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Advanced Placement Literature and Composition
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June 2008

Dear Soon-to-be-Senior,

 We hope that you have a wonderful summer – one that offers you new adventures and refreshes you for another year of academic study.  We are looking forward to instructing you in AP English class and preparing you for the exam in Literature and Composition.  During the year we will dive into the study of literature, concentrating on literary analysis.  We will read, discuss and write in response to literature from various time periods, from various cultural groups and voices, and written in a variety of literary styles.

To prepare for our literary journey, we are asking you to read over the summer at least two novels.  Specifically, you will be required to read Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, and The Color Purple, by Alice Walker.

Great Expectations, written by a British author in the nineteenth century, is quite long and presents a lengthy cast of characters to the reader.  It is very good but does require time and attention to be appreciated and enjoyed.  Be sure to allow yourself enough time to read this novel.  Make sure to read an UNABRIDGED copy of this novel.

The Color Purple, written by an African-American author in the twentieth century, is shorter and stylistically more modern.  The novel is very graphic, raw and requires your ability to handle controversial material in a mature fashion.

We expect you to arrive on the first day of class having completed two tasks:

1.      As you read each novel, use Post–its to respond to, and to reflect upon, the experience of reading the novels – your emotional, cognitive and aesthetic responses.  Mark memorable passages; places where you felt confused; places where you have questions; and so on.  Mark passages containing interesting examples of “diction, syntax and imagery” and passages you simply find “well written.” The passages you mark, and whatever notes you choose to make, will help you participate actively in the class discussions on the two novels – which will be one of our  “great expectations” for the first few weeks of school.

2.      Write a personal essay (“I” voice) in which you discuss what sense you make of each work and of the two works together.  More specifically, in response to your reading, answer the following questions:  What meaning, or meanings, came across most clearly to you as a reader (and person)? How did the writing style of each author contribute to, detract from, and/or otherwise affect, your understanding of the meaning(s) of the books?  What connection(s) and/or differences did you find between the novels?  In your essay, use textual references to support your points. 

Note:  Answers to these questions – hence, the content of your essays – will vary greatly.  Be honest in conveying your personal experience reading the books; each of you is a different person and should have an individual response.  Feel free to say what you honestly think; we do not expect you to praise each novel.  We certainly do not want you to deliver “SparkNotes responses” – or any other manufactured responses; we want you to express your authentic readings of the novels.  Having said that, comments like, “the book was really long,” while perhaps being an honest response, does not usually lead to a discussion or uncovering of a novel’s rich complexity.

As you revise your paper, make sure that your essay is focused (you might want to begin with an introduction containing a standard thesis, but you don’t necessarily need to use standard essay format, provided that your discussion is otherwise cohesive and focused); ask yourself if you have conveyed your understanding of the two novels by making frequent references to details from the text – details that you as a reader noticed (which, we hope and assume, will be different from what other readers will notice); vary your sentence structure to create flow; and choose words carefully to create vivid and active language.

Please limit your personal essay to 3 - 5 pages (typed, double-spaced, 12-point font, 1” margins, MLA format).  Give your essay a title that reflects and/or emphasizes the paper’s content.

We encourage you to buy your own copies so that you may highlight and mark the texts as you wish.  Don’t forget that you will need an UNABRIDGED copy of Great Expectations.  Enjoy your vacation!

Sincerely,

Ms. Drahouzal, Mr. Cohen, and Mr. Flood 

Basic MLA Paper Format http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/  

General Guidelines

• Type your paper or write it on a computer and print it out on standard-sized paper (8.5 X 11 inches).
• Double-space your paper.
• Set the margins of your document to 1 inch on all sides.
• Create a header that numbers all pages consecutively in the upper right-hand corner, one-half inch from the top and flush with the right margin; in the header, one every page, your last name should precede the number
• Use either underlining or italics throughout your essay for highlighting the titles of longer works and providing emphasis.

Formatting the first page of your paper

• Do not make a title page for your paper
• Provide a double-spaced entry in the top left corner of the first page that lists your name, your instructor's name, the course, and the date.

Center your title on the line below the header with your name, and begin your paper immediately below the title.

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Shakespeare and Modern Drama
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