected to get their own copies of The Kite Runner from a bookstore or borrow from a library.   Students are expected to keep a reading log which includes summary, personal reaction, and significant quotes.  Students will be assessed using an AP-style writing prompt and multiple choice questions.

Students entering the AP Literature and Composition course are expected to have read the following works:

• To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
• Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
• Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
• Lord of the Flies, William Golding
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
• Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare
• The Turn of the Screw, Henry James
• Antigone, Sophocles
• Hiroshima, John Hersey
• Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain

Students who are not familiar with these works are encouraged to read them prior to the start of the course.

On the back of this page is a list of recommended readings.  Many of these titles have been options for free-response essay questions on past AP Literature tests.  We encourage students to read any titles that interest them.

Fiction

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren

All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Emma by Jane Austen

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

King Lear by William Shakespeare
The Odyssey by Homer
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

Snow Falling on Cedars by Richard P. Wasowski
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Sula by Toni Morrison
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zorah Neale Hurston

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Poetry Anthologies- Poetry by the following authors:

Robert Frost

Emily Dickinson

Walt Whitman- Leaves of Grass

William Carlos Williams

W.B. Yeates

Feel free to contact us if you have questions.

Mr. Bob Coakley                     Mr. Dave Calisch                  Mrs. Christine Jenkins       Ms. Megan Skinner

English Department Chair          dcalisch@d211.org              cjenkins@d211.org           mskinner@d211.org    

847/755-5715